Discourse on the (Im)Possibility of Male–Female Friendships: An Analysis of Japanese General Magazines from the 1980s to the 2020s

Friendship, alongside romantic love, has been considered a major component of modern emotional life, especially among youths. Prior to the emotional and sexual revolution that foregrounded love in modernity, friendship between men had historically been an important form of social connection associated with class, politics, and military service.

Notably, friendship has been understood as a connection between people of the same sex, whereas romantic love, which is strongly related with heteronormative marriage, has been understood in the context of opposite-sexes. Moreover, friendship between a man and a woman has been viewed with suspicion, owing to the notion that romantic feelings and sexual desire will possibly or inevitably disturb it. This is sometimes expressed by the cliché, “Can a friendship between a man and a woman last or even exist?”

What then is the logical structure of the discourse on male–female friendships and how has this discourse changed over the years? It is important to explore the social construct of love and friendship by examining how social attitudes toward male–female friendships have changed, especially against the backdrop of the significant transition in the social understanding of love and partnership, including debates over same-sex relationships from the 1990s in Japan.

Therefore, this research examines how the discourse on the (im)possibility of male–female friendships has been constructed and has evolved in Japan by analyzing 212 articles from an online database of general magazine articles published in the country from the 1980s to the 2020s.

The results show that male–female friendships have shifted in focus from ‘post-romance’ to ‘pre-romance’ and finally to ‘para-romance’ friendships. Moreover, logical presumptions have shifted from biological and instinctive to social and relational. This shift may indicate that the popular understanding of the relationship between love and friendship has changed significantly over the past four decades in Japan.