The Dangers of Shoujo by Lianne and NotHayama

[gsyh]

Came across this discussion while googling CLAMP School Detectives...feminists (which they claim to be).

The article in question is quite interesting:

She Was Asking For ItArticle: The Dangers of Shoujo

Comments

[thomasvye]

I couldn't read the article; I was too distracted by the beautiful guy with the knife in his mouth about a third of the way down. ^-^

But a lot of this stuff is written by women, I know that. So what does that tell you about the fantasies of a lot of women?

...

[gsyh]

It tells me a lot of the fantasies of the women who wrote them.

Frankly, I'm quite fond of certain 'bodice rippers' myself, but as pointed out at the end of the article, Western 'bodice rippers', the kind that have existed for centuries, features adult women, in situations far remove from teenage girls that reads it, it's very, very, obviously, Not Real.

...and maybe the bodice ripper 'classics' I read were vanilla (usually involving the male prirate or general demanding the lady's company but nothing actually sexual), but I'm really disgusted at the fluffy portrayal of what was very obviously Very Wrong Things, like shojou novels that are suppose to be a high school girl's life, where male characters actually try to force himself on her. 0_o High school. Whatever happened to just sitting on a tree?

[plainpiece]

I really just have to stop and say how much I agree. One of the things I saw in the article that made me NOD ADAMANTLY was

This kind of male character wouldn't be such a problem if the main female characters stood up for themselves.

Another thing you almost never see is the line between being an aggressive, dominating lover, while not being aggressive and dominating outside of the bedroom. That being submissive sexually doesn't make you a doormat in every day life. Very one-dimensional.

Totally

[gsyh]

Bedroom games are well, bedroom games, played between people who have agreed to participate.

Sad for the men

[gsyh]

Woman have vibrators, men have...blown-up dolls. Vibrators won't go soft unlike the real thing, not to mention, it comes with settings! Blown-up dolls, in addition to looking funny, well, it just doesn't do anything other than being there.

I remember around ten years back, reading now and then about how men in HK decided to go for a 'submissive Japanese girlfriend' because they are not man enough to handle being in a partnership of equals with an adult women. Some of them also go for 'keeping a woman' in mainland, while mainland woman aren't exactly submissive, inequality due to finances exist.

Wonder what these kinds of wusses will do when the culture of equality finally reach everywhere? When women don’t NEED men anymore, therefore to ‘get’ a women, the man in question will have to be WANTED for something other than bread and muscle.

[solderini]

CLAMP's female characters disappoint me in general, which is part of the reason I love Hokuto so much: sure, she goes off and dies for her man brother, but she does so deliberately, and she has a goal to accomplish by doing so. I'm also fond of Karen Kasumi, though I wish she and Aoki would get together and shag like there's no tomorrow (and in X, there might not be). Also, the Angelic Layer anime in general. ♥ Anglic Layer.

Intriguing article. It makes me want to reexamine the instances of the "bad relationship" in my own manga collection. I have two of the manga they mentioned in the article, Legend of Basara and Please Save My Earth; if you're interested in non-CLAMP shoujo, may I recommend them? As mentioned in the article, both of them are intended for teenage girls, and both handle the "bad relationship" in distinct and mature ways. I won't go into them in-depth, because of spoilers that I really don't want to give out, but neither of them portrays sexual assault as anything but damaging to the victim, and in PSME, it

Woo

[gsyh]

I might look into the Basara thing, like later, it sounds interesting.

I adored Hokuto, the time she threatened Sei-chan, how she is wary of him, know what he is, but still put Subaru with him because she sees the situation as that desperate and acted on it, is very interesting. I liked her better than Subaru, even or because she's more crafty in character.

[andarton]

the disturbing thing is that I know a lot of girls who think this sort of thing is right up their alley and love the idea of a relationship in which they have no say in anything and the person is psychotic and possessive and abusive.

I always found that really weird though, how people really like that idea and yet claim to like the romantic aspect or something. I'm not sure I can see what's so romantic about some guy mentally/physically/etc. abusing a girl and her falling in love with him for it...

I also don't get why the girls blush about these ridiculous and insulting things. I'd either A.) get pissed or B.) assume the person must be joking if someone said they were going to 'claim me' (and if I said that to someone else I think I'd most definitely have to be drunk or joking). Though again, I have plenty of friends who would just think that was plain hot.

....

[gsyh]

I don't know either, I guess it's that any large amount of attention is perceived as good regardless of character and quality....