Can we talk about this? sengokudaimyo.com/Forced_Affection.html From what I read from Genjimonagatari, a source someone posted before, and researched, it seems it was either: 1.the women were expected culturally to resist, as to not appear too "easy" (as we know that has always been seen as disreputable for women across many cultures)
2.they were actually trying their hardest to resist literal rape and obviously gave up after awhile(of course not too long because then that's a social faux pas and makes you look like a "bitch").
I'm really trying to figure this out because obviously translation and context is always an issue. Plus,the latter would be pretty fucked up. The former would just be kind of weird but usual double standard.
On a side note, why is there so much autism in Japanese social expectations and norms? Like their is an exact expectation/ritual that must be followed to T for a lot of things or else you risk "losing face;" it's retarded.
I put this on Veeky Forums earlier but I felt the amount of interpretation needed due to the source being literary kind of makes it Veeky Forums related.
rape is always the victim's fault. 100% of rape incidents could have been avoided if the victim consented
Jose Gomez
Nice bait, but it doesn't answer the question. C'mon Veeky Forums I expect better from you.
Joshua Cook
>it's retarded Westerners, they'll never learn! And not with a mindset like that which lends to ridicule and scorn instead of an attempt at deeper understanding. Centuries of colonialism will attest to this. Oh no, I understand perfectly though, you're on Veeky Forums, you strive to fit in, so I don't blame you at all for your exclamation.
Zachary Peterson
>On a side note, why is there so much autism in Japanese social expectations and norms? Like their is an exact expectation/ritual that must be followed to T for a lot of things or else you risk "losing face;" it's retarded.
Face is an interesting concept. Nick Land explained it really well in a recent lecture, so that what I'm drawing on here.
In his interpretation, western philosophy/thought is deeply affected by the teachings of Jesus and the concept of an interior soul. In the gospels, you find all sorts of admonitions of making a show of your faith, that praying silently is more holy than praying in a grand style. The reason is that God knows your heart, and does not need excessive displays, that these displays are only the sign of vanity and pride, meant to impress other people. The interiority of the soul is put above one's social position. Jesus lives this philosophy to the extreme, allowing himself to be vilified, degraded and crucified, instead of denouncing his faith. He values his interior relationship between God and his soul over his exterior social relationship with society, showing absolute disregard for the governor, empire and roman emperor.
In China and Japan and much of the east, there is almost no concept of an "interior soul". Instead, the "Face", how you appear to everyone else, is given highest importance. There was no Jesus in the east, and eastern philosophies and ideologies put the utmost importance in maintaining relationships. You see this in Confucianism, with it's focus on the '5 Bonds': ruler to ruled, father to son, husband to wife, elder brother to younger brother, friend to friend. In Confucianism, there is no individual, there is no interior soul in relation to a god, there is no interior relationship between one's actions and feelings about the actions. In Japan, allegiance to the Emperor was rationalized as the most important thing in life, the Kamikaze being the most extreme version of this: letting the Emperor use your body as a weapon, the way a warrior uses a bow and arrow.
Jacob Bennett
What incentivizes one to fit in, in an anonymous environment, though? Especially since divergent opinions get more (You)s?
Luis Sullivan
So that's why questions of authenticity are irrelevant to the Japanese. Interesting.
Jason Butler
Zen philosophy has some disturbing ideas about what in the west we'd call "individual responsibility". Check out this quote from DT Suzuki. Zizek loves to quote this whenever people make claims about Zen as a religion of peace.
>"The sword is generally associated with killing, and most of us wonder how it came into connection with Zen, which is a school of Buddhism teaching the gospel of mercy. The fact is that the art of swordsmanship distinguishes between the sword that kills and the sword that gives life. The one that is used by a technician cannot go any further than killing, for he never appeals to the sword unless he intends to kill. The case is altogether different for the one who is compelled to lift the sword. For it is really not he but the sword itself that does the killing. He had no desire to do harm to anybody, but the enemy appears and makes himself a victim. It is as though the sword performs automatically its function of justice, which is the function of mercy"
In Christianity, there is no such distinction. Killing is never justified (until you get into various 'Just War' doctrines which are totally heretical when compared to Jesus' teachings and example of martyrdom)
William Reed
ok great thanks for the insight. It's just my opinion that the concept is stupid obviously but can we please get into the heart of the question? Did you guys even read the link for example? reported. only serious answers in this thread.
Asher Morales
OP are you some kind of bow legged jap loving weeb? serious question btw
Jace Thomas
Yeah, I skimmed the article, didn't read it in full. I like the chart at the bottom, more essays should include charts of data.
Nothing about it seems too crazy to me. "Rape" is a 20th century concept. In europe you find all sorts of fucked up shit "Right of the Lord" where a nobleman could fuck a woman on her wedding knight before the husband did. And of course harems and sexual slavery accompany almost all forms of nobility, aristocracy and feudalism. In America, a master could have sex with his slaves with impunity, even when married to a white woman.
Am I right in thinking what is weirding is the idea that the woman might be simulating her resistance? That she is forced to play the role of an unwilling partner, even though she may be willing, because of social customs?
This kind of roleplay isn't too strange to me I guess. Personally, I find rough sex arousing and have had partners simulate resistance.
Lucas Campbell
to follow up, if you're stuck on the "why" of the situation, that "why do they do this?" should accompany any form of sexuality, whatever form it takes. Obviously reproduction is a pretty simple matter, and we humans go to great lengths to complicate it with social customs. I'm sure evolutionary biologists will have stories about why certain customs provide genetic advantage, or how bonobos do this or that, but the fundamental answer always comes down it "because it feels good" and that if sex feels good you reproduce more, and establish a behavior-genetic feedback loop.
Josiah Wood
what the hell are you talking about? I'm not a weeb, I was just seriously fascinated/disturbed by this concept. Are you saying that anyone who reads anything besides European classics is a weeb? Serious question. That would be quite closed minded of you.
Aiden Richardson
>only serious answers in this thread. fuck you discussion cuck
Jaxson Torres
I was hanging with my asian friends yesterday and somehow they were quite convinced of the idea of the "face" in relation to the idea of a presented self, but it's still not denoted as being "fake".
Lucas Sanders
totally, I did not at all meant to imply that eastern philosophy is focused on fakeness. The idea of Face is very real and true. Identifying with your appearance, over a (purported) interior truth, shouldn't be mistaken for being shallow.
If anything, I'm pretty fucking suspicious of western interiority, I bet most people are pretty fucking hollow and empty, no matter how much they profess a deep, reflective inner life.
But western individualism does seem to be winning the global culture war. Barring a collapse of global capitalism, I don't see how things could return to a world of relationships over a world of self.
Xavier Parker
The difference is this isn't happening to just slaves or low class women(low class women in Heian court when?) this is upper class women at court. Many of them soon to be concubines, but still they are noble. There is even a case when there was man from a lesser lass( he was a captain) initiating a meeting with an upper class girl yet it all ended the same(if you read that far). >Am I right in thinking it is weird I would consider the girl faking resistance as more normal since women being passive about or not enjoying sex too much(if at all) was/is common in many cultures, including Rome. Men must initiate encounters and women not be too passionate/quick about it else they risk being called "easy." I didn't really ask for a why. Obviously it's a different time and culture. Just a "what?" Is rape what was happening most of the time due to cultural expectations or just playing hard to get due to cultural expectations. I image rape must have happened at least sometimes considering what girl could ever refuse the emperor even if she really didn't want to? He's the emperor...
Justin Bell
>Is rape what was happening most of the time due to cultural expectations or just playing hard to get due to cultural expectations.
There is no universal definition of rape. 20th century concepts of sexual rights, human rights, rights of the individual, equality, etc just simply don't apply to what happened in the Heian Court.
So "Was it Rape?", I don't think you can answer that. Did someone woman make a show or resisting and did others resist with actual hopes of preventing sex? I'm sure both happened.
Leo Morgan
I'm not asking for cultural appraisal or definitions of rape.I'm talking about personal appraisal as you say:the person really did not want to have sex; wanted truly to prevent it. I honestly don't believe rape is worth investigating unless the person appraises it as so, i.e. it actually hurts them or traumatizes them significantly to cripple their quality of life.
I'm not sure if this was really "rape" as an expectation or just men having to basically convince the girl to fuck them and a girl having to "play hard to get" at first as usual. Then of course, finally give in as a social norm. That's what I'm trying to figure out.
The less rapey view seems supported by the fact that there was supposedly a certain amount of time the girl had to "resist" or she would appear too "easy of a conquest" or too stuck up.
The literally rape view seems supported by the fact that the men according to the writers, would feel slight "guilt" and some women would feel pretty distressed after a while. But the problem is, the author of that essay isn't sure if this "guilt" was real or just a formality and what caused this guilt if it was?
Guilt of basically taking advantage of or manipulating a innocent girl to get what he wants OR guilt of literally raping a a girl in that it hurt her?
Noah Carter
who gives a shit about bunch of perverted japs who never even heard of jesus christ
John Torres
and by inquiring whether rape is worth investigating, I meant as a crime now and in the past btw. who gives a shit about anything on this Malaysian watercoloring forum? Who gives a shit about anything anyone has ever read into or investigated in a literary sense or as hobby? Seriously, I hate questions like this. Who gets to say what is worth pondering and what isn't?
Xavier Johnson
Yeah, these kinds of quetions to me are purely cultural/social ones. Guilt, Shame, Emotional Distress, these are all culturally learned expressions, based on a given societies taboos and rituals around sexuality. What will be emotionally traumatic in one culture is just an everyday occurrence in another.
You can imagine what a modern Feminist thinks of these scenarios, you can try to get in the mind of a Japanese noble in the period- but there are thousands of other possible vantage points. What would an Aztec High Priest think about these sexual customs? What would Jesus think? What would Plato think?
Part of the confusion, and this seems like the point of writing this essay and tabulating data on those stories, is that it isn't clear how these people felt about these practices- except that we have to assume it felt natural and normal. They likely have no other frame of reference, a competing form of sexuality in another culture and another time, to compare it with. If they were worldy enough to know how things were different in China or Korea or Europe, they probably wrote it off in typical racist fashion as the cultures being barbaric and uncivilized.
Jose Campbell
take the red pill cunk
Xavier Stewart
I'm only concerned about what the Japanese nobles saw it was since it was they who lived it. I disagree partly about what is emotionally traumatic in one place can be just an everday experience in another. It could be appraised to a lesser degree in one place than another but I wouldn't argue it could be experienced compeltely differently. This is a simple example but say a woman an pakistan or India who gets sexually harassed on the street.Then compare that to women in an Amerian culture complaining about sexual harassment in the street. Just because they experience to different degrees, doesn't mean it's barely damaging or has negative affects. For one thing, both girls are more likely to feel less comfortable going outside or wearing certain things.
Caleb Evans
Back to the concept face as self in relation to everyone else. Under such philosophy, people view others and themselves based on their relationships,no? So a person is not only themselves but someone's brother or sister and son or daughter and friend or subordinate. With that said, wouldn't such a philosophy push people to be more peace or empathetic? If you imagine the person next to you as not just that person but also connected in all those ways like you are as well. Does what I'm saying make sense btw?
Cameron Myers
To get this straight, is the consensus here that both probably happened but the former was more common or the opposite? That's really all I wanted to get down too.
Dominic Taylor
I get the point you're making here, that certain social stimulus (aggressive sexual phrases hurled on the street) is a mostly universal phenomenon. While the nature of the words change from language to language, and the reactions of the woman will vary slightly in different cultures, the fundamental situation will make any woman uncomfortable.
I think it's common sense that the actual form of street harrassment, the language specific words and phrases, will shift from culture to culture. The precise nature of sexual tabboos and gestures switches from place to place. So a catcall whistle might be totally misunderstood in North Korea, and some rude gesture in France won't be recongizable in Guatamala.
But beyond those differences, I think the emotional reactions are also culturally dependent. This is called the "Theory of Constructed Emotions", which states that the only innate emotions one has are pleasure/displeasure and High Arousal/Low Arousal. That all other emotional behavior, anger, shame, guilt, fear, happiness, joy, all must be learned reactions attached to phenomenon in the cultural environment. In some cultures, bugs elicit a fear reaction and are associated with disease and poison. In another, they elicit a hunger reaction as they are a tasty delicacy.
Sexuality and 'Fetishism' are very similar in my mind. Fetishism is defined as feeling sexual arousal towards non sexual objects/subjects/behavior, but what is and isn't a sex object is a purely cultural/social definition. The brain is only wired to learn what is and isn't sexual, but not completely predetermined as to the objects or particular associated emotional reactions.
But it can be a frighting thing too. Military culture in Japan through world war 2 is totally insane. Allegiance to the shogun/emperor was the only thing that mattered. A samurai without a master is worthless and has to commit suicide. A soldier is willing to kamikaze his plane into a battleship.
And the confucian 5 bonds, its extremely hierarchical. There are some pretty obvious feminist and democratic objections to defining the Ruler above the Ruled, the Father above his Children, etc.
The Indian Caste system is also pretty fucked up, and it's based in this same philosophical form of relationships over individuality.
Asher Smith
I get the feeling Land is reading his agenda more than anything.
Confucius went through all kinds of degrading and dangerous stuff to spread his doctrine (something for which he's mocked by Zhuangzi and Yang Zhu, who are Rousseau-tier) and Xunzi dedicates a whole chapter to dismissing physiognomy and affirming that one can only judge people for their good intentions (not that they are inherently so). It's true that there's no internal relationship to a God, but that's because Confucianism only deals with human affairs; its ultimate goal is the sacralization of ritual to create an harmonious society, not necessarily conformism to this present one.
>In Japan, allegiance to the Emperor was rationalized as the most important thing in life Japan also has the honne-tatemae dichotomy, and the Genji is all about private and psychological matters. And that's not even getting into more modern stuff.
Bringing up Buddhism makes even less sense given that it's all about the self, self-enlightening, going outside of society. Hell, the Suzuki quote is a perfect example of how Buddhism can go too *hard* on this direction--the case there is not for the good of a collective, but for the prevention of bad karma, the psychic activity of the individual is put above even the lives of others.
Isaiah Price
While the language understood as bawdy changes with the culture, don't forget harassment is also about the situation though. Even if the French man making a rude gesture to the the woman in Guatemala isn't understood, it still creates an uncomfortable situation. Similar with the catcall whistle. Yes, culture shapes our emotions and what we consider sexual but there are quite a few universals.
The one I was getting at was this concept that seemed to have emerged in most societies that women ought to be the passive receivers and males the initiators who must vie for the woman's attention. This taken with the concept of saving face by not not appearing too "easy" yet not too coy, and I guess to some degree, their tendency to exaggerate emotions in these kind of tellings could be the main reason. Of course that isn't the same as the sole reason. And biological reasons may support why many cultures developed such notions of the male and female approach to sex. Mainly women being the more "careful" selectors to which men had to prove themselves.
This as opposed to the idea of the actually girls(for many of these females were quite young) wanting to prevent the sex but actually having no choice but to submit, particularly when the family set it up to happen(you'll see that if you read further) since norms demanded it.
Mason Ortiz
>honne-tatemae Why did they have so many fucking civil wars then? But seriously, it seem dangerously close to the sociological theory of dramaturgy: front stage self, and backstage self.
Parker Fisher
Not to mention: Genji's first real love gets him blueballed as fuck when he tries to pay her a night visit. Then he kills another girl by accident by being too forceful with her and taking her to a witch house.
Did they really have *that* many more civil wars than anywhere else? Plus, just because you're keeping a face it doesn't mean your lord isn't going to do whatever he wants when he gets the chance.
Christian Anderson
>this concept that seemed to have emerged in most societies that women ought to be the passive receivers and males the initiators
Women are biologically the receiver; they are penetrated by the man and receive his semen.
Bentley Bell
That's too reductive. Females of many species (even social ones like dogs and lions), don't behave like human females are expected to. If anything it's got to do with increased dangers in childbirth due to bipedalism and increased brain mass, which might also be the cause for menopause.
Sebastian Brown
how is his name pronounced? "Cow Cow"? "Chow Chow"? "Sow Sow"? Sorry, I'm too lazy to look up a video clip of that movie you posted.
Isaiah Morris
Tsow Tsow
Andrew Robinson
Where do you find find these lectures? I recall he had some courses at an online school but they were prohibitively expensive, are these the ones you saw?
Leo Nguyen
so "tsow" pronounced /sau/, like the word for female pig(sow) in English?
Mason Rogers
What I meant by passive receivers was men initiate the encounter and women have to be convinced he is a worthy/ superior mate. Many societies took it to another level(Japs in this case being more autistic about it) to create this image of woman a the selectors who must not be too lax in their decision. Thus any woman that doesn't discriminate must be in some way, pathologically "easy." Beyond that, women having to be chaste virgins simply took the mindset to the extreme by assuming women should only care about sex in to the extent of producing and raising children.
Mason Sullivan
healthy children*
Matthew Roberts
No, the t is prounonced, like in tsunami or pizza. /t͡sʰau̯/
Caleb Lopez
The t in tsunami is basically silent no? That's what I was getting at.
Luke Turner
Yeah, he was teaching at the New Centre for a few years and was recently ousted. The lectures were only a couple hundred dollars, actually a pretty good deal. But it's all up for free on their youtube.
>kills another girl by accident by being too forceful with her and taking her to a witch house. explain.
Hunter Bell
Genji is so goodlooking his prettiness has supernatural effects, so a woman ghost ends up being attracted to him and kills the girl. I shit you not.
I guess. The problem is that Chinese has tons o Zs (which are pronounced similarly, not like English Z), so it's not a good idea to get habituated so pronouncing is as S.
