Post pimp~

[askerian]

Great post on Japanese expectations of flirting, dating and sex, from the point of view of someone who lived in Japan and had quite a few interesting culture clash moments. XD

3. Subtle signals

- Shyness. Pronounced shyness is form of flirting, since it's a sign of liking, especially from girls, but also from guys. She interacts with everyone else more than him, she doesn't sit next to him, she doesn't talk much to him, she doesn't initiate anything with him.
(...)
- Eye contact. It's the opposite to the west, where you gaze deeply into someone's eyes if you like them. Direct eye contact is a bit rude in Japan at the best of times. If you're flirting you look down and away a lot.

(...)

Part of what was so bamboozling the first time I had sex in Japan was that I didn't know there was a Way of Sex, with strict gendered roles, and I just was happily doing my own thing, throwing my partner into total confusion. Seiji told me much later that dating me made him feel like he was gay, because I was active in bed, and he couldn't connect that with anything except masculinity.

When it came to the guys I dated, even though it was completely outside their experience, they sort of (kind of) eventually adjusted their thinking and accepted the fact that I was active (because I was Foreign and Foreign Women Are Different) but the thing I could never completely change was the fixed idea they had that someone must be passive.


Some of the comments are also pretty cool. XD

RE: showers, hilarity. Now I see that the scene in Soshite Koi ga Hajimaru where Asami says to Miki, "I'd tell you to go take a shower...BUT I CAN'T WAIT" is far more intense and radical crazytalk than I'd originally realized. Ah, the great mirror of BL.


Also, an older post about what's considered gay and not gay in japanese culture (most of the good stuff is in the comments.) It's an oooold post, though, so you should probably not comment on it? XD

... Oh hell, hit her "japan" tag, there's some shiny stuff in there. u.u



Who knew, yaoi doujins apparently aren't so caricatural. ... This definitely throws me on the Slash side of the boylove Force. XD

Comments

[dbzlives.livejournal.com]

Huh. All of a sudden anime makes a lot more sense.

[hitori-toshiro.livejournal.com]

Roh putain. Depuis le temps, j'avais fini par intégrer cette façon bizarre de représenter la romance dans les mangas, je me disais que c'était un peu exagéré, c'est des mangas après tout ! Genre le coup de la douche ne m'étonnait pas trop, mais la façon de flirter je pensais pas que ça continuait après le lycée =_=... Et leur façon de considérer le sexe ! Ha ! C'est horrible ! Je suis tellement content d'être né en France ! é_è

[maldoror-gw.livejournal.com]

...............................You mean all that time I was snarling about the horrible, degrading characterisation of homosexuals in DJs, *I* was the one in the wrong for not taking cultural differences into account?? ^^; Ouch...Honestly, I had no idea. Thanks for linking, that was very illuminating.

On the one hand, the whole 'passive partner' thing feels wrong to me (v. against MY culture, dawg). But on the other, I think I might feel a teensy bit better about all the manga, DJ etc. that have extreme ukes in them. It's not the mangaka imposing a feministic ideal (that would make a feminist spit nails, btw) onto a male relation just because s/he can't be bothered to imagine how two men would interact; it's cultural.

...Still freaks me out, though.

[windandwater.livejournal.com]

I read this. XD! It was hilarious and kind of eye-opening. But now things make more sense.

[sayaka-sama.livejournal.com]

Wow. I suddenly feel like such an ignorant prude for thinking hentai/yaoi/yuri doujinshi circles were just utilizing OOC-ness for the lulz. XD

Thanks for the eye-opener. ♥

[vehrec.livejournal.com]

You know, the more I read about the realities of Japanese society, the more it seems to me to be self-destructive and full of forces that are putting massive pressures on its population. Which just goes to explain the suicide rates. Not that I neccesarily believe that American culture is much better-but I can at least successfully ignore this culture that I live in. I'm not sure how successful someone with my mildly Autistic condition would be in Japanese culture which places such an importance on knowing what other people are thinking without communicating. While this helps some Japanese things make more sense to me at the same time I have to wonder how they function at all. I dunno, maybe I'm just rambling and underestimating the power of Guilt.

[nemi-chan.livejournal.com]

There's also the small fact that, as I understand it, though it may be hearsay, that japanese life insurance companies cover you even if it's suicide.

I do not deny that the pressure of japanese culture on it's people is very strong, and indeed on some people terrible. My grandmother, who is japanese, refuses to 'go home' even for a vacation. She dislikes how hidebound they are, along with many other things. However, with the above point, and with the culture, killing yourself to help your family, for instance, is a viable 'solution,' so there are less cultural issues against suicide.

[mezzo-marinaio.livejournal.com]

Wow. That was certainly interesting. o_o

I already knew from my experience in Japan that gender roles are taken VERY seriously there, but I didn't know it applied the exact same way to sex as well - makes me feel a little bit sorry for them, in fact.

They seriously NEVER relax, do they? >_

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

I knew a lot of this already -- from my experience in the culture, from my studies, and from a lot of exposure to anime. :p Or rather, I don't think I knew it actively, but I found myself nodding and saying "yes, of course they do that" all the time.

And I had already known that a lot of what seems ridiculous to us in anime romance in general, and gay romance particularly, is simply a matter of cultural expectations. And it's not always a question of how people really act, but how their culture thinks they should act, that defines the romance stories.

[slamu.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing this in the light of a NaruHina shipper, and this makes too much sense. She's been flirting with him for years! Bwaahaahaahaahaa-*cough cough*
Anyway, yeah. Thanks, this helps a lot. (I could only imagine working through the Great Human Telephone Game of He-said/She-said for all of my life.)
Wait...wern't you already on the Slash side of the boylove Force?