The follies of an aspiring academic
I read Laura Millers fascinating article Mammary Mania in Japan (2003, Positions: 11/2, pp. 271-300) yesterday. Her conclusion reads:The history of female breasts in Japan is interesting because it illustrates the power of media models, the influence of American culture, and how easily and quickly culturally molded behaviors and ideas become naturalized as “normal.” Yet we know that American images of huge-breasted women have been in Japan for decades, so there must be something else contributing to the new trend. A general focus on the accomplishment of desired bodies, including idealized breasts, may therefore reflect a certain degree of female agency and empowerment. By rejecting the ineffectual body style of the unbaked maiden, still desired by many men, women are asserting a degree of adult independence and sexual autonomy. Yet even acknowledging this last point, the modern conception of beauty is apprehended through the distorted idioms of advertising and media. The body has become central to capitalist expansion, and women are urged to seek surfaces through which to frame their now more assertive personalities. In earlier decades, clothes and hairstyles were sufficient to announce one’s modernity, but today it is breasts and other parts of the body around which calculations about gender and identity are fashioned.
It reminds me a lot of the multitudes of articles I've read on pubic hair removal. The commodification of the body and the normalization of unnatural pursuits of a societal definition of attractiveness are the same, as well as the claims that body shame, self-objectification and pressure to conform somehow equals empowerment, increased female agency, independence, sexual freedom, etc.
"In just seven seconds a day, your breasts too will become bigger. Do you worry about things like "My breasts are small..." or "The shape is bad..."? Since becoming public in 2008, over 10 000 people have succeeded in getting a bigger bosom!"
I guess there should be a marked difference between Japanese breast enhancement practises and how they endorse a full, sexual and "adult" body image instead of the prepubescent and powerless titless body, and how pubic hair removal practises in the West endorse the hairless, powerless and prepubescent body ideal. But I kinda don't see it. When women are pressured to conform their bodies to a certain ideal, I don't think it makes a whit of difference whether the social norm is a top heavy "woman" or a bald snatched "girl". Honestly, I do find the eroticizing of child-like bald snatches more disturbing, not only because of the disturbing mental links to actual children, or because I find the notion that women voluntarily infantilizing themselves for the sexual gratification of men equals female sexual autonomy revolting. I think it's mostly because I find Western (read: American) culture more disturbing by the day...
I know that a lot of my writing about Japan in this blog probably comes across as straight up Orientalism or exposés of the bizarre in Japanese culture. I guess I might be doing a disservice in my attempt to educate on the different aspects of Japanese sexuality, but I do try to avoid falling into the traps of generalization.
Ah well.
It reminds me a lot of the multitudes of articles I've read on pubic hair removal. The commodification of the body and the normalization of unnatural pursuits of a societal definition of attractiveness are the same, as well as the claims that body shame, self-objectification and pressure to conform somehow equals empowerment, increased female agency, independence, sexual freedom, etc.
"In just seven seconds a day, your breasts too will become bigger. Do you worry about things like "My breasts are small..." or "The shape is bad..."? Since becoming public in 2008, over 10 000 people have succeeded in getting a bigger bosom!"
I guess there should be a marked difference between Japanese breast enhancement practises and how they endorse a full, sexual and "adult" body image instead of the prepubescent and powerless titless body, and how pubic hair removal practises in the West endorse the hairless, powerless and prepubescent body ideal. But I kinda don't see it. When women are pressured to conform their bodies to a certain ideal, I don't think it makes a whit of difference whether the social norm is a top heavy "woman" or a bald snatched "girl". Honestly, I do find the eroticizing of child-like bald snatches more disturbing, not only because of the disturbing mental links to actual children, or because I find the notion that women voluntarily infantilizing themselves for the sexual gratification of men equals female sexual autonomy revolting. I think it's mostly because I find Western (read: American) culture more disturbing by the day...
I know that a lot of my writing about Japan in this blog probably comes across as straight up Orientalism or exposés of the bizarre in Japanese culture. I guess I might be doing a disservice in my attempt to educate on the different aspects of Japanese sexuality, but I do try to avoid falling into the traps of generalization.
Ah well.