9. Sexual Objectification of Men: Feminist or Not?

So now we're left with an odd paradox. The Japanese domestic rock scene wouldn't exist without fangirls, because the cash that makes it run is coming out of women's pockets...so there's a powerful argument to be made that ultimately, the women are the ones in control here. To chase after an idol rather than getting married and having babies – couldn't that be seen as a rebuke to sexist expectations?

Furthermore, in Japan, the level of open sexual objectification of men by women is much higher than in the West. Boys' love manga, visual kei, and idol groups like SexyZone are all part of this phenomenon: the overt use of men as sexual objects for women's fantasies. Isn't this profound role reversal empowering to women?

I'm a firm believer in equal-opportunity objectification, so I wish it were. But it isn't. Or at least, in many cases, it isn't.

Sure, this time, the goal of the objectification is to pleasure women, not to pleasure men. But the problem is that if fangirls sexually objectify their favorite rock star in the style of the cult worshiper, rather than the style of the creative subculture participant, they're actually reinforcing sexual inequality, not fighting it.

Here's how.

The creative woman constructing her identity through subculture who sexually objectifies her favorite male rock star is basically saying, “I want you so much, I want to become you.” Her ultimate goal is to seduce the object of her desire by remaking herself as his equal, a female mirror image of him. Even more than his sexual interest, what she longs for is his respect. Like, “See, I'm just as good as you. I'm you!” That's feminist, because that's the goal towards which feminism aspires: total equality of the sexes. From a feminist perspective, whether or not she actually manages to seduce him doesn't matter, so long as her sexual attraction has inspired her to become a bigger, better, more powerful, more creative woman. Sakurai Atsushi, meet Sakurai Atsuko (Shit, that's hot. It's like the Dress PV all over again! Please excuse me while I get my smelling salts.)

By contrast, the personality cult worshiper woman who erases her identity to become a vessel for pure fandom based on the sexual objectification of her favorite male rock star is basically saying, “I want you so much, I have lost myself and become nothing but my desire for you.” But that's the role that patriarchy has tried to force women into all along – vessels for male desire with no will of their own. We could invite in some members of the BDSM community and get into a big philosophical debate about whether the slavery you choose of your own free will is still slavery or if it's actually ultimate freedom, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here. The point is, women who are content to be viewed by men as nothing but admiring fans, vessels of appreciation waiting to be filled with male ego, are tacitly reinforcing through their behavior the idea that women should be nothing but helpmeets and cheerleaders for men. They don't give a damn about getting respect – if they did, they wouldn't be caught dead shrieking their favorite band member's name in a fake baby voice, now would they?

The ideal girlfriend image that dominates the Japanese media today is much like a house cat – a warm, cuddly animal who stays at home, has love only for her master and comforts her master in his complex angst with her unconditional love and ineffable cuteness. She's not as intelligent as he is, and she's completely dependent on him. Insofar as she's got problems of her own, they're not very big problems compared to his, it looks cute when she complains about them, and even if he doesn't address them adequately, it's not like she's going to run away, is it? And he doesn't need to learn to understand her or respect her, because how hard is it to understand a cat, and since when have we ever talked about respecting one in a human sense?

The prostrate, self-abnegating worship of the fangirl strikes me as uncomfortably similar. “I'm your pet, do with me what you like.” And as I said earlier, like cats, all the fangirls really want is attention.

So there's another paradox. One the one hand, fangirls have given up their dignity and desire for respect and allowed their sense of self to become subsumed by their abject worship of whichever man it is whom they fancy (identity erasure). But on the other hand, all they really want is his attention, which is a fundamentally narcissistic and self-centered desire that makes no acknowledgment of his needs at all. How can you be self-centered if you've lost yourself?

I'd argue that this happens because instead of constructing her own identity, the Japanese fangirl is constructing her own reality. Ultimately, it doesn't matter who her man is in real life. In her constructed reality, he is a fantasy creature designed to fulfill her wishes. Her powerful attachment to him is not based in admiration for his artistic talents, nor in meatspace desire to have actual physical sex with him, nor even in the desire to become close to him IRL and get him to fall in love with her. As with the idol fans I've mentioned earlier, she is using her fantasy about him to fill the secret gaping hole in her heart. She's got some kind of profound emotional need that hasn't been met, and her fandom is a way of meeting that need, or trying to. Who he is in the real world doesn't even matter: what matters is who he is in her head. That's solipsism, friends: the idea that nothing exists outside of the self.

Look at it through this lens, and all the confounding Japanese fangirl behavior starts to make a weird kind of sense...which brings us to Part 2: Fangirl Behaviors, and the Psychology Behind Them.

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