Abstract
As a new documentary sheds light on the sexualisation of young Japanese girls,
A girl dressed in a manga-style costume poses for photos at a comic-book fair in Tokyo
CREDIT: Alessandro Di Ciommo/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock
This spring, Igarashi (aka Rokudenashiko or “Good for Nothing Girl”) faces her final court trial for the obscenity charges she’s been battling since 2014. Her crime? Creating 3D printed sculptures, including a full-sized kayak, in the shape of her vagina, and then selling the 3D data to fund her art project. Igarashi’s case, which has seen her arrested and fined with her art confiscated, has received worldwide attention. It’s a prime example – as she puts it in her manga book entitled What is Obscenity? – of Japan’s “really weird view of pussy”.
“Weird view” is one way to describe the layers of contradictions found within Japan’s attitude towards sexuality. And it’s these contradictions that are having a negative effect on Japanese women’s ability to speak freely about their sexuality.
On the one hand, their sexuality is exploited for commercial gains. Men openly frequent hostess bars; police turn a blind eye to soaplands (bathhouses offering sexual services); and erotic manga showing buxom, yet childlike, women posing suggestively is displayed in every convenience store. A recent BBC documentary revealed that the rape of young girls is even featured in manga.
On the other hand, when pop idols, TV tarento (“talents”) and artists like Igarashi attempt to own their sexuality in even the smallest ways, they are publicly shamed and often silenced.
“As long as something serves the male Makoto gaze, it’s condoned,” said Natsu Kawasaki from Tomorrow Girls Troop, an artist collective that fights against gender inequality. The group endures a constant backlash so it operates anonymously, wearing pink rabbit masks that are symbolic of how women in Japan identify with the rabbit in Japanese mythology: “smart but powerless”.
Their most recent work includes campaigning for the government to speed up revisions to the sex crimes law, which hasn’t been updated in 100 years and is often cited as a reason only 4% of sexual assault crimes are reported, and an exhibition in Tokyo this February to create awareness around the issue of sexual violence. The biggest opposition they have received came in 2015 after they demanded the city of Shima rescind a municipal mascot, which was a sexualised manga portrayal of a female, teenage ama (pearl) diver. They were not against a ban on all depictions, but were against the municipality, an authoritative entity, essentially promoting the sexualization of underage girls. The mascot was scrapped.
“We received huge criticism from the otaku [anime ‘nerd’] culture, who said we were infringing on their freedom of expression. The sexualisation of young girls is so normalised that they completely missed the point.”
Herein lies a crucial issue. “People in positions of authority are steeped in sexism. Teachers and even parents are dismissive of sexual exploitation, to the point where massive problems, such as the groping of girls on trains, are swept under the rug. As a result, girls grow up learning not to speak out, because when they do, they are criticised.
“In Igarashi’s case,” Kawasaki continued, “she is simply using her body in the way she wants to, yet she is censored and labelled a ‘self-proclaimed artist’. But when a male artist such as Aida Makoto does the same thing with female bodies, his work is put in museums and he is called a ‘genius’.”
Author and critic Damian Flanagan, who has written extensively on Japanese politics, art and society, told Index on Censorship magazine: “The craziest part of the Igarashi story was not just the hypocrisy and blatant sexism – penis festivals, in which huge phalluses are paraded through the streets, are well-known in Japan – but the fact that the Japanese bureaucrats are so ignorant of their own cultural history. Some of the most extraordinarily graphic, fantastic ‘vagina art’ you will ever see forms an important part of the erotic art works of the Edo period.”
Two members of Tomorrow Girls Troop wear their “smart, but powerless” signature pink rabbit masks
CREDIT: Tomorrow Girls Troop
Similar contradictions crop up regularly in Japan’s entertainment industry, in which women are expected to maintain the squeaky clean, child-like kawaii image, “but at the same time [women] are expected to prance around seductively in bikinis and schoolgirl uniforms when performing for men,” said Kawasaki. If ever they transgress their contractual boundaries, they face grave consequences. Pop star Masuda Yuka was forced to leave idol group AKB48 for spending the night at a man’s house; idol Minami Minegishi shaved her head and apologised after she was caught with a boyfriend; and TV personality Becky lost all her contracts after her affair with married pop star Enon Kawatani was exposed. His image was untarnished.
“At its most positive, kawaii is part of the gentleness and refinement that defines Japanese culture,” said Flanagan. “The problem comes when you stop feeling that women are willing participants of kawaii culture, but are instead suppressing their own identity in order to provide a child-like face to the world. Even commanding, independent Japanese women can feel stifled by social conservatism and the effects of kawaii culture.”
One industry that perhaps has the ultimate power to change viewpoints is the manga world. Even though erotic manga is criticised for sexually exploiting women and young girls, it’s a form of art that speaks to all Japanese people. Artist Keiko Takemiya has been using manga to break taboos since the 1970s, when she became one of the first women to controversially create shoujo (manga aimed at a female readership). She told Index on Censorship magazine: “By using the main protagonist in manga to show how women can express their strengths, readers can relate to the character and take what they’ve learnt into the real world.”
What does Takemiya think of fellow manga feminist Megumi Igarashi? “She’s a courageous woman for challenging a society that’s trying to reject her,” she said. “Men’s sexual desires are intrinsically exploitative. Yet it’s almost impossible for women to sexually exploit men. That’s why the Megumi Igarashi incident came about. Both men and women have to fully understand this contrast before they can talk about how to resolve sexual discrimination issues. I wonder if men have the courage to do that?”