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Sex and Violence
by : Lees Sharon-Ann
With the impending UK re-release of Jun Hayami's ero-guro masterpiece Beauty Labyrinth of Razors (February 28th 2006) the debate within the Otaku community has once again turned to the controversial topic of sexual and sexualised violence in Japanese media and popular culture. On reserving my copy of Hayami's collection of twelve short stories all with the common thread of the erotic grotesque I found that my local comic book store would not be officially stocking this title but ordering copies for those who take a firm interest before the date of release. It was suggested that the shop offered no suitable shelf space to store the publication and would prove too controversial stored in the erotic category of their shelves. Many shops seem less than willing to risk offending customers or allying themselves with such material. This seemed to me to be yet another example of the new common tendency within the Otaku scene to distance oneself from the more 'undesirable' violent parts of Contemporary Japanese media. Probably a reaction to Western journalism's naEe and biased view that all anime and manga are sick cartoons full of violence and pornography. The press coverage of the OAV series 'The Legend of The Overfiend' being a major contributor to these misunderstandings.
Why is it that these Japanese 'cartoons' contain such violent images, especially in a sexual context? And perhaps more importantly, why culturally do Western audiences react with such distaste to these depictions when Hollywood's gun-fuelled and violent escapades are widely tolerated?
Firstly the most obvious conclusion that can be drawn is that Western audiences are yet to be able to grasp the idea of comics and cartoons as adult material. The idea that sexual and sexualised violence could appear in this context grates against the western viewers expectations of what the medium should represent and convey.
In Japanese culture the representation of sexual activity has long been rendered in multiple mediums with little attempt to shy away from graphic depictions and adult themes. This is a cultural difference, which reflects the impact the restrictions of a Christian society has had on artistic expression in western society.
Expression of sexual desire and the forced sexual submission of the female have appeared commonly throughout Japanese art-history and have probably aided in keeping this cultural oddity alive. The themes of shunga have now become the conventional elements of manga and anime. The common misunderstanding that through modern titles such as 'The Overfiend' and 'La Blue Girl', Toshio Maeda invented the genre of tentacle rape can be disproved by means of Hokusai's 1820 shunga woodcut 'The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife'. This shunga depicts a woman entwined but also molested by father and son octopi and is accompanied by a poetic script from the protagonists of the piece. The script would barely feel out of place in a modern erotic manga, the woman protesting, yet willing them on and expressing her uncontrollable pleasure at being the object of a male's desires.
The use of a fantasical party as the instigator in a risque sexual situation in manga and anime is now common place and perhaps indicates another reason that sexual and sexualised violence are tolerated so widly. The element of fantasy in manga and anime is clearly evident. It is easy for the viewer/reader to recognise this, firstly by the medium itself (it is a rendering of a situation/person etc and therefore cannot be taken seriously) but perhaps also by its themes and content. Many have argued that the use of tentacles in manga and anime is a tool to avoid strict Japanese censorship laws, prohibiting the depiction of genitals completely, but perhaps it is also used to sevre completely all ties with reality and allow the reader to shake off any guilt or inhibitions to the subject matter, as they are immersed in something they know to be complete and utter fantasy. The Overfiend OAVs act as a perfect illustration of this, in many instances of the series women are raped, bound, gagged and restricted by the demonic tentacles of villians - characters are ravaged by demons and raped by metal phallus'. In all these instances, the voyeur can escape the reality of the horror of the actions that would normally be associated, and instead are given permission by a higher moral power to enjoy. These women are not being harmed, there are no demons and monsters with tentacles ravaging the innocent girls, they are impossible fantasies, infact medium dictates that these are not real women at all. This reasoning also finds its way into the plots of many anime, doujinshi, manga or fan fiction/slash tale. The attempted or actual rape and molestation of a female character not only allows the male hero to save the day, but allows the viewer to see the female in a compromising position, in an erotic context, without then making her inaccesiable to our protagonist. If the girl is an unwilling participant it removes her blame in the sexual contact and therefore she has not given herself to another man, allowing the male to take her as his own while retaining the idea she is solely his. It also allows the male reader to enjoy the woman's body and sexual awakening without portraying her as an undesirble woman, a sexual predetor, who seeks out a males physical affection. It also stops the readers insecurities from being effected in viewing a sexual scene - the female does not enjoy or want this encounter, so the voyeuristic male can view the titilating situation without the hang ups that this female desires this man, as women in the true world desire other men over him. The male when viewing scenes of tentacle rape can project himself into the action, there is no strong male character there that he has to displace or contend with touching 'his' woman, he has the permission to imagine himself as the cause of her pleasure and pain.
Titles such as 'Malice@Doll' - both the manga and CG anime - use a more developed version of this principle. The female characters are robots created for the pleasure of humans. When Malice is raped by a tentacled monster the fiction has another facet as Malice is a robot and therefore
fictional. But on viewing the story the reality feels quite different, Malice is portrayed to have subtle thoughts and feelings that can only be described as human, and indeed after the attack she is transformed into a real woman. Many believe that Malice@Doll's writer (creator of titles such as Bubblegum Crisis and AD Police) often tries to make an ironic point about the treatment and views on women in contempory Japanese culture. Although I believe that the inclusion of erotic scenes in his work cannot be solely resigned to this purpose, it does give us a plausable point when examining this phenomenon.
As well as the fanciful images of sexual violence in over the top sci-fi thrillers there does also appear ultra realistic depictions that defy the rule that this violence is depictable only because it is pure fantasy. These cannot be explained away so easily but perhaps are recognised as fantasy by its audience and were not felt to need reafirmation of this fact.
Another exception to the rule is found within shonen ai, yaoi and fanfiction of an erotic male/male. This is the only genre where I have found males dominated and abused in a sexual context. This small niche seems especially strong, and growing still in the doujinshi and fanfiction areas. Fans of popular characters are allowed to let their imaginations loose and create sexual stories for a seemingly innocent series etc. Many original doujinshi also often feature male on male sexual violence as a key theme. Although it is possible to identify the traditional rules hidden within these seemingly radical works. The first thing to note is that the dominate male often appears as physically stronger, older and more experienced as opposed to his younger effeminate victim. Here it is possible to argue that this medium is yet to escape the norms of its predecessors, exchanging character traits for physical gender differences. The pretty young boys are often praised or ridiculed for their female nature and looks and fall victim to the more typical representation of the male. I am yet to find a serious erotic work featuring a female dominating a male, without the inclusion of humorous stereotypes or the eventual downfall of the woman as the tables are turned on her and she is raped or sexually abused.
The final aspect of erotic work that I feel has importance when studying the topic of sexual and sexualised violence is the premis that after the attack or even during, it is revealed to the audience that infact the female victim enjoyed her experience after all. In the anime Adventure Duo the inventor Masago's wife is raped by soldiers that break into her home, she then later reveals, although some argue she is forced, that she enjoyed her sexual encounter with the men. In the OAV series The Legend of the Overfiend when Nagumo rapes a female nurse with his new phallus, his orgasm is shown as a ray of light that escapes his victims mouth and becomes his victims in turn. The nurse is seemingly killed by her encounter with Nagumo. This type of scene seems to represent a common concept in erotic work, that a males orgasm is in turn a females orgasm as she feels the pleasure of pleasing a male. Maeda's representation of orgasm as light works as a tangible expression of the orgasm as something which travels from man to woman, as if physically exchanged in the very act of penetration.
It has been suggested that the violent nature of Japanese media targeted at males is a tool to offer relief from the pressures of modern living. That males need to be able to see the figures of their mental anguish physically debased and humiliated. It has been suggested that the pressures in educational life and work, need to be in some way compensated for and the feeling amongst the male population that this suffering is in some way not the product of an high pressured and opressive society but an opressive matriarchal regime in the home. Mothers, wifes, sisters and daughters all forcing men to work hard to provide for and support them. They argue that these fantasies are needed to remove the agression and frustration felt by the typical male towards his female dependants. It is true that figures on violent attacks on women in Japan are nominal, but this ignores the fact that minor assaults on females in the home are particularly common. This aggression therefore seems to be released in reality in a far more physical manner than suggested in this theory. Can we then say the appearance of violence against women is a social norm? If we look into the historical fact it appears that women have been oppressed in the West just as much as their counterparts in the East. And as the East have their Geishas we too have prostitution. We too throughout our history have excluded women from certain aspects of society, created the idea that they are secondary citizens to men and promoted the idea of females as the sexual objects of males. Are we then to believe that while western culture has adopted equality rules and aspirations when it comes to the genders, Japan's ultra-modern society has somehow taken a leap back with their cultural attitudes to feminism and the roles of women? Granted the empowerment of women in the less cosmopoliton areas of japan is probably not the biggest issue on the minds of most citizens, but the average person is not blind to these issues.
I conclude that whilst it is popular to look beyond the obvious when discussing the violent nature of sexual encounters in contempory Japanese media it is probably a lot simpler than it appears. The answers lie beyond the obvious psycho analysis and social historys. To say sexual violence is not a taboo in Japan would be completely blind sighted, but in contempory media it appears to me that the Japanese far from being oppressors of women with primative views on feminism, are quite the opposite. They are enlightened enough to be able to give its viewers the responsibility to discern right from wrong and fact from fiction. In todays Western society we focus to much on blame, blaming films, comics and video games for our childrens wrongs, Japan has simply not fallen victim to this wooly thinking, and has proven that giving the public the right to decide means a more enlightened society and as a result a rich variety of contempory art on a whole plethora of themes and topics; envied and admired throughout the modern world.
About the writer (Lees Sharon-Ann):
Lees lives in the UK - in the South East fairly close to London.
She is 20 years old and has been an otaku fan since she was about 10 yrs old - reading shojo manga that her older sister gave her. She works full time in a college as a member of the Student Services team, and hope to be starting her degree this September. She has written a number of essays on aspects of Japanese culture before, including her final dissertation on the social and religious influences on Japanese fashion design and street wear, which was later published in an educational publication concerned with global sociology.
Sharon's favourite manga include Alichino, Pet Shop of Horrors, Legal Drug, Seraphic Feather, loveless and Yami No Matsuei.
Her favourite anime range from the yaoi Ai no Kusabi (Love's wedge) to Hayao Miyazaki's popular works.
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