Essay leads to meta leads to essay.
As I am desperately attempting to complete an essay about fandom interaction with cult texts, specifically on slash fiction, I came across this interesting theory, brought by the ever postulating Henry Jenkins:
"Sexual descriptions often reflect what women know about their own erotic feelings, and omit what they don't know about men's; extensive foreplay, for instance, and extragentital erogenous zones are common in slash sex scenes, but not in men's descriptions of their own sexuality." (Jenkins, Fans, Bloggers etc, p 80)
It leads to thinking, and kind of worrying about Japanese women (and maybe women in general if the majority of badfic is anything to go by) and what it is they experience if the usual trope for sex scenes is rape as a prelude to love. I'm trying to come to terms with the disparity between the shoujo genre which is so typically innocent, with all things building to a kiss, and the sudden flip over when sex is actually introduced, and its rare, if anything, to find yaoi manga that doesn't have an example of some kind of rape as a first sexual contact.
Yes, it might just be the internalising of discourses in a country where sexism is still the norm, and a social hierarchy that even follows you into the bedroom, and yes, I realise all fictional work, especially slash/yaoi is 90% fantasy creation but I really must criticise and question the underlying workings of a society which seems to transition between two modes of relationships sweet and pure, and rape, so quickly, and produced on such a large scale. It's really rare to find what I dub the 'Western' norms of sexual equality in a Japanese created text where the uke (or even the girl) DOESN'T essentially lay back and thinks of the Nation or is introduced to sex, first, as a form of rape, and THEN with feelings.
Maybe it is only inexperience in writing that leads to having no other dramatic relationship-oriented turning point other than rape to move relationships along, or maybe female fantasy does have such an underlying want. It just disturbs me at times, for the latter to be created on such a large scale, because there are TOO many yaoi mangas, doujins and fics to make it some kind of subcultural anomaly.
... It's this kind of thinking process that makes me want to go and just kick everyone upholding the Japanese patriarchy in the nuts.
And if course this isn't even going to fit in my essay, 3000 words is too little :(
"Sexual descriptions often reflect what women know about their own erotic feelings, and omit what they don't know about men's; extensive foreplay, for instance, and extragentital erogenous zones are common in slash sex scenes, but not in men's descriptions of their own sexuality." (Jenkins, Fans, Bloggers etc, p 80)
It leads to thinking, and kind of worrying about Japanese women (and maybe women in general if the majority of badfic is anything to go by) and what it is they experience if the usual trope for sex scenes is rape as a prelude to love. I'm trying to come to terms with the disparity between the shoujo genre which is so typically innocent, with all things building to a kiss, and the sudden flip over when sex is actually introduced, and its rare, if anything, to find yaoi manga that doesn't have an example of some kind of rape as a first sexual contact.
Yes, it might just be the internalising of discourses in a country where sexism is still the norm, and a social hierarchy that even follows you into the bedroom, and yes, I realise all fictional work, especially slash/yaoi is 90% fantasy creation but I really must criticise and question the underlying workings of a society which seems to transition between two modes of relationships sweet and pure, and rape, so quickly, and produced on such a large scale. It's really rare to find what I dub the 'Western' norms of sexual equality in a Japanese created text where the uke (or even the girl) DOESN'T essentially lay back and thinks of the Nation or is introduced to sex, first, as a form of rape, and THEN with feelings.
Maybe it is only inexperience in writing that leads to having no other dramatic relationship-oriented turning point other than rape to move relationships along, or maybe female fantasy does have such an underlying want. It just disturbs me at times, for the latter to be created on such a large scale, because there are TOO many yaoi mangas, doujins and fics to make it some kind of subcultural anomaly.
... It's this kind of thinking process that makes me want to go and just kick everyone upholding the Japanese patriarchy in the nuts.
And if course this isn't even going to fit in my essay, 3000 words is too little :(