The first objective of this study was to explore the types of sexual norms that support intimacy according to sufferers of hikikomori (social withdrawal). The second objective was to discuss the ways that hikikomori sufferers describe their living difficulties owing to the conflicting restrictions of the personal, such as individual experiences and desires, while clarifying the ways that sexual norms influence intimate relations.

With respect to the first objective, the nature of the sexual norms that lie latent in the narratives of hikikomori sufferers were clarified. When sexual norms demand homosociality, hikikomori sufferers who try to conform are forced to internalize misogyny. Consequently, an important opportunity emerged from the sufferers' narratives to improve our understanding of sexual deviations or adaptations (3.2).

With respect to the second objective, various insights became clear. For example, intimate relationships that seemed to be dissociated from sex were described as being constructed from sexual norms. These intimate relationships were based on norms that hikikomori sufferers recounted as their relational difficulties have complex restrictions on the personal, such as individual experiences and desires (4.1). Another aspect of intimate relationships that was clarified was that sufferers' strategies for returning to society within intimate relationships also have sexual norms embedded in them. Thus, the problems that hikikomori sufferers experience in their intimate relationships are not shared with others and, as a result, they continue to be personal problems (4.2).