Clamp Questions

[sharpeslass]

Okay, so my return to LiveJournal didn't take off quite with the momentum I'd planned. I just don't know where my time goes. I looked at my e-mail today and realized that two months had passed since I'd received an e-mail from a very good friend and that I still hadn't responded. I'm sure she is cross, but the time... it just sprints in epic

Comments

[lawless523]

The mother of the main character in Fruits Basket married her former middle school student teacher, and, IIRC, they started dating while she was still his student. (She dropped out of school after middle school; in Japan, middle school goes through what is freshman year in high school here. In Japan, school is only mandatory through middle school.)

The Heian-era The Tale of Genji, possibly the first modern novel and a classic, includes, among the various lovers Prince Genji, illegitimate son of the Emperor, enjoys, a girl named Murasaki whose guardianship is transferred from her father to Genji while she's young (around seven or so). She lives in one of his houses and is taught and groomed to be someone he finds interesting and attractive. She doesn't become his mistress until she's older, but it's definitely a relationship that would be considered creepy and borderline pedophiliac here

[sharpeslass]

THIRTEEN?????????????????? That is batshit insane. Srsly. 13. Let me ponder this...

[lawless523]

Prefectures can raise the age of consent as high as 18. I don't know which do.

Another practice that's prevalent is compensated dating, in which high school girls "date" well-off adult men in return for any or all of the following: the date itself, where he's expected to take her to a nice restaurant, dance club, etc.; goods such as designer handbags, shoes, and clothing; and cash. They can also make good money selling used, unwashed panties for men to purchase.

[sharpeslass]

Gross. Do upper class young women do this sort of thing? How do their parents feel about it? Does the "date" entail physical contact?

[7veilsphaedra]

I'm not in favour of fiction reflecting real life too closely - unless that's how the fiction itself wants to be reflected. I would far rather have the forbidden fruit stuff work itself out in the astral, through obvious and harmless fantasies and fictions, than intrude into the material where it breaks people physically, emotionally and mentally.

Why do people insist on breaking down barriers between fantasy and reality? A 30-year age-split in a fantasy situation is never what it appears to be on the surface. It's always about something which underlies the apparent reality: maybe a need for emotional strength and validation, possibly a source of a very specific sort of nurturing that is missing in real life, it could even be something completely different like "I love the way things were 30 years ago more than I like the present." This is why Freud and Jung and Adler, for all their flaws, took such care to point out that the subconscious is dominated by symbols, and those symbols are expressed in a language of colours, shapes and

[7veilsphaedra]

Also, the age of consent in Canada is 14, although legally, that is interpreted to mean an adult cannot have sex with a 14-year-old, but 14-year-olds can have sex with other 14-year-olds. One of my great-grandmothers was married at 15, and had her first two children by the time she was 16.

Until the 1950s there wasn't even a distinction for teenager. There were just children and adults.

Does this mean things were healthier in the past? Hell, no. But the preoccupation with young people's virginity is a kind of sickness in itself to my thinking. I've lived in countries where kids having sex with other kids is not treated like a big deal, and trust me, it isn't for the kids either. They are a whole lot less obsessed with 'getting it', and so they actually enjoy being kids instead of trying to be precocious adults.

[sharpeslass]

I think it is just that the whole idea of an adult male dating a ten year old is so utterly taboo in our society that I was surprised to see it in a fairly mainstream (in Japan) book read by kids. I'm not saying it should be banned or censored or even that it is wrong (though I will say that in reality an adult man dating a ten year old girl is wrong for many reasons). It was a shock to me to see it treated so casually and so I was more interested in what this meant culturally than psychologically, since in a totally American (or, I'm guessing, Canadian) publication, one wouldn't see such a scenario. I find it interesting that the general reaction of entire cultures can be so utterly different in their treatments of a subject. Make sense?

[7veilsphaedra]

Any adult, male or female, dating a 10-year-old is an absolute taboo, agreed. Pornographic representations of real children are also taboo, since the act of capturing sexual recordings of children in film, audio, photography or other such media is assault, plain and simple.

When it turns to artistic or literary forms, though, I back off. I don't like it. I think there are real psychological problems that need to be worked out by people who find that kind of thing stimulating. It is illegal in Canada, in fact, and the decision has already been handed down by the Supreme Court

[suanz]

Me no eloquent like the the above. He he he!!

With regards to same sex crushes, I personally dun think you can influence homosexuality but my husband thinks otherwise. So I have to keep my yaoi stuff away from my son.

But I've always seperated fiction from real life, as in I dun go pondering WTF on the scenarios you hilited. And I am not too concerned about the kids being influenced. Afterall the kid deserved to have his/her ass kicked if he/she cannot distinguish fact and fiction. But that's just me...

Somehow my comments as usual come across as so lame. Bwahahahaha!!!

[helliongoddess]

No help here - it was my daughter that first told me to read yaoi! *lol

[velvetina_wonka]

I'm afraid that I don't have anything wise to add to the above discussion - but holy wow I know some smart people! I'm in awe of you all! -- but in general I personally can't read managa where the storyline involves anything too romantic between a student and a teacher. Maybe I'm showing myself to be far too young here but it's not been so long since I was the student and so it's hits too close to home for me. Though, potentially, that's because I never once had a crush on a teacher!

However, in terms of Clamp... I discovered them because of the manga Legal Drug, which I love but am sad to report is on hiatus at the moment. **shakes fist**

[sharpeslass]

And you are a smart person as well!!! Heh, the funny thing is, if I was still a student, or closer in age to a student, I think the teacher student stuff would bother me less. I was constantly crushing on teachers, my parents friends, my friends adult siblings, etc. And since I saw myself as so veddy, veddy mature for my age, my fantasies all focused around me in a relationship with a 30-something-year old and I saw it all as very romantic and not pervy in the slightest. Fortunately, none of the blokes I was crushing on were horrid pervs and I was never granted my misguided wishes!!

(I've found that all the clamp stuff I am currently reading (trying to read) is out of print, so I'm on the hunt as we speak. If you get a line on Tokyo Babylon, volumes 7-9, let me know!!!)

[lauand]

CLAMP have a very especial concept of love. It's always 100% spiritual and the fact that there might be intercourse is secondary or directly irrelevant. They also consider love has no barriers of gender, age or status. And it's always a very "pure" kind of love, not because there's not a carnal aspect to it, but because the feelings are really intense and true and drive the characters to often hurt others, including the beloved person. Not because it's a selfish kind of love, but because they're doing it in that person's benefit. And the thing is that the characters very rarely regret their actions or think they're wrong because that feeling is truly the most important thing for them, so it's morally justified in their eyes. For that reason, it doesn't bother me in the least that the teacher is going out with a fourth grader (I actually laughed in a "ha, ha, no way!" way when I read it) because, well, it's CLAMP. They're not depicting something perverted, it's just romantic love with unusual characters, purely platonic (BECAUSE THAT

[sharpeslass]

All discussion aside, this is kind of the sort of comment I was hoping for. I was hoping someone who knew the artists would come in and give me a perspective like this, a sort of "world according to clamp" and so I thank you very much for doing it. This almost elevates it to the realm of a sort of high fantasy in a way, where it is a world in which the ethical questions of reality don't come into play and perversions don't exist but a higher purer "agape" sort of love is real. (which is what some others were trying to say when they said "separate 'fantasy' from 'reality') Very helpful observations. Thank you!! What story included the dismembering? I like anime characters who dismember... especially megane characters who dismember... Oh, god... It is SO American of me to be shocked by the romance and to ignore the violence. that is exactly the sort of attitude I constantly decry and I fell right into it. *facepalm*

[lawless523]

I can't read or buy CLAMP. I find their stuff too unreal. Their Magic Knight Rayearth was the first manga Ally read, and what she showed me was so off the wall romantic that I have never been able to bring myself to look at anything of theirs ever again.

[sharpeslass]

You would probably like xxxHolic. I think you would. I don't know if it is representative of their stuff as a whole, though. It definitely has slash appeal. And the art is lovely. It was nothing like Cardcaptor so far; totally different feel. I wouldn't have guessed they were by the same people.