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Women, Sexuality, and Postfeminism in Post-Growth Japan

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Women, Sexuality, and Postfeminism in Post-Growth Japan Consuming Pleasures: Women, Sexuality, and Postfeminism in Post-Growth Japan （快楽を消費する：成長後の日本における女性、セクシュアリティ、 そしてポストフェミニズム） ハンブルトン アレクサンドラ メイ Alexandra May Hambleton 論文の内容の要旨 論文題目 Consuming Pleasures: Women, Sexuality, and Postfeminism in Post- Growth Japan （快楽を消費する：成長後の日本における女性、 セクシュアリティ、そしてポストフェミニズム） 氏名 HAMBLETON Alexandra May In Japan, as a result of an education system and mainstream media that denies women active sexualities, and the limited success of second wave feminism, the rhetoric of women’s right to sexual pleasure never gained a strong foothold. Second wave feminism made great inroads into legislation, but widespread cultural change remained elusive— particularly in regards to female sexuality. This dissertation is a study of representations of female sexuality in post-growth neoliberal Japan. Based on more than two years of fieldwork conducted in the Tokyo area and discourse analysis of various media I question why feminist conceptualizations of women’s right to pleasure have failed to make inroads in a Japan that clings to a pronatalist, pro-growth ideology as the result of growing anxiety over the country’s economy and future. I examine women’s magazine anan, alternative sex education providers, and the growing number of female-friendly pleasure product companies who are working to change perceptions of female sexuality and contemplate whether their work can be considered feminist. This sector—an example of what Andi Zeisler (2016) has termed “marketplace feminism” may be thoroughly commercialized, yet it also offers a space in which women may explore discourses of sex and pleasure that were not previously available. In Chapter 1, I examine the social conditions of contemporary Japan that deny female pleasure and explain how second wave feminism failed to address desire. I then detail the methodological challenges associated with this research and explain how I addressed them. Chapter 2 traces the history of women’s magazine anan and its yearly “sex special issue”, arguing that the potential for the magazine to perpetuate a feminist agenda was there in its early years, only to be lost as commercialization and celebrity culture took over. In Chapter 3, I analyze sex education in Japan and the raft of sex self- help literature, medical specialists, and non-government organizations working to educate the public on issues of sex and pleasure. Finally I consider why they cannot break into the mainstream in the wake of the “gender free” backlash. Chapter 4 examines the contemporary sex toy industry, its customers, and the women responsible for a new generation of sex-positive businesses. I reveal that the sector both offers spaces for the exploration of notions of pleasure, while commercializing female desire and encouraging women to subscribe to phallocentric ideas of sex. In Chapter 5, I examine the female- friendly pornography industry, explain the reasons behind the porn industry’s move to cater to a female clientele, and illuminate the marketing strategies the sector employs to appeal to women. Finally, I consider the way in which the consumption of pornography can be considered transgressive, whilst simultaneously commercially co-opting women’s sexual desires. Throughout each chapter, sex, pleasure, and information are demonstrated to be commercial products. Sex for pleasure’s sake, for women’s pleasure’s sake, is almost nonexistent. Instead, it is viewed through a neoliberal lens in which everything can be packaged, marketed, and sold. The women involved in the industry are compelled to participate in paid affective labor in the form of sex-positive businesses in the hope that they may find satisfaction in their work and affect social change. Within neoliberal Japan however, these small spaces for the exploration of female sexuality may serve as a form of “vaccination” against more active forms of feminist engagement as women are propelled to demonstrate their progressive stance on sex, whist reiterating their desire to be beautiful and attractive to men. Feminist discourses of pleasure filter in from overseas, mediated by women who have developed an interest in female sexuality and presented through the lens of consumer capitalism—a small-scale form of marketplace feminism. The subversive behavior of the women outlined in this dissertation is thereby simultaneously made possible by the commodification of female desire, and commodified by the market in which it appears. Finally, I conclude that despite its links to consumer capitalism, marketplace feminism in the female-friendly product industry may just offer a space for feminist exploration. The women in this thesis are engaging in transgressive acts in that they are not quietly putting their sexuality to use in the service of men and the state, but are instead seeking to find new and creative ways to be sexual beings in an environment that does not welcome, or even tolerate, such behavior. That the female-friendly sex-positive industries exist at all indicates that there are many women involved in such transgressive behavior and the ongoing backlash against “gender free” and sex education since the mid-2000s suggests that the dominant forces of contemporary Japan legitimately fear the subversive potential feminist sex-positive discourses, and feel they must remain engaged in an ongoing battle to suppress them. Within this unwelcoming environment, purveyors of female-friendly pleasure products provide room in which to discuss issues of female sexuality that have previously been overlooked. These serve as spaces for education and feminist consciousness-raising as women discuss not only sexual pleasure, but also birth control, work, family, and child-rearing. Inadvertent everyday feminism, rather than explicitly activist feminist engagement is the result. “Small victories”—in the form of women discovering that they have the right to pleasure, discussing the injustices they experience as women, or realizing that perhaps they do not need men—abound. Table of Contents Abstract Table of Contents Acknowledgements List of Figures Author’s Note 1. Laws Over Love: Japanese Feminism and the Problem of Sex -------------------------- 1 Feminism in Japan—the Unresolved Problem of Sexuality ---------------------------------- 9 Let’s Talk About Sex ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 22 Dissertation Outline-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 31 Conclusion ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 33 2. Sex Is Our Specialty: Discourses of Sexuality in Women’s Magazine anan---------- 35 A Brief History of Sex, Texts, and the Women’s Magazine Market ------------------------ 39 Postwar Japan, Cultural Shifts, and the Birth of anan ---------------------------------------- 44 A New Generation of Women Find Themselves ---------------------------------------------- 47 Nudity and Freedom: Our Bodies Our Choice ------------------------------------------------- 55 The Birth of the Sex Special Issue --------------------------------------------------------------- 57 Shifting Discourses within anan’s Sex Specials—the 1990s and Beyond ---------------- 65 Sex and the Male Body as Consumer Goods -------------------------------------------------- 71 Postfeminist Media, Raunch Culture, or the Ultimate in Consumer Culture? ------------ 76 Safe (or Safely Contained?) Sex ----------------------------------------------------------------- 81 Conclusion ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 83 3. Procreation Before Pleasure: Sex Education as Ideology -------------------------------- 88 A Brief History of Sex Education---------------------------------------------------------------- 90 "Extreme" Sex Education, and Extreme Reactions ------------------------------------------- 93 Information or Paternalism? -------------------------------------------------------------------- 100 Marketing the Glamourous Condom ---------------------------------------------------------- 108 Too Much Sex, or Not Enough? --------------------------------------------------------------- 114 Help or Hindrance? Sex Self-Help Literature ------------------------------------------------ 120 Moving into the Media -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 124 Out of the Media and into Real Life ---------------------------------------------------------- 127 Hypnotic Alternatives --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 135 Conclusion ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 138 4. The Marketing of Liberation: The Selling of Sex-Positive Discourses and Sex Toys --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 143 Masturbation and the Marketplace ------------------------------------------------------------ 146 Pleasures with a Long History ----------------------------------------------------------------- 148 Sex Shops for Women, the Love Piece Club, and Feminist Sex Toys -------------------- 156 The New Generation of Vibrator Fashion ---------------------------------------------------- 162 Iroha: Vibrators for Beginners or Vibrator Nationalism? ---------------------------------- 168 Masturbation and Health: Becoming Beautiful Through Sex Toys? --------------------- 174 Masking the Liberated Woman----------------------------------------------------------------- 179 Masturbation
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