Toddler-Hunting”: the Beating Father, the Beaten Boy, and a Female Masochist

CHAPTER FOUR

Perverse Aesthetics in Taeko Kōno’s “Toddler-Hunting”: The Beating Father, the Beaten Boy, and a Female Masochist

Strangely, the foreigner lives within us: he is the hidden face of our identity, the space that wrecks our abode, the time in which understanding and affinity founder. Julia Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves Taeko Kōno (1926–) achieved status as an author with the publication of her Akutagawa Prize-winning work “Kani” (Crabs) in 1963, one of her ear- liest published stories. Kōno has since published a large number of literary works, and is still actively producing narratives that provide a discursive space for inquiry into issues surrounding gender configurations. Gretchen Jones, a scholar of Japanese literature, speaks of Kōno’s writings in terms of the value and validity of gender discourse, showing that “her [Kōno’s] narratives ‘play,’ in a perverse sort of way, with gender dynamics.”1 Critic Keiko Yonaha highly values Kōno’s subversive strategies with regard to institutionalized concepts of the female body.2 Foregrounding the compli- cated texture of female sexualities, the thematic impact of Kōno’s stories comes from their depiction of sadomasochism (usually female masochism and male sadism).3 Kōno’s female characters also often possess an abnor- mal attraction to otoko no ko (little boys) and an aversion toward onna

1 Gretchen Jones, Deviant Strategies: The Masochistic Aesthetic of Tanizaki Jun’ichirō and Kōno Taeko (Diss. The University of California-Berkeley, 1999), 157. In her analysis of the masochistic female characters in Taeko Kōno’s literary works (including Akiko in “Toddler-Hunting”), Jones uses Gilles Deleuze’s theory of pseudo-masochism which is directly linked to sadistic impulses. Jones asserts that the masochistic desires of the female subjects in Kōno’s works may possibly be displaced by a subconscious sadistic passion. 2 Keiko Yonaha, Gendai joryū sakka ron (Tokyo: Shinbisha, 1986), 8. 3 In her 1990 novel, Miira-tori ryōkitan (A Bizarre Story of Mummy Hunting), Kōno reverses her usual dynamic and features a male masochist who trains his female partner to play sadist for him. See Chizuko Uema’s Resisting Sadomasochism in Kōno Taeko (Diss. University of Oregon, 1998) and Gretchen Jones (1999) for details concerning the sadomas- ochistic mechanisms in Kōno’s works. Uema views Kōno’s sadomasochistic narratives in terms of a social discourse that fetters women, while Jones emphasizes the performativity of sadomasochism in Kōno’s literature as one of the key points required in discussing divergent female sexuality. 58 chapter four no ko (little girls).4 Among Kōno’s early works, “Yuki” (Snow, 1962), “Crabs” (1963), and “Ari takaru” (Ants Swarm, 1964) present multiple frameworks of female sexual ambivalence incorporating both sadomasochism and such perverse attitudes toward children. The combination of an adult woman’s attraction to otoko no ko and sadomasochistic desire may be seen in Kōno’s 1961 novella “Yōjigari” (Toddler-Hunting).5 Issues concerning female sexuality and gender dis- course inform the narrative development of the story. “Toddler-Hunting” also illustrates the structure of female fantasies of male homosexuality within the framework of the third stage of female sexual fantasies as out- lined in Freud’s “A Child is Being Beaten.” In accordance with Freud’s third stage, sexual desire arises from the female gaze directed at the (sex- ual) interaction of two men (the boy and the father). Thus, Freud’s article can be employed as a framework within which to analyze the narrative of female fantasies of male homosexuality in “Toddler-Hunting.”6

4 Kōno is not alone in her interest in the structures of shōnen (boy) identity. Among the contemporary Japanese women writers who explore shōnen identity, Mayumi Nagano is outstanding. In her first publication, Shōnen Arisu (Shōnen Alice, 1989), a shōnen version of Alice in Wonderland, she focuses on the shōnen bildungsroman within a homosocial/ homosexual context. In her serial works Hakuchū dōdō (Openly in Broad Daylight, 1997), Aozora (Blue Sky, 1998), Karera (Them, 2000), and Wakaba no koro (Around the Time of Green Leaves, 2001) especially, boys search for their self-identity by inquiring into issues of innocent (but physical) love for others of the same sex. In the popular field of yaoi manga (which is discussed in greater detail in Chapter Seven), there is also a strong female appre- ciation for shōnen. One yaoi manga genre, called shota mono, specifically deals with the sexuality of boys. The term shota derives originally from a boy character’s name, Shōtarō, in the famous Japanese anime Tetsujin 28 gō (Metalman No. 28). Among women, Shōtarō, who has a cute face and wears short pants, is considered the representative shōnen figure. Women who are attracted to shōnen are generally called shotakon no onna, women with a shōtarō complex. This shōtarō complex is usually compared with rorikon (the Lolita com- plex). An analysis of Kōno’s boy-obsessed characters in terms of the concept of shotakon certainly would prove enlightening, but it is not be pursued in this study. 5 “Toddler-Hunting” won the Shinchōsha dōjin zasshi shō (the Shinchōsha Literary Coterie Magazine Award). Kōno’s other works that have received literary awards are: Saigo no toki (The Last Time), Joryū bungaku shō (Women’s Literature Award, 1966); Fui no koe (A Sudden Voice), Yomiuri bungaku shō (Yomiuri Literature Award, 1969); her critical work Tanizaki bungaku to kōtei no yokubō (The Literature of Tanizaki and the Desire for Affirmation), Yomiuri Literature Award, 1976; Ichinen no bokka (A Year-Long Pastoral), Tanizaki Jun’ichirō bungaku shō (The Tanizaki Jun’ichirō Literary Award, 1980); and Miira-tori ryōkitan (A Bizarre Story of Mummy Hunting), Noma bungei shō (The Noma Literary Award, 1991). In the article “Yōjigari ron; Kōno Taeko no henshitsuteki shuppatsu” (Aosugahara 44), Katsumi Nakatani discusses the process by which “Toddler-Hunting” was awarded the Shinchōsha Literary Coterie Magazine Award, and how Kōno was motivated to apply for the award. 6 Let me repeat that I do not assume that all women share an identical sexuality, organized through an identical process of fantasy formation. The prevalence of beating