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this journal 
Just updatin' this baby since I have some bought time… bought because of my procrastination!
First off, MY TWIN SISTER HAS JOINED DEVIANTART!
Go see here stuff! It's cute, and the style is unique! It's refreshing and very awesome!
Glomps to her!
The second thing is on a serious note. I have this little rant I just had to get off my chest for a multiple of reasons.
One, it helps people understand my art, the morality behind them and my opinions reflected in them.
Two, I want to make a statement about a social phenomenon and about my stance in it.
Why? I dunno. I'm pretty sure I don't owe anyone an explanation, but I just felt the need to get it off my chest and out there in to the world.
How did all of this start? Well, the fact that I read a wonderful little fic by
, and in contrast multiple ones that I didn't agree with for one plot point: I am REALLY sick and tired of people making out the heroes to be "sexually schooled in the art of love" through experience. In other words, people preaching about casual sex and sexual promiscuity via their stories.First off, the "Schooled Hero" phenomena:
I am sick of the social stereotypes that a males status is based on his successful sexual conquest. I think almost every romance novel (or as we call them- garbage-in-a-book) as well as fanfic draw out the male hero as the "schooled in the language of love through experience" while the female a tender little virgin. And it sickens me. The same people which find this sort of thing "appealing" are- quite ironically and hypocritically- the ones that deny/ignore/ and unwilling to admit that their partners might have had previous relations (well, most of them at least), or at least they themselves find it hard to confront or admit. So it's ok to write and conceptualize it, but it's not ok when it's done to you... what the hell kind of logic is THAT?
Second, is also somehow contacted to the first, is that I believe that "casual sex" is morally wrong. We've devaluated so much in our society the way it is, and I never bought the whole "it's a biological thing" to come and support people who write this kind of "sex-o-rama" as right. In fact, there are multiple sociological and psychological analysts that bring forth evidence to support that theory. Yes, I'm sure- and have seen- the evidence of the counter argument, but I just don't buy it.
Whatever happened to preaching a higher standard of morals in society?
Most people will write their characters (if they are lords and kings and what not) as a leader with a harem of hundreds of females and offspring. While this might be right in the context of time and culture in the intended story, I find 2 things "wrong" (again, my opinion) with that:
1) If you check in the histories of most cultures, the aristocratic societies would try and uphold a different level of moral than the lower class. For the sake of example (and the fact that most fanfic is written about Japanese Anime characters in Japan) let's look at Japan- it is true that they did not identify free forms of romance as "immoral" (I say that in quotations because I am NOT saying that it is or isn't... my opinion is not necessarily the right one), but read here a passage from Yoshiro Hatano, Ph.D., and Tsuguo Shimazaki about sexual behavior around that era:
In Japan's history, an aristocratic culture dominated in the Nara (710-794), Heian (794-1336), and Muromachi (1336-1573) Eras. In the Sengoku (Turbulence) Period, many warlords competed with each other until the Tokugawa Shogunate was established and national integration begun in 1603. Various groups of the military commanders maintained control of the culture and the behavior of the Japanese people during the Sengoku and Tokugawa Eras. Therefore, the cultural construction and sexuality of the Japanese people operated in a double-layer system. More specifically, extremely strict moral ethics and control of behavior were enforced on children and adults in the families of the Samurai class (soldiers and the commanders), who were influenced by the Confucianism originally introduced to Japan in the sixth century from China. In the feudal value system, as well as its family system, there was no room for any free expression of human passions and natural desires. Thus not only romantic love, but also immoral and adulterous behavior of any kind were strictly prohibited, and severe penalties, including capital punishment, were instituted for any case that came to light.
While the Samurai community kept to a strict behavior code of ethics, the commoners and the townspeople did not, except for the upper class commoners who closely followed the Samurai code of ethics. Romantic love was freely allowed among the commoners, and often an illegitimate child - a single mother and her child in today's sense - was accepted and reared without any prejudices in the community or tenement commune (Bornoff 1991, 83-149).
*end paragraph*
Which means, all the fanfic out there about Samurai characters or Aristocratic Lord characters being promiscuous is slightly uninformed. Those things were looked down upon. Having said that:
YES! I AM AWARE THAT THERE WERE CULTURES AND/OR MONRACHIES THAT DID PRACTICE SUCH BEHAVIOUR WITHOUT IT BEGIN REGARDED AS "IMMORAL"!!!
But here in lies the second point of my argument:
2) The second note is something that as an artist we always had legitimacy to convey, and in so somehow is our social duty: Our social criticisms and moral standing.
Just because it happened, doesn't mean that it's right or wrong- but IN OUR OPINIONS we reflect to society OUR reasoning as to why we choose whichever way to voice ourselves, and why we think people should learn from this- again, not stating that we are right or wrong, but it is OUR expression.
I, for one, KNOW that I am considered to be an "idealist artist" as opposed to a "satirical" one. Which means that in given situations (my art, animation yadda yadda yadda), I tend to preach the "good vs. evil" with very strong archetypes of MY reasoning (not to say that I won't use typical archetypes, but some "typical" ones I don't agree with) and I will further intensify a characters attributes (good or evil) with criticisms and with characteristics that I find leaning toward "good" and "evil". Yes, it's very "black or white" of me, and while I do identify with the gray areas at times even in my own personality, I think that if we come to set a high contrast the gray areas will become slightly easer to decipher. I.E. when you aim for 100% you only get 90%, so if you aim for a higher achievement than 100% (say, 120%) you will naturally get your 100%.
This being said, I will even tend to write a character within a specific context with a characteristic or attribute that might not have existed in that time/place only to further heighten the "hero" appeal, or the "evil" repulsion to them.
So, chances are when viewing my art, you will NOT see me objectify men and women as sex objects- in fact, the only time I will draw a lightly "adult" oriented image will be when the image contains a * married couple * or a bonded couple, or to serve the sole purpose of illustrating one of my moral standings.
Again, the written above is all MY OPINION!
Don't note me with "You're wrong" or "That's $H!t" because you disagree with me, because I'll just send back to you a note saying "You're a tool" or "You are functionally retarded".
If you wish to discuss the issue with me- which again I state is MY opinion- in a mature fashion, I welcome you too, but so long as it remains a MUTURE discussion. Trust me, I know how to ignore people whom I don't want to hear anything from. My mother could tell you.
In other worldly news, I'm finally curbing my final projects, and seeing them all on their way. Animenorth is coming up, and I'm working toward that too. It's going to be quite the eventful up-coming month, but I'll be chiming in with news and some images and whatnot.
***CHECK MY SCRAPS!***
I'm an avid Scrap user! Lots of fun there!
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Heh heh. So not articulate. So tired. Work before dawn, organic chemistry. Whee.
"Whoopsie!! Dress fell off!!"
You are hilarious! Trust me, that post was articualte enough. I know what you meant. I'm about the same way now with all my finals too.
If you want to read some *good* original romance, I recommend Lynn Kurland. She's been known to have a "schooled hero" now and then, but it usually comes back to bite him in the butt, if you will. And the heroines' dresses *never* fall off.
Her "This Is All I Ask" is where my penname came from.
Interesting points you brought up on the Jpn history, when I think about it, I guess that strict ethics code is still prevalent even today to an extent; it is discouraged somewhat to show public displays of affection, especially for the guys. Being half Japanese and somewhat tomboyish, I've inherited that state of mind...I don't know, it could be different now, it has been a while since I've been in Japan.
I don't know if I was trying to make a point or not, I'm no writer so I can't come up with a decent discussion. Your rant just made me think out loud I guess. Sorry about that. I agree with what Mentalbaka said about casual sex; it's their funeral. I definetly liked Kena's argument, especially on the hymen thing *snort*, I don't know how many times I stumbled across fanfics that involved the "painful" breakage of the hymen. Hilarious.....okay I'll shutup now...
Interesting rant yo.
Actually, your Female schooled male virgin isn't so much cliché! It's actually a new twist on things, and just as feasible in a realistic situation. The problem I have is if you would write the female character to have had 100 boyfriends or a harem in her majesty's honor. THAT would make me shudder!
No no! Don't apologize for the post! You have made a valid contribution, and I'm glad I got you to thinking! That's all I want... to make people THINK! And I'm glad you have the capacity to do so. Some would just not even bother to read!
Before I go into my standing on it all, please anyone who reads this understand that this is my opinion and, like anuses, everyone has one. I'm not out to knock anyone down or say that above all I'm right and you're wrong. It's just a simple preference that reflects my core beliefs. That said.....
As for the actual subject of your rant, I would say that I agree with you. Though I was not aware until reading your journal of the actual historical facts of the sexualities of various Japanese castes, I find it slightly annoying when people have to make a big deal about their characters' sexual histories. Now, I've come across several fanfics that can pull this off, but usually this only occurs if the character had a true love with another character that has since then died or moved on (take Inu and Kikyo as an example). In that case, it wouldn't be a casual affair but something resulting from a true sense of love the characters felt for each other. However, as usually goes with fanfiction, the amount of good stuff is usually far outweighed by the crap (Good Fanfic Webring, whatever happened to you?
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not into smut words--they make me laugh to beat all and, for me, can really dampen what would otherwise be a romantic exchange between two characters. There are ways to get around using these words--believe me, I've found them--and there are also ways of writing good fanfiction and still using some of them. Want an example? Look to Anne Rice. She can write an erotic scene from the POV of a particular character, and based on that character's personality, insert words that would be common to and used often by them to describe things. Personally, I don't feel right using them because to me, I find that they really cheapen the love that the characters feel for each other, and well, compared to Anne Rice I'm crap.
From the perspective of the actual writing, a lot of people write the "schooled in the arts of love" and "tender virgin" passages because, in my opinion, they either aren't capable or are unwilling to spend the extra time needed to write the actions. Actions do speak much louder than words, and you can convey a lot more about the character and inspire more emotion in your readers by writing about what they actually do in an erotic scene rather than stating your straightforward opinion. Consider this: How would you convey that your male character is well endowed? Would you directly write: "He was 10inches long and hung like a horse," or "He was exceptionally well-endowed," or try to describe the physical sensations the female (or male in yaoi stories) would feel as a result? For me, the former statement of a precise length ranks pretty high on my squickiness scale and I would probably quit reading the fic after that. The second statement is a little bit better, but boring, because you could just as easily say that the "Sex was good" and cut out the whole lemon, which completely defeats the purpose of erotic fanfiction. The latter is more difficult to pull off and takes more time, but not only does it inspire more feelings in the readers, it leaves the passage open to interpretation--readers of different opinions regarding sex can make what they want of it.
From the perspective of someone who is sexually experienced though keep in mind that for me sex is always coupled with true feelings of love for another person and not something that is cheap and for extra kicks, the "tender virgin" things as portrayed by the descriptions of the actual breaking of the hymen are complete and total crap. First of all, a woman CANNOT FEEL HER HYMEN BREAKING!!! Believe me, because not only do I have the experience to back this up, but also the biological and medical knowledge (I'll email you a pic of my bio degree if you don't believe me). A lot of girls lose their hymens without having to insert anything in the vagina; intense stretching, exercising, even horseback riding can do it. The sharp pains that almost always accompany a girl's first time are a result of the stretching that the vagina has to undergo, not the hymen breaking. Depending on the various shapes and sizes of the male and female, the skin can actually be ripped open and bleeding can occur. Did you know that, on average, the amount of blood produced during menstration is, on average, only a teaspoon? How much blood do you think the ripping of a tiny fleshy barrier would cause? 'Nuff said.
From the perspective of moral values everyone has his or her own core beliefs. They may be based in religion, personal philosophy, or other experiences and emotion and are, for the most part, unique to the individual. Based on that, I have no right to judge the apparent "rightness" or "wrongness" of the morals a writer chooses to apply to the characters. On the other hand, I have every right to say whether or not I like a fic or not. I'm not a big fan of AUs or distinctly non-cannon couples (I define these as the pairings of enemies, family members, and yaoi/yuri/hetero pairings when the story pretty much directly states a character's sexuality), however, it shows great skill on the part of the writer if they can use the existing traits of the character and examine them from a different perspective to support these things. Again, the way I see it, there is a way a person can write fanfiction so as to inspire emotion in the readers, leave the story up to a certain amount of personal interpretation, and, by doing so, not offend a great number of people.
Thanks, Tark-chan, for writing the journal and to all other Deviants who have supplied different perspectives and viewpoints regarding this touchy subject. Food for thought is good.
Reading your journal also reminded me of something Queen-chan told me a little while back. She had told me how she had joined this forum of Inuyasha fanfic writers and readers. Apparently one of the "star" fics on the site is this one that was called "Movie House Hanyou" or something like that. Basically, all of the cast of Inuyasha were there, but somewhere along the lines their personalities got thrown out the window and were replaced by "cool, idealized" versions of the writer and her delinquit friends. Basically, the cast of Inuyasha was subjected to work in a movie theater and they all had multiple piercings, tatoos, drug addictions, pregnancies, and every possible sexual practice and position. And other than the fact that it the technical stuff and grammar of the writing were very well done, the fic sucked major ballz and was utter trash.
Someone needs to stand up for the integrity of fanfiction and our beloved characters!
Second, THANK YOU for putting in to words a far more articulate argument than I could ever. You brought up countless points that I was wrestling with, and even some that had slipped my mind- THANK YOU for the explanation for the hymen thing!!! I totally forgot about that... it also brings up another point that some people will put female characters in positions of discomfort (rape, massive pain, etc etc) and the "loving male" uncaring for her physical state and just keeps on going. SAY WHAT?!?! Not only is that FAR from being romantic, but by god they will make her FORGIVE him later? What the hell is that?!?
I remember reading a fic where the main love interest (I think it was even a "husband" kind of thing) rapes his "wife" even though she isn't willing, and then afterwards she forgives him.
To quote a friend- in these kinds of stories, "No" means "Yes", and "yes" means "faster".
Anyhow, I want to worship your post. It was by far one of the best composed arguments that I've seen!