This New York Times Magazine article gave me serious pause. I'm familiar with otaku culture and its eccentricities. I even have some friends (both female and male) that are immersed in it. But pillow girlfriends, really?
Whether the body pillows are "anatomically correct" or not, they represent characters who are between nine and twelve years old. A quarter of the Japanese population apparently remain virgins into their thirties, and the founder of the "2-D love movement" says that "Pure love is completely gone in the real world. As long as you train your imagination, a 2-D relationship is much more passionate than a 3-D one."
Sounds like a self-feeding phenomenon if you ask me. These men have such a rampant fear of women that they have wrapped themselves in an imaginary world where they can literally possess them, where they control every aspect of their behavior and appearance, because they are imaginary: "In Japan, it's not O.K. to like another person if you're already with somebody else. With an anime character, you can like one character one day and a different character the next."
Perhaps this is healthier because these men aren't objectifying real prepubescent girls this way, but I can't keep my stomach from churning. One of the businesses based around 2-D love is called Youkouro -which apparently transfers to "Furnace of Child Love."
Please tell me that I'm missing something here culturally, or that women do this as well. Please.
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An article about the related phenomenon of men who treat their sex dolls as girlfriends is here.
That's a fascinating, lengthy article that I believe addresses the issue well. The author is actually willing to look into the hows and whys people develop attachments to inanimate objects, instead of simply being judgmental, as many are. How many have considered conditions such as autism or Asperger's Syndrome, which may preclude many from pursuing relationships with real humans?
I now know why RealDolls (and I assume, other silicone based figures meant to represent adults) are made so short or slim - weight savings. A more average height or figured doll would weigh as much as a real human - and be dead weight. As someone who works in health care, I know how it is to move people around who are unable to do so themselves.
I'd say, women in Japan don't physically "possess" the fictional object of their affections this way. The market for female "hug pillows" and "love dolls" aimed at men is so much greater. Which is not to say women have no fantasy life. Japanese "ladies" comics and a significant proportion of "doujinshi"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doujinshi
which may feature well known anime or manga characters, have sexual content. "Yayoi" or "boy's love"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi
is quite popular. "Shotacon" featuring prepubescent boys, is the counterpart to "lolicon" featuring prepubescent girls such as the character in the OP. (Objectification and active marketing of "real" live adolescent and prepubescent girls is widespread in Japan, as in the "under 15" idol boom. Cartoonish renderings just allow artists or publishers to be explicitly sexual.)
That said, Japan seems to lack the sort of adult woman/underage male sort of sex scandals or criminal cases we sometimes see in the US. Either young males are not victimized in Japan to an appreciable degree, or it is incredibly underreported.
Note: in a given year, "only" about 2,000 rapes are reported in Japan; under Japanese law, "rape" can only be committed against a female, and consists of "sexual intercourse," i.e. PIV. "Indecency through compulsion" and "Constructive compulsory indecency" are crimes which may be committed against males. It is also a crime to induce children "to practice obscene acts."
Also, the age of consent in Japan is 13.
Although the national age of consent is 13, most prefectures have their own laws set higher than this (many as high as 18), or laws that forbid an adult from having sex with a minor, even if they are over the age of consent.
I'm not sure if you want the terms used by the otaku and anime culture (at least the Western side of it) are Lolicon (for attraction to young girls) and Shotacon (for attraction to young boys). In my opinion there is no difference between sexualizing real girls/boys/children and these characters.
I think many of these men prefer the Yamato Nadeshiko type. The Nadeshiko type is the obedient house wife category. I am not sure if it is much as fear of women or prefering to control and be superior of women.
The character they talk in the article is about 14 or 15 (at least according the the Wiki Entry. She's a 3rd year in Middle/Junior High School). However, I am not advocating that it is fine to sexualize her just because they got her age wrong. Many of the depictions of characters in anime/manga/games are actually older than they look, which can make people who have pictures of a particular character be judged wrongly.
That's nitpicking. One need only look into the U-15 idol phenomenon or walk into a Japanese bookstore, video rental, or convenience store to see how objectification applies to live girls as young as six, with DVDs and photobooks that push the edge of Japanese child pornography law. No, you do not want links. The Irie Saaya incident (11 year old girl with Japanese F-cup) is just one example.
In my opinion there is no difference between sexualizing real girls/boys/children and these characters.
I disagree. I'm not into loli or shotacon, but really quite enjoy some anime and manga. To me, the fact that the characters are animated provides a significant separation from reality.
Let me explain. In my current favorite anime, the characters are 15/16/17. I root for some of the characters to get together and have romantic, sexual relationships. Most of them are written as mature and smart enough to have sex (IMO) and are just so damned cute together that it's interesting for me to want it FOR them.
However, when I watch television series that portray high school students, even those who are written mature and smart enough to have sex, I can't divorce myself from reality enough to root for sexual relationships between the characters. Most just seem too young.
Therefore, I can see how that extra layer of fantasy that animation provides for some fans can insulate some from sexualizing animated characters when they never would sexualize real young people. Of course, there are some who sexualize children, no matter how those children are being rendered.
Again, I really don't "get" loli or shotacon. But I'm not ready to make assumptions about those who do without more evidence.
Perhaps a better example of what I meant originally by that comment would be Kodomo no Jikan with characters that are 8 or 9 (pardon the wiki-entry) rather than your example of high schoolers.
It reminds me a lot of the phenomenon of RealDolls and similar sex dolls. People becoming afraid of the real world and having completely ridiculous ideas about what real people are like, and hiding in a world of their own creation. As far as I'm aware, this is only a certain section of the otaku fanbase though, so it's niche (the statistic about those remaining virgins into their thirties is most likely linked to the wider problems connected to relationships and sex in Japan, which is part of the low birth rate issue).
Not all body pillow ('dakimakura') owners are caught up in this sort of fantasy world - many own them as collectors and fans, and for them it is merchandise in the same way as figurines and posters are. Not all of the pillows are of prepubescent girls, either . That's certainly not to say the concern of owning a life-sized pillow with a highly sexualised illustration of a girl on it should be dismissed, but it's not all middle-aged men 'dating' pillows of twelve-year-olds.
As to the question of whether women do this as well, I'm familiar myself with several women who own them (male and female characters, although pillows of the former are much rarer) but as far as I'm aware, the vast majority of collectors are male. I can't say I've ever encountered a woman taking it to the extreme described in the article.
If you're wondering if women do the same, I've got a quick anecdote. I saw one of these pillows for sale at Anime Boston. There was a naked girl on it. I didn't recognize the character, so I have no idea how old she was supposed to be. However, I thought the idea of having a (preferably clothed) Hakkai, Fay or some other (adult, male*) body pillow was freaking hilarious and that it would be a totally awesome thing for our dorm room. My roommates rolled their eyes, but agreed it would be kinda funny.
So I marched right up and asked the guy. "D'you have any of these with, y'know, boys on them?"
And he looked at me like I was a total perv. It's not like this naked girl was hidden, though she did have a paper sign over her chest and genitals saying you had to prove you were 18 to purchase then pillow. Yet somehow, I was a messed up fujoshi for wanting a male one. Yeah.
I had similar experiences looking for male figurines. There are a few characters I wouldn't mid having on my desk, double bonus points if they're scantily clad. I find them sort-of funny, in a way. So I ask and again, the guy passes me off as a pervert and says "buy a Super Dollfie," which was just #$%&!. 'Cause clearly, that's why I spent $400 on my BJD. 'Cause that's the only reason someone would have a BJD. 'Cause girls are pervs for having sexy boy dolls, but there's nothing at all odd about that half-naked Rei on your display shelf, mister.
So, my adventures in anime fandom.
---
*nothing wrong with wanting a female one, just I was looking for a male pillow
To be fair, I'd be willing to bet if youw ere a man who walked up and asked to buy the pillow you'd have gotten the same treatment. I'm really not into anime at all (in fact I hate it), but I had a weird friend who worked in a comic book/anime store and they had the "pillows" you talk about. The out-of-touch management asked that one of the female pillows be put on display, but he told me they only ever sold like three- and they would make fun of the buyers in the backroom.
Fair. I've never been in the position of being a guy buying, well, anything, so it wasn't something I considered.
LOL "Buy a Super Dollfie"
I would have come back with your doll the next day and said "I have it. Where's my pillow?" but I'm a jerk like that. :-p
I had him with me. I didn't want to take him out in the crowded dealer's room, but I pointed to the bag and the Dream of Doll logo and said "sorry, already got one of those." I should have asked where my figurine and pillow were.
Actually, this is interesting. My brother had a full sized He-Man (scantily clad--> loin cloth) pillow as a child. He-Man was more used for a sitting pillow for all three of us kids during story time. But not always.
And once I caught my sister, *ahem*, "abusing" He-Man when she thought she was alone. She was still quite young. And as far as I know, has maintained adult relationships with non-super heroes quite well.
A woman in one of the figure communities I belong to has a Kamina pillow, and I've seen pictures of a Lelouch one, but there's definitely a shortage of male characters.
I think there's a big tendency in the industry for things like figures and body pillows to forget that there are people out there interested in that sort of merchandise who aren't straight men. Most of the companies don't even make an attempt to market to or produce for women.
I am now attempting to track down a Lelouch pillow, 'cause damn.
It is really frustrating that they forget or ignore that there are customers who aren't heterosexual men. It's not as if yaoi/shounen-ai or even shoujo manga isn't a big(gish?) thing, either. Seriously, there could be a lot of money in making male versions of the standard female figurines/pillows/whatevers.
Thats bad news, the more alternatives to women are there for men, the more men are happy to stay out of the game, which means the pool of men looking for a partner is smaller than the pool for women, which puts men in a position of power, where they can force their anti feminism unto society by declaring on how they shun feminist women.
We need a fairness of relationships act or something like that, that eliminates things that work for men, but not for us, else feminism will always stall, because women in a bad enviroment will resort to pandering to patriarchal standards and expectations while competing for men.
I do mostly agree with this... except you have to be careful the way you make this argument, because I certainly don't want to blame gay men for society's power imbalance between men and women!
But here's another possibility. Maybe, in any society, there are a certain number of men (and women!!) who are immature, and unable or unwilling to have a real and respectful emotional and sexual relationship with another human being. Maybe in some parts of Japanese society, these men are able to have fulfilling relationships in their own minds, and not "hurt" real people, whereas in our own society, those guys are abusing sex workers or children or their girlfriends.... It's hard to know whether this is actually true, it's just a guess.
you should probably not take 'official rape stats' at face value. rape IS incredibly underreported in japan. one reason is that there is no help for victims, very, very few rape crisis centers in the entire country (and really, only in the cities).
***(trigger warning)*** AND the police often will make the victim ACTUALLY REENACT THE RAPE for the purposes of reporting it (or, if the victim is too traumatized, she can opt to "direct" officers to act out the scene in her place.)
and do you really think that prepubescent boy porn is created by or for or consumed by women?? i will bet my house that the vast majority of the makers/consumers is male. just like here. duh.
so I admittedly don't know if you mean the same thing by prepubescent boy porn, but I've always understood that the primary audience for yaoi is heterosexual females. I actually have always thought it's interesting as the single example of a female gaze that I can think of.
If by pre-pubescent boy porn you mean shota, it depends on whether it is gay or straight. BL shota is targeted at women but hentai shota is aimed at men. The only instance of gay shota I saw that seemed to be more in the vein of hentai and hence my opinion that it was targeted at men was Boku no Pico (with the infamous firecracker climax, indeed!)
"The only instance of gay shota I saw that seemed to be more in the vein of hentai and hence my opinion that it was targeted at men was Boku no Pico (with the infamous firecracker climax, indeed!)"
How about gay Ranma anthologies of the hentai variety? (Naturally gay hentai doujin of adult males like Rurouni Kenshin exist.) Do you also believe such are aimed at gay males or male pedophiles? Try attending some Japanese doujin festivals, in Japan, to see who the actual artists and buyers are. I've done it. And when I taught public junior high in Japan for three years, I saw my female students drawing and sharing their own work at school.
Ahh, you know, I never took djs into consideration. Which is an enormous oversight on my part. I haven't really read much djs, so I can't comment on that I was talking about the manga and anime. When I said hentai, I was not talking about explicit content or gratuitous sex. I know that they are present in BL aimed at women too. I guess what I meant reg. Boku no Pico was a purely personal (and hence subjective) feeling.
What do you mean by gay hentai though? I know yaoi is targeted at women, of course, considering I am one of the consumers. And gay manga is there for gay men. Would djs of Ranma qualify under shota? I'm not sure...
NO! *runs around looking for somewhere to hide*
Nemutan is a catgirl!...except I'm not 12, maybe the very unhealthy, demented, pillow girlfriend obsession is confined to pre-teen catgirls.
I did some Googling and discovered http://meimi132.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/243866727_o.jpg?w=416&h=500, which I find very interesting. Lelouch (on the right) looks pretty ... huggable, for a magnificent bastard like him. C.C, (left) on the other hand, looks like hugging isn't exactly what you're supposed to do.
That being said, I'd love to have the Lelouch pillow. (See my earlier comment for how I think they would be fairly amusing decorations for my dorm room.)
Erk, take that comma off the end of the URL. It should just be http://meimi132.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/243866727_o.jpg?w=416&h=500 .
If, like me, you need to feel clean after reading this shit, rent the movie Hard Candy. Believe me...it'll do ya right.