[ SECRET POST #4953 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4953 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 31 secrets from Secret Submission Post #709.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

They don't have a problem because they know things that aren't okay in real life can be okay in fiction where nobody is a real person and it's not like real life where it must be abusive to fuck someone you raised because power dynamics. If the story shows Sesshoumaru and Rin as a happy, consensual couple, that's what they are. Because fiction can make the impossible possible.

That's to say, the cultural divide between fiction and reality is different between Japan and the west, but that doesn't make Japan's worse.

[(Anonymous)]

okay but it still does normalize the idea of a romantic relationship between someone that was raised by the other party and people being mad about it aren't crazy to feel that way or somehow dense to think that it would single handedly be responsible for something like this happening in real life either.

[(Anonymous)]

No, it literally doesn't normalize anything. It is not possible for it to "single handedly" influence someone to commit a crime or be abused. In order for something like this to happen, an adult has to intentionally and deliberately manipulate a child, and literally no amount of non-problematic fiction is going to help or save them. Reading problematic fiction does not lead to the victim getting abused. Their abuse is not caused by something they did and it isn't the fault of an entirely unrelated 3rd party, either. What is ACTUALLY helpful is educating kids for the signs of predation and what to do if they think something might be wrong.

It's perfectly fine to discuss trends in fiction, why they exist, and being critical of media you consume. Teaching young people critical thinking and how to engage with fiction appropriately is key. Blaming fiction for someone's abuse and making grandiose claims that consuming certain fiction will lead to harm (with no sources to back it up) ain't it.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Yes to all of this. Thank you.

[(Anonymous)]

It may not normalize it to YOU but given how many manga have relationships like this? Like USagi Drop and that other about the little girl trying to seduce her kindergarden teacher, and so, so many age- difference ships in CLAMP mangas and so on? Maybe it's time we accept that yes, Japan media -and thus, Japanese readers- have a thing for this kind of thing that is presented as romantic.
It doesn't mean we should cancel Japan, manga or those authors. Just not pretend that there isn't a trend that presents grooming as romantic in fiction and not ALL readers will be able to see that in RL it's horribly wrong and abusive.

[(Anonymous)]

Sure, we can talk about how it's a popular trend in Japan, but is there an actual, legitimate problem of adults en masse grooming children to be their eventual spouse? Are people advocating for child marriage? No. They aren't.

Just because a reader is reading content that is unhealthy for them, and don't have the mental maturity to handle it, does not mean that the fiction is to blame.

[(Anonymous)]

ARYT

I don't know if there's a trend of adults en masse gromming children, at least not in any scientific way. I've just noticed that apparently, adults grooming children, or children acting in a sexy way in a way that is not criticized by the narrative itself, or is even rewarded has risen in manga. Back when I started reading manga, Usagi's 14 to Mamoru's 19 was seen as weird in the western fandom and rarely mentioned. Then I started to see a lot of "she looks 10 but is really older" manga, which paired the girl with older looking guys. And now, a lot of She's really 10 but she's dating an older man. Like, really dating him. THAT's normalization, as a lot of readers don't even bat an eye at a reality where absolutely no one has a problem with that (for example, Card Captor Sakura where a teacher gives an elementary student an engagement ring). Now, I don't judge 99% of the readers, and if ONE, or even 1% of the total readers, decides to use Inu Yasha to groom a child? Yeah, it's DEFINITELY not Inu Yasha's (Nor the other 99% readers) fault. But I still wonder why these kind of relationships have become so common place compared to before.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT - The "Problem" I was referring to is specifically use of this relationship dynamic, as in (for example) the twist ending of the manga "Usagi Drop", which can be summarised as "Man finds he is not related to the child he raised, marries her", and is widely despised by Western readers.

Because fiction can make the impossible possible.
Yeah, okay, I can accept the time travel and the reincarnation and the demon lords. Those are all A-OK. But a fair and equal relationship between a young human woman and the centuries-old demon lord who raised her? That is, without a shred of sarcasm, too much.
The thing is that human relationships are a real thing that exists, and unless the author has established that human development and psychology are distinctly different, we know for a fact how this sort of thing goes. Just as a show from the 50s might present a man who slaps his wife around as a loving husband and good family man, or a story set in the pre-war South might lionise a wealthy slaveowner, what the writer says about a character and what the audience accepts about that character don't necessarily have perfect overlap.

[(Anonymous)]

You can understand the divide between fiction and reality and still not want to read fiction depicting something gross. I'm disgusted by cannibalism, so I don't watch Hannibal. I don't think everyone, who watched Hannibal is a cannibal in real life. But I still won't watch it.

Also, there are people in this thread arguing that what Sesshomaru is doing isn't grooming, which is horrifying, because in real life it absolutely is, and real life abusers have used the "sure I was her stepdad, but we weren't really that close!" as an excuse. If you want to ship it despite the abuse that's ok, but don't try to say that it's not abuse in the first place.