Gender in Japan

Recently, at Kansai Gaidai there was a showing of the Vagina Monologues. A few of my friends were in it and I decided to go; not so much because I wanted to see the play, but because I was curious about some things. At first I was surprised that they were able to perform the play at all. Even in America some people feel uneasy about it, but then again is was written in such a was as to cause controversy. The second thing I was curious about was what kind of reception it would get. Would many Japanese students come? What would they think about it?
While fairly common on college campuses in America, the Vagina Monologues have only been performed a handfull of times anywhere in Japan. The show was performed half in Japanese, half in English and I would say that given the language barriers,(many of the english portions were done by non-native speakers in addition to the Japanese parts) the performance was a good one. There was only one Japanese performer however and I think the significance would have been much greater had their been more participation by Japanese students. For those who do not understand the reason why such a production is so strange here, the answer is simple: Japanese people in general just don't talk about these kinda of issues. While in America, the typical reaction to something offensive or uncomfortable would be protest or "Think of the children!" outrage, in Japan the response would be censor it, ignore it or hide it. I discussed this same idea earlier in my post on the homeless. Even the Japanese translation of the name was deemed by the traslator, Keiko Itoh, too offensive, thus the Katakana title (ヴァギナモノローグ）. I asked several Japanese students what they thought about the show and found it difficult to get a response more than "it was interesting...". Japanese that attended the show were mostly all college students studying foreign culture, so it is not surprising to me that I did not find anyone who disliked it. Some say Japan is not ready for this kind of in-your-face discussion of sexuality and gender, but it certainly can benefit from the message.

The first showing in Japan
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For those who haven't seen it.