know him better. They withdrew to the ivy-covered brick house on M Street that Stoddard called “The Bungalow,” and he promptly fell in love with the “street-corner tough.” But Kenneth had now grown older, and he was cruising the streets of the nation’s capital on his own, bringing his tricks back to The Bungalow. For Stoddard it was “hellish torture.” Now this handsome Japanese poet from California might possibly be his new Kid, someone who was young, racially exotic, and clearly very talented. Here was the promise of the languid sensuality of the Pacific rim once again, now lapping at his own front door. Yone Noguchi’s response was equally eager. He wrote that he had kissed Stoddard’s first letter upon receiving it, a missive that had arrived like “moonbeams.” He immediately matched Stoddard’s ardor: “I like you. I love you, I like to be some day in your study sitting all day by you indeed.” In the exchange of letters that followed, Noguchi made clear the dynamics of the relationship he was seeking. He wrote to Stoddard that he was only “a Japanese youth of no experience,” and he wanted to be the older man’s “most feminine dove.” After only four months of cross-country correspondence, having not even met Stoddard yet, Noguchi abased himself completely: “If you command me that I must be with you I will come to you—That’s all!—That’s all!” He sent Stoddard “juicy kisses.” But how much of this passionate rhetoric was real, and how much is only fog and shoals? Noguchi had surely heard from Joaquin Miller that Stoddard was a homosexual (it was open knowledge in San Francisco) and the young man had by this time experienced the power that his Asian-otherness could wield in attracting people’s interest. Yet a sexual relationship with an older, more-established man was perhaps exactly what Noguchi was seeking, given the culture from which he had emerged. For centuries, part of the samurai code of bushidōincluded an institution known as shudō (or nanshoku), a type of knightsquire arrangement in which an older man (nenja) became a mentor to a younger (chigo), a relationship that frequently included sex. During the Meiji period (1868–1912) the samurai were suppressed in an attempt to westernize Japanese culture, but as an unexpected result, shudō was taken up by Japanese schoolboys as a romanticized notion of virile manhood and noble conduct. In the popular tales known as chigo monogatari the stories often ended with the death of the young chigo through violence or suicide—after which it is revealed to his older lover that the boy was in reality an avatar of a supernatural being. The stories were a potent brew of sex and death and vindication that might appeal to any schoolboy with a flair for the dramatic, and this fascination withnenja/chigosexual relationships was at its height during Noguchi’s adolescence. He almost certainly saw in Stoddard an older mentor who could guide him as a fledgling writer—and sex would be an expected part of the package. In 1900, the two men finally met, and from his very first night at The Bungalow, Noguchi and Stoddard shared a bed (while Kenneth O’Connor slept on the divan downstairs). The two read together each evening in a single large armchair, their bodies entwined. Noguchi would always express his deep love for the man he called first “Charley” and then “Dad.” After his return to Japan, he repeatedly urged Stoddard to join him, promising to take care of the aging novelist in his declining years. March–April 2024 17 It’s closing time for an alarming number of gay bars in cities around the globe— but it’s definitely not the last dance “An accessible, absorbing look into an evolving form of queer culture, written by a brilliant sociologist.” —Library Journal, starred review LEARN MORE
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