A few random observations on this discussion:
- I think it is progress (in the sense of improved clarity) that we are now focusing on honne and tatemae ("two faced-ness", although that is a rather loaded way of describing it) rather then on "sexual liberty". While in all cultures (of which I am aware) people normally have private and public behaviors/beliefs/"faces" that differ somewhat, it is quite extreme in Japanese culture...much more so than anything about actual sexuality imo.
- I agree with
@Solong that you could not drastically change the importance of honne and tatemae in Japanese culture without at the same time changing many other things, for better or worse. Cultures are not simply a list of separate ideas, practices, customs, behaviors, scripts etc. They are a holistic system that works (to some degree at least...and quite well in the case of Japanese culture compared to many others); change one element and many others will be affected. In that sense, I doubt we could even foresee the consequences of reducing the degree of "two faced-ness" in Japanese life...too many unforeseen consequences.
- In any case, this is now an extraordinarily academic/moot discussion since we are each and all together almost totally powerless to make the changes we are debating...discussing it is not a bad way of wasting time though!
- My strong hunch is that some of our disagreements and differing perceptions are due to our having very different personal anecdotal experiences in Japan and thus having quite different perceptions of its culture, including Japanese sexuality. This is probably due both to just random chance differences in the situations and people we have encountered and also due to systematic biases in the same arising from our moving in different circles, being attracted to and attractive to different sorts of people and so forth. For example, I am frequently struck by how different my experience of women and their behavior is from Solong's. (I pick you,
@Solong, simply because you have posted so much and in such detail about yours). Does this mean that one of us has right/true views and the other the wrong/false ones. No, it just means that we have had different experiences and probably also have understood them through a different perspective on life.
-Ww