before he realized he was gay. He became aware of his homosexuality after watching films featuring "naked and bound men" (such as the Italian Hercules series and Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes) and discovering the gay men's magazine . He found that he was uninterested in stories in Sabu focused on romance, and drawn to stories that focused on sadomasochism. In high school Tagame began writing manga professionally, and contributed to the manga magazine June in 1982 under a pen name. June was a yaoi (male-male romance manga, also known as boys' love or BL) magazine that targeted a primarily female readership, and was noted for its avant-garde stories with complex plots and social realism; Tagame's first story in June focused on a "pretty boy who cross dresses" whose father is murdered by his boyfriend. Tagame struggled with his sexuality and interest in sadomasochism through high school, and did not come out until his freshman year of college. Upon graduating high school Tagame moved to Tokyo to study graphic design at Tama Art University against the wishes of his parents, who expected him to attend the University of Tokyo and become a banker. Throughout college he submitted gay erotic stories, illustrations, and manga to Barazoku, René, and other gay and BL magazines under a variety of pseudonyms. He eventually settled on the pen name "Gengoroh Tagame"; both words are Japanese terms for different species of water bugs, which Tagame chose to differentiate himself from the "macho or romantic" pen names used by other gay Japanese artists. While on a student art tour of Europe, Tagame discovered the American leather magazine Drummer at a bookshop in London. The magazine featured homoerotic and fetishistic illustrations by western artists such as Tom of Finland, Rex, and Bill Ward, and would heavily influence Tagame's art. After graduating university he began to work as a commercial graphic designer and later art director, while continuing to write manga and prose fiction. Gay erotic manga The 1980s saw an increase in the popularity of gay media in Japan, a trend inspired by the cultural importation of works by American gay artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Edmund White. As Japanese publishers sought to exploit this new interest in gay art created by gay artists, Tagame emerged as an influential artist on the basis of his work at June, Barazoku, and other magazines. Tagame made his