Thursday, January 06, 2005
"OFFICE SLUTS AND REBEL FLOWERS"
Porn Studies, an anthology of academic papers about pornography which came out last year, contains an article by Deborah Shamoon entitled "Office Sluts and Rebel Flowers: The Pleasures of Japanese Pornographic Comics for Women." Shamoon's primary topic is not yaoi, or manga depicting love between two men, but so-called "ladies' comics": pornographic manga by and for women depicting heterosexual sex, a popular genre in Japan with has not yet reached the U.S. The article didn't strike me as particularly insightful: her main thesis, that these manga encourage their readers to identify with the protagonists, and are therefore a good thing, is hardly startling. And when she refers to The Desert Peach, Meat Cake, Naughty Bits, A Distant Soil and Mystery Date--none of which are primarily erotic (with the possible exception of A Distant Soil, which I haven't read)--as "erotic comics written by and for women" (pp. 81, 100 n. 5), I'm not filled with confidence as to her accuracy in general. Still, the article is pretty interesting, and has information on a genre of manga about which there is little information available in English. (I myself don't own any of the type of comics Shamoon is discussing, though I'd like to; I have some stories by Shungicu Uchida which might be erotica, but they aren't in the shoujo tradition, as are the works Shamoon discusses.)
The anthology is edited by Linda Williams, and published by Duke University Press.
Porn Studies, an anthology of academic papers about pornography which came out last year, contains an article by Deborah Shamoon entitled "Office Sluts and Rebel Flowers: The Pleasures of Japanese Pornographic Comics for Women." Shamoon's primary topic is not yaoi, or manga depicting love between two men, but so-called "ladies' comics": pornographic manga by and for women depicting heterosexual sex, a popular genre in Japan with has not yet reached the U.S. The article didn't strike me as particularly insightful: her main thesis, that these manga encourage their readers to identify with the protagonists, and are therefore a good thing, is hardly startling. And when she refers to The Desert Peach, Meat Cake, Naughty Bits, A Distant Soil and Mystery Date--none of which are primarily erotic (with the possible exception of A Distant Soil, which I haven't read)--as "erotic comics written by and for women" (pp. 81, 100 n. 5), I'm not filled with confidence as to her accuracy in general. Still, the article is pretty interesting, and has information on a genre of manga about which there is little information available in English. (I myself don't own any of the type of comics Shamoon is discussing, though I'd like to; I have some stories by Shungicu Uchida which might be erotica, but they aren't in the shoujo tradition, as are the works Shamoon discusses.)
The anthology is edited by Linda Williams, and published by Duke University Press.
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