April 7, 2010 • 23 mins
In this episode, Molly and Cristen explore the Japanese subculture of "moe," which entails men forming romantic attachments to 2-D characters, and discuss how these "relationships" may be contributing to a drop in condom sales in Japan.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom? Never told
you from House top works dot Com. Hey there, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen, I'm Molly Molly. I
(00:20):
think that I can speak for both of us when
I say that we love the show thirty Rocks. It's
written and started by our one of our phase Tina
Fey Alec Baldwin. And there's a recent episode that starred
another favorite of ours, Mr James Franco, True Lately of
General Hospital fame. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. But
(00:44):
James Franco plays himself in this episode of thirty Rock
and he has a secret relationship with a body pillow
that depicts a Japanese manga or anime character named Kimikaton. Yes,
he is in love with a two D character, right,
(01:05):
so he needs to hide this relationship with this body
pillow with a fake relationship with a real woman too,
full of paparazzi who are following him around, and hilarity
ensues as it normally does on thirty Rock. And uh
that I think was the mainstream introduction of something called moa. Yes,
moa is a term for not necessarily someone who falls
(01:29):
in love with a body pillow, but it's more this
idea of forming some kind of attachment or relationship with
an anime character. And usually these anime characters are busty
it somehow prepubescent do ide girls very innocent, very naive,
not to not to world savvy. That kind of excludes
(01:50):
a woman from being a moe um objective desire. And
this is also a subset of something called otaca culture,
which is the obset some fandom that uh you know
comes up with anime and manga and video games, especially
in Japan over the last decade. Right, so you see
(02:10):
articles every now and then, in fact, um, last week
of the week we're recording this, so it'll be a
few weeks passed by the time you hear this, a
man married his body pillow. And every now and then
you see these sort of strange stories that will come
out of Japan, like a a fellow marries a video
game character and there are pictures of him standing around
with his game boy and the woman holding I mean,
(02:32):
the woman's on the game boy and he's kind of
holding the game boy and smiling at her, and you know,
they drive around and he pulls out the device and
takes a picture, and then they get back on the
car and he introduces it to his parents. How do
you think that went, Kristen, Uh, you know, I really
can't predict it. I don't know his parents. I think
if I were his parents, you know, I don't know
(02:54):
what I would do. I don't know how I were
to react to my son marrying a video game device,
but I hope that I would be as loving and
accepting as as possible. Well, that's good, and now we're
going to examine whether the whole country, the country is,
the whole of Japan is being very accepting of this
new sort of romance that's blooming amidst other men. Because
(03:15):
you know what, Kristen, there's so much love between video
game characters and body pillows that condom cells are dropping,
condom sales are dropping. And it's not just because men
are choosing to take home body pillows instead of women.
This is actually part of sort of a larger cultural
(03:36):
trend that I think has been going on really since
the late nineties and early two thousand's. Uh. And for instance,
this is a USA Today article from two thousand four,
so it's a little bit dated, but just to give
you an idea of when this condom issue started, they said.
In a two thousand one survey, condom maker Dirks found
that Japan ranked dead last among twenty eight countries in
(03:58):
the frequency of sex, and the condom shipments were down
since ninete. Now that might have to do with Japan
legalizing birth control pills in but I'm still they're pretty low. Yeah,
So let's let's examine some of the reasons why the
sales might be down, and let's return to this idea
(04:19):
of two D love, as writer Lisa Katayama terms it
in a New York Times article. And it's a great
New York Times articles called love and two D and
it it really just goes through some of the kinds
of people that this culture attracts. The profile begins by
following a man named Nissan who has fallen in love.
(04:40):
He says with a character named Namuton, maybe I'm saying
all this correctly, um. And it's basically an X rayed
version of a PC video game called Decapo. And he
first encountered his lady, Nemu, as he likes to call her,
is the nickname for her at a comic convention and
(05:00):
he saw her. It was love at first sight. You know.
Now he takes uh this body pillow depicting Nemu out
with him to to dinner and outings and for for walks,
and of course you know probably they probably cuddle a
lot because a soft body pillow, Well, he keeps an
extra one. I was happy to hear at his at
(05:21):
his office so that if he has to work late
and just sleep at the office, he can pull out
work Nemu and cuttle up with her. And I should
probably mention this guy's thirty seven, and Nissan is not
his real name. In the in the video game, the
girl calls her big brother Nissan, and so that's he
sort of adopted the name because it was part of
(05:44):
the Nemu world. I guess. Now, before Nissan started dating
this video game character, he was dating a lady I
R L if you will in real life, yes, Um,
who ended up breaking up with him and broke his heart,
and he was just devastated from the relationship and he
(06:06):
really wasn't that interested in having to go through all
of that heartache again, especially once he met Nemu, who
isn't going to judge him. You know, she's going to
be there with him any time that he needs her,
So why not just carry this body pull around because
he says that he's finding just as much fulfillment with
her and um. The article points out that people who
(06:28):
have studied this MOE phenomenon attribute the rise of two
D love in Japan to young men's difficulty in navigating
modern romantic life, because, as we're going to talk about
more in this podcast, the relationships between men and women
in Japan have changed drastically in the past decade. So
the article makes the point that there are men like
(06:51):
Nissan who totally opt out of any sort of real
life love because they want to just pursue two D love,
and because relationship between men and women are changing so much,
there's not as much dating among young people. Uh. In
the New York Times, they estimate that more than a
quarter of unmarried men and women between the ages of
thirty and thirty four virgins and fifty of men and
(07:12):
women in Japan say they are not going out with anybody,
so very little dating. And interestingly, The New York Times
also points out that one of the biggest bestsellers in
Japan was a book called Health and Physical Education for
for Over thirty, which was this guide book for older
people who um and was all illustrated with with the
anime characters. It was a guide to how to date
(07:34):
and uh, seduce a lady and get married when you're
over thirty and only can relate to your video game characters. Yeah,
because there has been an overall decline in the marriage
rate in Japan, a lot of women especially are choosing
to delay marriage and this has kind of had a
ripple effect of men sort of retreating back from their
(07:56):
dating lives as well. And going back to the USA
Today article, it points out that weddings dropped in two
thousand three for the second straight year, and at fifty
percent of Japanese women and they're late twenties are single,
up from only thirty point six percent in nine and
that has also had the result of a drastic drop
(08:19):
in the birth rate in Japan. And I saw, you know,
collection of columns questioning whether or not Japan is you know,
on the verge of basically destroying itself because the population,
the existing population is aging so rapidly, but there aren't
enough young people that are enough babies being born essentially
to take their place, and since they also have pretty
(08:43):
high life expectancies, you have these older, unmarried people who
are choosing to stay at home and they're going to
be caring for their aging parents. They're not getting married,
and what's gonna happen when you need a new generation
of employees. They're not there right to supply pensions, for
one thing. So Chris and I just want to go
(09:05):
over a few more details from this New York Times
artic before we go onto some of the other issues
that are happening in Japan. Um I was kind of
struck by another guy who has profiled in the article
who has many, many pillows, and one of his favorites
is one uh that is a naked girl, flush cheeks,
prepubescent nipples hidden by her forearms, and her underwears down
(09:26):
around her ankles, but where her vagina would be there's
like a translucent, pixelated square. M So, I mean, I
just I don't think the Week should make any sort
of connection that it's like a sex doll, is what
I'm trying to get at with that description. And people
have worried because these girls are so prepubescent is it troubling,
I mean, will it be you know, people acting on
(09:46):
real life impulses and you know, picking up very young
girls and having real relationship ships with them, and it
doesn't seem to be that. It just really seems to
be that it's much easier to get along with someone
who can't talk back. Well, that's not entirely surprising that
you think that these guys might not be doing anything
(10:07):
physically to these pillows, because there have also been reports
from Japanese women who are trying to date these guys,
especially you know, a little bit older who they might
go on an out of town trip or they stay
over the house and they just fall asleep. Like the
guys don't make any moves. Separate rooms, separate rooms. Yeah,
(10:29):
they're not. They're not having sex once again, low lowest
condom sales, you know, among these twenty eight countries, it
seems like not only are some of these men retreating
from real relationships, but they're retreating from just sex in general.
And this USA Today article also points out that as
many as a million young men this is mostly teenagers,
(10:51):
but it says that they suffer from something known as
hikiko morrow, which is a condition in which they seclude
themselves up in their room for weeks at a time.
They kind of sequest with themselves away. But then once
we get to the older subsets, I think it might
be a good time to bring up something a little
newer that sociologists Japanese sociologists are turning terming herbivores, herbivores
(11:17):
and carnivores. I which would you rather be, Kristen? Do
you think that's just refers to what they eat for dinner?
Are they just vegetarians and meat eaters? No? No, indeed no.
This more has to do with the type of lifestyle
that Japanese men are choosing, and and these sociologists are
saying that around six of today's men between twenty and
(11:41):
thirty four in Japan are herbivores, meaning they and this
is according to an article in the Japan Times, saying
that they are not as competitively minded about their jobs
as men in older generations. They're more fashion conscious and
body conscious. They're very chummy with their mothers and like
to go shopping very often, and they're not interested in
(12:01):
dating girls, having relationships, or even having sex. So Krystin,
let's talk for um and about some reasons why they
think there's a rise in these literally translated grass eating boys.
So so shoot go don shi a k herbi horse um.
One thing that kind of stuck out to me was
a sentence in an article that said, um, men of
(12:25):
a certain generation in Japan today have never known what
it was like to live in a good economy, and
so that's it's much harder for them to strike out
on their own, get their own place, afford to take
a woman out. And apparently these Japanese women expect a
lot because they also for the first time, have some
disposal income of their own right. Because while we have
(12:47):
this wave of men who are kind of pulling back
from society in a way, we also have on the
flip side of that, women who are really making their
first big eyes in Japanese society. Because it wasn't until
the late eighties that the Japanese government instituted equal employment laws,
(13:08):
and so women finally were able to start getting a
leg up in the office. But in the early n
the Japanese economy has a lot of problems. So right
now there's just a lot of people who the women
have money for the first time, the men aren't being
able to find success the way their fathers did. And
it's really affecting gender roles. Um that Japan used to
(13:31):
have these very traditional gender roles, and one article points
out that the way some Japanese men would propose would
be I want you to make me me so suit
for the rest of my life. And these women are like, what, no, thanks. Yes,
Traditionally women stay at home, took care of the house,
raised children, and now they want to go out in
(13:52):
the workforce and by handbags. Sound familiar, Why, yes, it does, Molly.
It sounds a lot like something we've talked about here
stuff many a time called second wave feminism. And this
was over in the United States when we had women
in the sixties and seventies really starting to enter into
the workforce. We have our own equal equal employment laws
(14:13):
on the books. Women are gaining a leg up getting
out of the house. Gender roles are starting to shift
a little bit. And the thing that I questioned about, uh,
you know, we're when we see these trends with these
Japanese men who are supposedly you know, I've seen it
in some newspaper columns calling them girly men. You know,
(14:33):
they're so soft and then you have these Japanese women
who are you know, in the in the workforce and
have all these high standards for men that they really
can't attain right now. It made me wonder what would
happen if we wouldn't see a similar kind of cultural
shift in the United States of second wave feminism we're
happening now or in the past decade. Then if it
had been going on in the sixties and seventies, especially
(14:54):
because I mean, if you think of Japan, it's so
technologically advanced, like think about all of the all of
those changes that are going on, coupled with this very
intense social change going on as well. I mean, I
don't think it's that surprising that we have all of
these kind of odd trends, right, I mean, I think
if the Internet had been around one second way of
(15:15):
feminism was going on, then men probably would have discovered
body pillows here too. I mean, if your main form
of entertainment is all this anime comic book stuff, then
you know, and that's there are these basically prepubescent, butting
innocent women being held up as part of your your
main form of you know, entertainment and consumption. Then that
(15:38):
contrasts so vividly with what they're experiencing in the real
three D world. I think there's, you know, an understandable
reason why they would retreat and want the simpler times.
I mean, it's not necessarily good for the women because
they're going to be single and they got no one
to spend money on condoms for. But you know, it's
I don't want to, you know, condone it, but it's understandable.
(15:59):
I think that's understandable. And it's not you know, we
say it's not really good for the women because you're
now seeing trend stories about these single Japanese women who
are desperate to find some kind of husbands, some men
who wants to take them out on the date. But
at the same time, it can't be necessarily healthy in
the long run for Japanese men as well, not to
say that you go over to Japan, you're going to
(16:20):
see just hordes of men carrying around body pillows. I mean,
this is you know, pretty kind of media happy trend,
I think, because it's it's kind of strange in our
in our western eyes to talk about. But if the
best selling book is an anime guide to marriage, that's
true that's not great. That is true, But I think that, um,
(16:40):
when we're starting out all of this stuff about herbivores
versus carnivores m because a lot of the news coverage
depicts these men as quote unquote feminine, you know, like
there have been trend pieces about oh, these these men
are now buying bras, which actually, if you look the
actual trend, it's like a couple of thousand bras have
(17:03):
been sold to these men. But if you google Japanese
men bras, you'll see a low stories because they I'll
use the same photo and the I'll be like, oh
my goodness, o MG, to use an internet term, these
men are wearing bras. And there was also a survey
from Total International, the toilet manufacturer, that claimed that a
third of Japanese men urinate sitting down. Oh my goodness,
(17:26):
you know, the ultimate sign of masculinity destroyed. Right, But
then that gets into another, you know, a whole another
conversation about like, well, what does masculiney mean today anyway?
And should we be calling these you know, and what
does femininity mean in a day of supposedly you know,
equal employment, equal opportunity. Is that really a valid judgment
(17:49):
to make. And coming back to that point about the economy, Molly,
that you made a little while ago, I think that
Slate did a really good job of explaining this herbivore
versus carnivore thing that's going on in terms of this, uh,
this down shift in the economy that has now had
a ripple effect into men's lifestyle choices, because it talks
(18:11):
about how, in the eyes of these guys who might
be termed herbivores, they're not just trying to become you know,
extreme metro sexuals or whatever you want to call it.
It's more they perceive it as more not wanting to
live up to traditional social expectations in their relationships with women,
their jobs, or anything else. They don't feel like they
have to ascribe to this traditional idea of masculinity and
(18:36):
now have a little bit more room to I don't know,
I guess express themselves more and I don't think there's
anything necessarily wrong with that, And I do think there's
something to be said for I don't know the confidence
that it would take, at least for I think most
people here that you know are thinking about this, to
go out in public with a body pillow. You know,
(18:57):
to some extent, I wonder if it's better to be
out in public with something weird relationship wise and doing
it behind closed doors, which kind of makes it even
more kind of outside the norm and perhaps a dangerous perversion.
But then yeah, I mean, I think you also to
have to um in terms of relationships. You do have
(19:18):
to question whether or not, you know, they're re creating
such an attachment to things on the internet and things
in anime or manga culture that aren't real. You know,
if we're kind of the whole idea of concept of
romance and love is really becoming blurred, and whether or
not that's going to have positive repercussions or not. Food
(19:42):
for thought because at some point, you know, if you
want to keep up a species, you do have to
reproduce in some way. But I do you think no
matter what, Yeah, I think it does provides some interesting
food for thought for questioning what exactly are our gender
ideals today, how technology in packs that, and maybe how
technology is going to possibly impact our population as a whole.
(20:08):
Very interesting questions, Kristen, So a few things to say
about any of those conversation topics that Kristen very helpfully
laid out in bullet point format email us at mom
stuff at how stuff works dot com. Because the conversation
is endless here. We haven't solved in this country what
will Japan do with their gender problems? And speaking of emails,
(20:30):
mo only, why don't we read a couple? Okay, so
we're gonna start with one from Kel who writes, I'm
the artist and writer of a web comic called Sorcery
one oh one, which is located at www dot Sorcery
one oh one dot net. I recently found your podcast
while looking for podcasts to listen to you while I draw.
One point you mentioned in your episode chick Lit caught
(20:53):
my attention. During the discussion, you mentioned graphic novels being
used to get boys to read more and letting them
know that comics counts is reading. I want to point
out that this tactics should also be used for girls.
With the rise of manga and web comics, more and
more girls are reading comics. Manga because Japan has a
vast collection of titles specifically targeting girls, then web comics
because since it's fairly easy to start a web comics,
(21:13):
you're getting more variety than traditional mainstream comics. So you're
seeing more comics starting up by female creators, either consciously
or unconsciously target the more. A good example will be
Girls with Slingshots dot com and of course my own comic.
Then you have publishers branching out to each its demographic
they've been kind of ignoring for a long time, so
you get some titles like Persepolis and Spider Man Loves
(21:34):
Mary Jane. So kind of relevant email to read here
at the end of this one, But I wanted to
give a big thumbs up to Sorcery one on one
and are very talented listener kill All right, Well, I've
got one here from Sonny and this is in response
to our recent podcast about racial discrimination in ballet and dance.
And she says, after listening to your podcast, I was
(21:55):
surprised that you didn't mention Maria toll Chief. Not only
is she one of the most famous American dancer is
she's also part of the Osaga Nation. When she started
her career in the early nineteen forties, the ballet world
was almost unexceptionally white. She's a true pioneer with a
career spanning decades. First with the influential Ballet Roost de
Monte Carlo, then as the New York City Ballet's first
(22:16):
prima Ballerina and later as founder of the Chicago City Ballet.
Her collaboration with George Balanchine, who was her husband for
a time, made her name synonymous with some of the
most well known of Balanchin's choreography, from The Firebird, Swan
Lake and The Nutcracker. As a ballet dancer in a
groundbreaking role model, Maria taul Chief should be at the
top of the list. So thanks for letting us know.
(22:36):
Sunny very cool, all right. If you've got something to say,
our email addresses Mom stuff at hose stuff works dot com.
During the week, Chris and I are blogging our little
heads off at a blog called how to stuff and
if you'd like to learn more about how to do things,
Japanese culture, everything under the sun, then head on over
to how stuff works dot com. For more on this
(23:01):
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
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you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom? Never told
you from House top works dot Com. Hey there, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen, I'm Molly Molly. I
(00:20):
think that I can speak for both of us when
I say that we love the show thirty Rocks. It's
written and started by our one of our phase Tina
Fey Alec Baldwin. And there's a recent episode that starred
another favorite of ours, Mr James Franco, True Lately of
General Hospital fame. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. But
(00:44):
James Franco plays himself in this episode of thirty Rock
and he has a secret relationship with a body pillow
that depicts a Japanese manga or anime character named Kimikaton. Yes,
he is in love with a two D character, right,
(01:05):
so he needs to hide this relationship with this body
pillow with a fake relationship with a real woman too,
full of paparazzi who are following him around, and hilarity
ensues as it normally does on thirty Rock. And uh
that I think was the mainstream introduction of something called moa. Yes,
moa is a term for not necessarily someone who falls
(01:29):
in love with a body pillow, but it's more this
idea of forming some kind of attachment or relationship with
an anime character. And usually these anime characters are busty
it somehow prepubescent do ide girls very innocent, very naive,
not to not to world savvy. That kind of excludes
(01:50):
a woman from being a moe um objective desire. And
this is also a subset of something called otaca culture,
which is the obset some fandom that uh you know
comes up with anime and manga and video games, especially
in Japan over the last decade. Right, so you see
(02:10):
articles every now and then, in fact, um, last week
of the week we're recording this, so it'll be a
few weeks passed by the time you hear this, a
man married his body pillow. And every now and then
you see these sort of strange stories that will come
out of Japan, like a a fellow marries a video
game character and there are pictures of him standing around
with his game boy and the woman holding I mean,
(02:32):
the woman's on the game boy and he's kind of
holding the game boy and smiling at her, and you know,
they drive around and he pulls out the device and
takes a picture, and then they get back on the
car and he introduces it to his parents. How do
you think that went, Kristen, Uh, you know, I really
can't predict it. I don't know his parents. I think
if I were his parents, you know, I don't know
(02:54):
what I would do. I don't know how I were
to react to my son marrying a video game device,
but I hope that I would be as loving and
accepting as as possible. Well, that's good, and now we're
going to examine whether the whole country, the country is,
the whole of Japan is being very accepting of this
new sort of romance that's blooming amidst other men. Because
(03:15):
you know what, Kristen, there's so much love between video
game characters and body pillows that condom cells are dropping,
condom sales are dropping. And it's not just because men
are choosing to take home body pillows instead of women.
This is actually part of sort of a larger cultural
(03:36):
trend that I think has been going on really since
the late nineties and early two thousand's. Uh. And for instance,
this is a USA Today article from two thousand four,
so it's a little bit dated, but just to give
you an idea of when this condom issue started, they said.
In a two thousand one survey, condom maker Dirks found
that Japan ranked dead last among twenty eight countries in
(03:58):
the frequency of sex, and the condom shipments were down
since ninete. Now that might have to do with Japan
legalizing birth control pills in but I'm still they're pretty low. Yeah,
So let's let's examine some of the reasons why the
sales might be down, and let's return to this idea
(04:19):
of two D love, as writer Lisa Katayama terms it
in a New York Times article. And it's a great
New York Times articles called love and two D and
it it really just goes through some of the kinds
of people that this culture attracts. The profile begins by
following a man named Nissan who has fallen in love.
(04:40):
He says with a character named Namuton, maybe I'm saying
all this correctly, um. And it's basically an X rayed
version of a PC video game called Decapo. And he
first encountered his lady, Nemu, as he likes to call her,
is the nickname for her at a comic convention and
(05:00):
he saw her. It was love at first sight. You know.
Now he takes uh this body pillow depicting Nemu out
with him to to dinner and outings and for for walks,
and of course you know probably they probably cuddle a
lot because a soft body pillow, Well, he keeps an
extra one. I was happy to hear at his at
(05:21):
his office so that if he has to work late
and just sleep at the office, he can pull out
work Nemu and cuttle up with her. And I should
probably mention this guy's thirty seven, and Nissan is not
his real name. In the in the video game, the
girl calls her big brother Nissan, and so that's he
sort of adopted the name because it was part of
(05:44):
the Nemu world. I guess. Now, before Nissan started dating
this video game character, he was dating a lady I
R L if you will in real life, yes, Um,
who ended up breaking up with him and broke his heart,
and he was just devastated from the relationship and he
(06:06):
really wasn't that interested in having to go through all
of that heartache again, especially once he met Nemu, who
isn't going to judge him. You know, she's going to
be there with him any time that he needs her,
So why not just carry this body pull around because
he says that he's finding just as much fulfillment with
her and um. The article points out that people who
(06:28):
have studied this MOE phenomenon attribute the rise of two
D love in Japan to young men's difficulty in navigating
modern romantic life, because, as we're going to talk about
more in this podcast, the relationships between men and women
in Japan have changed drastically in the past decade. So
the article makes the point that there are men like
(06:51):
Nissan who totally opt out of any sort of real
life love because they want to just pursue two D love,
and because relationship between men and women are changing so much,
there's not as much dating among young people. Uh. In
the New York Times, they estimate that more than a
quarter of unmarried men and women between the ages of
thirty and thirty four virgins and fifty of men and
(07:12):
women in Japan say they are not going out with anybody,
so very little dating. And interestingly, The New York Times
also points out that one of the biggest bestsellers in
Japan was a book called Health and Physical Education for
for Over thirty, which was this guide book for older
people who um and was all illustrated with with the
anime characters. It was a guide to how to date
(07:34):
and uh, seduce a lady and get married when you're
over thirty and only can relate to your video game characters. Yeah,
because there has been an overall decline in the marriage
rate in Japan, a lot of women especially are choosing
to delay marriage and this has kind of had a
ripple effect of men sort of retreating back from their
(07:56):
dating lives as well. And going back to the USA
Today article, it points out that weddings dropped in two
thousand three for the second straight year, and at fifty
percent of Japanese women and they're late twenties are single,
up from only thirty point six percent in nine and
that has also had the result of a drastic drop
(08:19):
in the birth rate in Japan. And I saw, you know,
collection of columns questioning whether or not Japan is you know,
on the verge of basically destroying itself because the population,
the existing population is aging so rapidly, but there aren't
enough young people that are enough babies being born essentially
to take their place, and since they also have pretty
(08:43):
high life expectancies, you have these older, unmarried people who
are choosing to stay at home and they're going to
be caring for their aging parents. They're not getting married,
and what's gonna happen when you need a new generation
of employees. They're not there right to supply pensions, for
one thing. So Chris and I just want to go
(09:05):
over a few more details from this New York Times
artic before we go onto some of the other issues
that are happening in Japan. Um I was kind of
struck by another guy who has profiled in the article
who has many, many pillows, and one of his favorites
is one uh that is a naked girl, flush cheeks,
prepubescent nipples hidden by her forearms, and her underwears down
(09:26):
around her ankles, but where her vagina would be there's
like a translucent, pixelated square. M So, I mean, I
just I don't think the Week should make any sort
of connection that it's like a sex doll, is what
I'm trying to get at with that description. And people
have worried because these girls are so prepubescent is it troubling,
I mean, will it be you know, people acting on
(09:46):
real life impulses and you know, picking up very young
girls and having real relationship ships with them, and it
doesn't seem to be that. It just really seems to
be that it's much easier to get along with someone
who can't talk back. Well, that's not entirely surprising that
you think that these guys might not be doing anything
(10:07):
physically to these pillows, because there have also been reports
from Japanese women who are trying to date these guys,
especially you know, a little bit older who they might
go on an out of town trip or they stay
over the house and they just fall asleep. Like the
guys don't make any moves. Separate rooms, separate rooms. Yeah,
(10:29):
they're not. They're not having sex once again, low lowest
condom sales, you know, among these twenty eight countries, it
seems like not only are some of these men retreating
from real relationships, but they're retreating from just sex in general.
And this USA Today article also points out that as
many as a million young men this is mostly teenagers,
(10:51):
but it says that they suffer from something known as
hikiko morrow, which is a condition in which they seclude
themselves up in their room for weeks at a time.
They kind of sequest with themselves away. But then once
we get to the older subsets, I think it might
be a good time to bring up something a little
newer that sociologists Japanese sociologists are turning terming herbivores, herbivores
(11:17):
and carnivores. I which would you rather be, Kristen? Do
you think that's just refers to what they eat for dinner?
Are they just vegetarians and meat eaters? No? No, indeed no.
This more has to do with the type of lifestyle
that Japanese men are choosing, and and these sociologists are
saying that around six of today's men between twenty and
(11:41):
thirty four in Japan are herbivores, meaning they and this
is according to an article in the Japan Times, saying
that they are not as competitively minded about their jobs
as men in older generations. They're more fashion conscious and
body conscious. They're very chummy with their mothers and like
to go shopping very often, and they're not interested in
(12:01):
dating girls, having relationships, or even having sex. So Krystin,
let's talk for um and about some reasons why they
think there's a rise in these literally translated grass eating boys.
So so shoot go don shi a k herbi horse um.
One thing that kind of stuck out to me was
a sentence in an article that said, um, men of
(12:25):
a certain generation in Japan today have never known what
it was like to live in a good economy, and
so that's it's much harder for them to strike out
on their own, get their own place, afford to take
a woman out. And apparently these Japanese women expect a
lot because they also for the first time, have some
disposal income of their own right. Because while we have
(12:47):
this wave of men who are kind of pulling back
from society in a way, we also have on the
flip side of that, women who are really making their
first big eyes in Japanese society. Because it wasn't until
the late eighties that the Japanese government instituted equal employment laws,
(13:08):
and so women finally were able to start getting a
leg up in the office. But in the early n
the Japanese economy has a lot of problems. So right
now there's just a lot of people who the women
have money for the first time, the men aren't being
able to find success the way their fathers did. And
it's really affecting gender roles. Um that Japan used to
(13:31):
have these very traditional gender roles, and one article points
out that the way some Japanese men would propose would
be I want you to make me me so suit
for the rest of my life. And these women are like, what, no, thanks. Yes,
Traditionally women stay at home, took care of the house,
raised children, and now they want to go out in
(13:52):
the workforce and by handbags. Sound familiar, Why, yes, it does, Molly.
It sounds a lot like something we've talked about here
stuff many a time called second wave feminism. And this
was over in the United States when we had women
in the sixties and seventies really starting to enter into
the workforce. We have our own equal equal employment laws
(14:13):
on the books. Women are gaining a leg up getting
out of the house. Gender roles are starting to shift
a little bit. And the thing that I questioned about, uh,
you know, we're when we see these trends with these
Japanese men who are supposedly you know, I've seen it
in some newspaper columns calling them girly men. You know,
(14:33):
they're so soft and then you have these Japanese women
who are you know, in the in the workforce and
have all these high standards for men that they really
can't attain right now. It made me wonder what would
happen if we wouldn't see a similar kind of cultural
shift in the United States of second wave feminism we're
happening now or in the past decade. Then if it
had been going on in the sixties and seventies, especially
(14:54):
because I mean, if you think of Japan, it's so
technologically advanced, like think about all of the all of
those changes that are going on, coupled with this very
intense social change going on as well. I mean, I
don't think it's that surprising that we have all of
these kind of odd trends, right, I mean, I think
if the Internet had been around one second way of
(15:15):
feminism was going on, then men probably would have discovered
body pillows here too. I mean, if your main form
of entertainment is all this anime comic book stuff, then
you know, and that's there are these basically prepubescent, butting
innocent women being held up as part of your your
main form of you know, entertainment and consumption. Then that
(15:38):
contrasts so vividly with what they're experiencing in the real
three D world. I think there's, you know, an understandable
reason why they would retreat and want the simpler times.
I mean, it's not necessarily good for the women because
they're going to be single and they got no one
to spend money on condoms for. But you know, it's
I don't want to, you know, condone it, but it's understandable.
(15:59):
I think that's understandable. And it's not you know, we
say it's not really good for the women because you're
now seeing trend stories about these single Japanese women who
are desperate to find some kind of husbands, some men
who wants to take them out on the date. But
at the same time, it can't be necessarily healthy in
the long run for Japanese men as well, not to
say that you go over to Japan, you're going to
(16:20):
see just hordes of men carrying around body pillows. I mean,
this is you know, pretty kind of media happy trend,
I think, because it's it's kind of strange in our
in our western eyes to talk about. But if the
best selling book is an anime guide to marriage, that's
true that's not great. That is true, But I think that, um,
(16:40):
when we're starting out all of this stuff about herbivores
versus carnivores m because a lot of the news coverage
depicts these men as quote unquote feminine, you know, like
there have been trend pieces about oh, these these men
are now buying bras, which actually, if you look the
actual trend, it's like a couple of thousand bras have
(17:03):
been sold to these men. But if you google Japanese
men bras, you'll see a low stories because they I'll
use the same photo and the I'll be like, oh
my goodness, o MG, to use an internet term, these
men are wearing bras. And there was also a survey
from Total International, the toilet manufacturer, that claimed that a
third of Japanese men urinate sitting down. Oh my goodness,
(17:26):
you know, the ultimate sign of masculinity destroyed. Right, But
then that gets into another, you know, a whole another
conversation about like, well, what does masculiney mean today anyway?
And should we be calling these you know, and what
does femininity mean in a day of supposedly you know,
equal employment, equal opportunity. Is that really a valid judgment
(17:49):
to make. And coming back to that point about the economy, Molly,
that you made a little while ago, I think that
Slate did a really good job of explaining this herbivore
versus carnivore thing that's going on in terms of this, uh,
this down shift in the economy that has now had
a ripple effect into men's lifestyle choices, because it talks
(18:11):
about how, in the eyes of these guys who might
be termed herbivores, they're not just trying to become you know,
extreme metro sexuals or whatever you want to call it.
It's more they perceive it as more not wanting to
live up to traditional social expectations in their relationships with women,
their jobs, or anything else. They don't feel like they
have to ascribe to this traditional idea of masculinity and
(18:36):
now have a little bit more room to I don't know,
I guess express themselves more and I don't think there's
anything necessarily wrong with that, And I do think there's
something to be said for I don't know the confidence
that it would take, at least for I think most
people here that you know are thinking about this, to
go out in public with a body pillow. You know,
(18:57):
to some extent, I wonder if it's better to be
out in public with something weird relationship wise and doing
it behind closed doors, which kind of makes it even
more kind of outside the norm and perhaps a dangerous perversion.
But then yeah, I mean, I think you also to
have to um in terms of relationships. You do have
(19:18):
to question whether or not, you know, they're re creating
such an attachment to things on the internet and things
in anime or manga culture that aren't real. You know,
if we're kind of the whole idea of concept of
romance and love is really becoming blurred, and whether or
not that's going to have positive repercussions or not. Food
(19:42):
for thought because at some point, you know, if you
want to keep up a species, you do have to
reproduce in some way. But I do you think no
matter what, Yeah, I think it does provides some interesting
food for thought for questioning what exactly are our gender
ideals today, how technology in packs that, and maybe how
technology is going to possibly impact our population as a whole.
(20:08):
Very interesting questions, Kristen, So a few things to say
about any of those conversation topics that Kristen very helpfully
laid out in bullet point format email us at mom
stuff at how stuff works dot com. Because the conversation
is endless here. We haven't solved in this country what
will Japan do with their gender problems? And speaking of emails,
(20:30):
mo only, why don't we read a couple? Okay, so
we're gonna start with one from Kel who writes, I'm
the artist and writer of a web comic called Sorcery
one oh one, which is located at www dot Sorcery
one oh one dot net. I recently found your podcast
while looking for podcasts to listen to you while I draw.
One point you mentioned in your episode chick Lit caught
(20:53):
my attention. During the discussion, you mentioned graphic novels being
used to get boys to read more and letting them
know that comics counts is reading. I want to point
out that this tactics should also be used for girls.
With the rise of manga and web comics, more and
more girls are reading comics. Manga because Japan has a
vast collection of titles specifically targeting girls, then web comics
because since it's fairly easy to start a web comics,
(21:13):
you're getting more variety than traditional mainstream comics. So you're
seeing more comics starting up by female creators, either consciously
or unconsciously target the more. A good example will be
Girls with Slingshots dot com and of course my own comic.
Then you have publishers branching out to each its demographic
they've been kind of ignoring for a long time, so
you get some titles like Persepolis and Spider Man Loves
(21:34):
Mary Jane. So kind of relevant email to read here
at the end of this one, But I wanted to
give a big thumbs up to Sorcery one on one
and are very talented listener kill All right, Well, I've
got one here from Sonny and this is in response
to our recent podcast about racial discrimination in ballet and dance.
And she says, after listening to your podcast, I was
(21:55):
surprised that you didn't mention Maria toll Chief. Not only
is she one of the most famous American dancer is
she's also part of the Osaga Nation. When she started
her career in the early nineteen forties, the ballet world
was almost unexceptionally white. She's a true pioneer with a
career spanning decades. First with the influential Ballet Roost de
Monte Carlo, then as the New York City Ballet's first
(22:16):
prima Ballerina and later as founder of the Chicago City Ballet.
Her collaboration with George Balanchine, who was her husband for
a time, made her name synonymous with some of the
most well known of Balanchin's choreography, from The Firebird, Swan
Lake and The Nutcracker. As a ballet dancer in a
groundbreaking role model, Maria taul Chief should be at the
top of the list. So thanks for letting us know.
(22:36):
Sunny very cool, all right. If you've got something to say,
our email addresses Mom stuff at hose stuff works dot com.
During the week, Chris and I are blogging our little
heads off at a blog called how to stuff and
if you'd like to learn more about how to do things,
Japanese culture, everything under the sun, then head on over
to how stuff works dot com. For more on this
(23:01):
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
the house stuff works dot com home page. Brought to
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