Open Collections

Eshghi Furuzawa, Shirin

University of British Columbia

In the early 2000s, Japanese publisher Shinchōsha introduced the By Women For Women R-18 Literary Prize, Onna ni yoru onna no tame no R-18 bungakushō 女による女のためのR-18文学賞. This prize, which is administered by women editors and which is overseen by a panel of women judges, solicits women-authored sexual writing directed towards women readers. Within this dissertation, I examine five prize-winning stories and investigate whether they incorporate concepts and themes that are included in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education, which has been developed in line with Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) best practices, and with a view to advance women’s equity and empowerment. Using feminist theory, I also consider whether and how patriarchal processes have been challenged through the creation and dissemination of the texts. Through this process, I determine 1) whether this women-centred literary environment, created through a private publishing house, allows for the development of sexual writing that potentially subverts patriarchal systems of disempowerment, such as the current governmental and societal restrictions on the accessibility of sexual knowledge and sexual writing, including within libraries; and 2) whether the writing produced within this prize conveys sexual knowledge that potentially empowers women readers. In addition to reviewing the origin and scope of the R-18 Literary Prize, I also provide a contextualizing overview of Japanese and global sexuality education practices and consider the patriarchal pressures on literary expression vis-à-vis women’s sexuality in Japan by looking back at the publication history of literary works with sexual content for and about women. While the prize stories examined here have a tendency to replicate hegemonic ideas of sexuality, the production of the stories is also empowering. Each story touches on topics highlighted in the UNESCO Guidance and provides a basis for discussion and reflection for readers, and a venue for sexual expression for writers. The prize and its stories normalize the idea that sexual knowledge is important for women’s understanding of their rights vis-à-vis their sexuality in order to achieve equity, autonomy and freedom.

Text

2024-07-10

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88601

Asian Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/