Intimate expectations and practices: freeter relationships and marriage in contemporary Japan

Abstract

Through an exploration of intimate expectations, ideals, and male freeters' romantic relationships, this article examines the ways in which expectations and practices of intimacy are shifting in gendered ways in contemporary Japan. Whilst women's expectations of intimacy and marital roles have changed and expanded, many male irregular workers continue to practice more conventional ideals of intimacy and gender roles, rooted in notions of responsibility, obligation, and duty. This article argues that there is consequently a significant miscommunication between male and female desires relating to the practice of intimacy that is contributing to both a perceived difficulty in getting married, and, after marriage, considerable stress about what is constitutive of intimacy.

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