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Paper short abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the findings of my ethnographic fieldwork in a dansō (Ftm crossdresser) escort company in Akihabara where I worked from September 2015 to July 2016. I investigate how dansō create their male self and what relationships develop between crossdressers and clients.

Paper long abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the findings of my nine months' ethnographic fieldwork in a dansō escort company in Akihabara, Tokyo. Dansō is a Japanese word that means "male dress" and it can also be used as a noun to describe a girl or a woman who dresses up like a man. Since 2006, mainly in the Tokyo area but not only, dansō escort service companies started to offer their services to customers, giving them the possibility to enjoy a romantic date with a crossdresser woman. From September 2015 to July 2016 I worked on a voluntary basis in a dansō escort company, and I had the opportunity to observe on a daily basis dansō escorts in their working duties and in their free time. Moreover, I was also able to meet customers in the frame of paid dates and public events held by the company while presenting myself as a crossdresser too. Adopting as methodological tools face to face interviews, participant and non-participant observation and auto-ethnography, the phenomenon of dansō escorting will be represented in its whole, with a focus on the issues of personal identity, gender expression, and cross-dress escorting as an emotional labour, and I will propose an explanation about the role those crossdressers play in contemporary Japan, - i.e. a way of self-interpretation which avoids the male/female and the hetero/homosexual categorization - a new fashion trend, the creation of a place to perform a new gender identity. My thesis is that dansō, while providing a commodified intimacy to those customers who fear to be refused or do not want to be involved in a full-time relationship, could also be a safe point to experience different gender declinations for those who cannot define themselves in a heteronormative dyadic description of gender roles.