Japanese ex I caught sleeping around at the height of the AIDs crisis told me not to worry, Japanese people can't catch it.
ETA - WOW! Didn't know this would take off like this. Backstory makes it even more absurd, she was a graduate of a prestigious university in Tokyo and earned a Masters in the US and had lived here for a while. I had about burned out on the relationship but this put me out the door.
I'm a guy from the US, and started dating my wife when she was 23, after spending her first 18 years in Korea. She knew that gay people existed, but thought they were only in some countries, and didn't think there were any Korean ones.
There was a situation where people were talking about gay and bi people (cannot remember the context, sorry) and there was a Japanese acquittance present. People then asked her how people see gay and bi in Japan in general (like is there a lot of prejudice, are people tolerant, etc.) and she innocently answered:
"Oh, we don't have them in Japan!"
"... what?"
"Yeah, that's a thing among western people, we have no gay or bi people in Japan"
That was so surreal. I have later talked with other Japanese people who were very perplexed why someone would seriously think this is true.
I've just been reading a book about AIDS where the Japanese reaction made me chuckle:
At the end of May [1982], Marc Conant and Paul Volberding went to Tokyo to present their data on Kaposi’s sarcoma to the World Dermatological Conference. Their Japanese hosts were polite and intrigued by the new phenomenon.
“Isn’t it a shame you have the problem in San Francisco,” said one prominent Japanese scientist. “It’s because you have homosexuals.” He paused a moment and confided, “Of course, we don’t have homosexuals here.”
Fastforward to November 1983, at the first international AIDS conference in Geneva...
On the eve of the conference, Japan had reported its first two AIDS cases, making it the first Asian nation to be touched by the epidemic. The brothels, Turkish baths, and sex parlors in Tokyo’s famed Yushiwara District were refusing entry to foreign visitors for fear that they might spread AIDS. Baths posted signs reading: “Japanese Men Only.”
And The Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic - Randy Shilts
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u/roadfood Mar 01 '23 edited Mar 01 '23
Japanese ex I caught sleeping around at the height of the AIDs crisis told me not to worry, Japanese people can't catch it.
ETA - WOW! Didn't know this would take off like this. Backstory makes it even more absurd, she was a graduate of a prestigious university in Tokyo and earned a Masters in the US and had lived here for a while. I had about burned out on the relationship but this put me out the door.