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UBC Theses and Dissertations
Japanese women writers watch a boy being beaten by his father : male homosexual fantasies, female sexuality and desire Nagaike, Kazumi
Abstract
This thesis discusses narrative texts by Japanese female writers and popular manga artists* that deal with fantasies of male-male sex. It applies a variety of psychoanalytic theories (Freudian, Kleinian, feminist and so forth) to demonstrate how fantasies about male homosexuality may be analyzed in terms of the psychological orientations of the many Japanese women who are the readers of this narrative genre. I also discuss a variety of themes that often accompany and appear to support female fantasies of male homosexuality: the concept of Thomme fatal' in Mori Mari's male homosexual trilogy; sadomasochism in Kono Taeko's "Toddler-Hunting"; the decadent aestheticism of Okamoto Kanoko's "The Bygone World'; postmodernism in Matsuura Rieko's The Reverse Version; and the concept of . pornography as it relates to yaoi manga. * * In attempting to analyze the discursive aspects of female fantasies of male homosexuality, I begin with an examination of Sigmund Freud's article, "A Child is Being Beaten," in which he refers to the female scoptophilic impulse. Several Japanese female writers—Kono Taeko, in particular—provide clear examples of narratives that parallel Freud's model of the beating fantasy. This female scoptophilic desire to watch a male homoerotic 'show' is activated by a psychological orientation such as that defined by Klein's model of projective identification: female characters and readers project their 'unbalanced egos' onto male homosexual characters, and this enhances the processes of identification with and (scoptophilic) dissociation from these characters—which in turn create the possibility of regaining psychological 'balance.' One of the main themes of my analysis is the development of subconscious female desires to access the bisexual (simultaneously masculine and feminine) body. I discuss the idealization of the shorten (boy) identity (in "Toddler-Hunting" and The Reverse Version) and the image of the 'reversible couple' in yaoi manga as specific forms of a sexual discourse that presents possibilities of escape from the arbitrary, socially-constructed, but institutionalized concepts of the female body. *manga: narrative comic books for readers of all ages **yaoi manga: a subgenre of comic books by and for women that feature male-male eroticism
Item Metadata
Title |
Japanese women writers watch a boy being beaten by his father : male homosexual fantasies, female sexuality and desire
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Creator | |
Publisher |
University of British Columbia
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Date Issued |
2004
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Description |
This thesis discusses narrative texts by Japanese female writers and popular manga
artists* that deal with fantasies of male-male sex. It applies a variety of psychoanalytic
theories (Freudian, Kleinian, feminist and so forth) to demonstrate how fantasies about male
homosexuality may be analyzed in terms of the psychological orientations of the many
Japanese women who are the readers of this narrative genre. I also discuss a variety of
themes that often accompany and appear to support female fantasies of male homosexuality:
the concept of Thomme fatal' in Mori Mari's male homosexual trilogy; sadomasochism in
Kono Taeko's "Toddler-Hunting"; the decadent aestheticism of Okamoto Kanoko's "The
Bygone World'; postmodernism in Matsuura Rieko's The Reverse Version; and the concept of
. pornography as it relates to yaoi manga. * *
In attempting to analyze the discursive aspects of female fantasies of male
homosexuality, I begin with an examination of Sigmund Freud's article, "A Child is Being
Beaten," in which he refers to the female scoptophilic impulse. Several Japanese female
writers—Kono Taeko, in particular—provide clear examples of narratives that parallel
Freud's model of the beating fantasy. This female scoptophilic desire to watch a male
homoerotic 'show' is activated by a psychological orientation such as that defined by Klein's
model of projective identification: female characters and readers project their 'unbalanced
egos' onto male homosexual characters, and this enhances the processes of identification with
and (scoptophilic) dissociation from these characters—which in turn create the possibility of
regaining psychological 'balance.'
One of the main themes of my analysis is the development of subconscious female
desires to access the bisexual (simultaneously masculine and feminine) body. I discuss the
idealization of the shorten (boy) identity (in "Toddler-Hunting" and The Reverse Version) and
the image of the 'reversible couple' in yaoi manga as specific forms of a sexual discourse
that presents possibilities of escape from the arbitrary, socially-constructed, but
institutionalized concepts of the female body.
*manga: narrative comic books for readers of all ages
**yaoi manga: a subgenre of comic books by and for women that feature male-male
eroticism
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Genre | |
Type | |
Language |
eng
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Date Available |
2009-12-21
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Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.
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DOI |
10.14288/1.0092299
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URI | |
Degree | |
Program | |
Affiliation | |
Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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Graduation Date |
2005-05
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Campus | |
Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Item Media
Item Citations and Data
Rights
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.