The Morality of Idolatry

[Kita St Cyr]

It's interesting to see the defensiveness of the inherently misogynist nature of 'idolatry' by throwing out the "it's a job" argument or the average age of H!P.

There's a few forces at work here, right? Objectification. Female sexual agency. Slut shaming.

You don't have a fandom without objectification. Look at ANY thread on any idol forum and it's full of it. Discussions of 24 year old Sayumi involve how she's a 'true and pure virgin'. We rank our favorites a lot of times not based on talent, but on cuteness. They gain or lose our favor based on their latest hair cuts or costumes.

Likewise you don't have a scandal without some good ol' fashioned slut shaming. Even in the beginning of this very discussion, somebody refers to American artists as "drunken whores", as if that's the only option aside from being the aforementioned true and pure virgin. And yet, these are girls that from the beginning have been performing music with lyrics that are thinly veiled sexual innuendo. Wanting to go for Morning Coffee (presumably the morning after a sexual encounter), having nice love machine bodies. School girl uniforms. It's an amazing display of the Virgin-whore dichotomy, further exaggerated by the Love Ban Law.

Which brings us to female sexual agency. Let's be realistic, when we're talking about H!P idols finding romance, we're overwhelmingly NOT talking about the Kenshuusei. So put that out of your minds. The average age of Berrykyuu is what, 20? And until recently (what's it been, a year and a half since 9th gen joined?) MM was in that age range, too. It's entirely unreasonable to expect 20 year old women to never date or engage in relationships with the opposite sex. 20 years old is around the age where you start wanting to make lasting relationships, to discover what you like and dislike about a potential mate, and what it is that makes you feel good or sexy or powerful. And yes, I mean that both in and out of the context of the bedroom. In a lot of ways it's the reason that I feel graduating out of idol groups once you get too old is a blessing. With any luck they continue to get regular work, or live off the royalties of their old work, but hopefully they also go experience life and love and yes, sex. Because at that age it's entirely reasonable to WANT those things. I know, women wanting sex, such scandal.

At the end of the day, there's a lot that's wrong and unfair about 'idolatry'. The victims end up being the girls. Their characters might be super-human, but it's so unfair to expect young girls to sacrifice their humanity in order to appease and unforgiving fanbase. That they sign these contracts at such incredibly young ages is the real shame of it all.

[TotallyUncool]

As far as I'm concerned, you hit the nail exactly on the head!

And needless to say, you did a much better job of saying it than I ever could have (which is something that I rarely admit).

[Bakajo Nono]

It's interesting to see the defensiveness of the inherently misogynist nature of 'idolatry' by throwing out the "it's a job" argument or the average age of H!P.

There's a few forces at work here, right? Objectification. Female sexual agency. Slut shaming.

You don't have a fandom without objectification. Look at ANY thread on any idol forum and it's full of it. Discussions of 24 year old Sayumi involve how she's a 'true and pure virgin'. We rank our favorites a lot of times not based on talent, but on cuteness. They gain or lose our favor based on their latest hair cuts or costumes.

Likewise you don't have a scandal without some good ol' fashioned slut shaming. Even in the beginning of this very discussion, somebody refers to American artists as "drunken whores", as if that's the only option aside from being the aforementioned true and pure virgin. And yet, these are girls that from the beginning have been performing music with lyrics that are thinly veiled sexual innuendo. Wanting to go for Morning Coffee (presumably the morning after a sexual encounter), having nice love machine bodies. School girl uniforms. It's an amazing display of the Virgin-whore dichotomy, further exaggerated by the Love Ban Law.

Which brings us to female sexual agency. Let's be realistic, when we're talking about H!P idols finding romance, we're overwhelmingly NOT talking about the Kenshuusei. So put that out of your minds. The average age of Berrykyuu is what, 20? And until recently (what's it been, a year and a half since 9th gen joined?) MM was in that age range, too. It's entirely unreasonable to expect 20 year old women to never date or engage in relationships with the opposite sex. 20 years old is around the age where you start wanting to make lasting relationships, to discover what you like and dislike about a potential mate, and what it is that makes you feel good or sexy or powerful. And yes, I mean that both in and out of the context of the bedroom. In a lot of ways it's the reason that I feel graduating out of idol groups once you get too old is a blessing. With any luck they continue to get regular work, or live off the royalties of their old work, but hopefully they also go experience life and love and yes, sex. Because at that age it's entirely reasonable to WANT those things. I know, women wanting sex, such scandal.

At the end of the day, there's a lot that's wrong and unfair about 'idolatry'. The victims end up being the girls. Their characters might be super-human, but it's so unfair to expect young girls to sacrifice their humanity in order to appease and unforgiving fanbase. That they sign these contracts at such incredibly young ages is the real shame of it all.

Thank you for articulating this so well. This completely resonates with the moral dilemma I was trying to express.

And I absolutely agree that the girls signing the contracts at such a young age is a shame--because they're not removed from the process. It's not easy to "quit" and live their lives. To borrow a Foucaultian term, they're disciplined throughout their time in the idol industry. The slut-shaming absolutely shapes them to some extent.

[Kita St Cyr]

I know dat feel, bro.

[resop2]

I had an idea recently and I wonder if what the crowd thinks of it:

Male followers of female idols view them as kid sisters and don't want them to date because it would mean that they would change from being their genki sisters.

Female followers of male idols view them as boyfriends and want them to date to show that they are interested in females.

[Bakajo Nono]

Reasons why that is so problematic:

1. The way H!P's male fans talk about the girls is in no way how my older brother or any older brother speaks about their sister.
2. How offensive is it that you can't extend that seemingly innocent (but completely fallacious) brother-sister relationship to female fans of boy groups. Why is it that men view the girls as their sisters and women view boys as potential boyfriends? Maybe it's not that they want them to prove themselves as mates, but that they respect them as humans who have relationships with other humans i d k
3. Oh so when a girl starts dating she stops being a genki sister? Do older brothers expect their little sisters will lose their personalities while being involved in a relationship? Hint: As a younger sister, I can assure you that is 100% not true.

I don't know if you're trolling or if this is another "joke", but seriously?

[resop2]

^
1) I don't claim to know what every H!P male fan is like.
2) It might be offensive to you, but I believe it to be true from conversations that I have had with people who know boy-idol fandom. (I have no first hand knowledge.)
3) First part: Probably not.
Second part: Yes, while it might not be true, for the older brother, their greatest fear is that their cute younger sister will change.

This is not a troll or a joke, but a question.

[AyuHikaru]

Dealing with a lot of wota on Tumblr, Facebook, Forums, Twitter, I can tell you that a lot of men do not see the girls as little sisters. I will admit most of the guys in the fandom are respectful, they will say a girl is attractive or flawless or beautiful without being creepy at all. I know a Harunan wota who is 21 and talks about how she is perfect and he wants to be her boyfriend and he NEVER crosses the line into creeptastic territory. Even when speaking about the underage girls (like say Mizuki, who gets a lot of comments for her Jail Bait body) they never cross the realm into gross or disrespectful.

HOWEVER, none of them see the girls as "little sisters" and if you read 2ch, hardly any of them do either. And while I talk about the respectful men above, there are a lot of disrespectful, reprehensible males who are disgusting, pedophilic, and misogynistic toward the girls. A good English example is about 6 months or so a guy was commenting on the H!O pic board about how lickable he thought the girls were (and that was a safer comment that I remember). That "Little Sister" BS is what they say in public while fapping to a 14 year olds photobook in private.

Let's face it, most of these guys probably want these girls to be their girlfriends. It's no different than the Johnny's fandom.

[Starra]

I've seen quite a few threads on 2ch about wota wanting to have sex with whoever. Like, say, Airi.

Granted, not all wota are super creepy. I follow several on Twitter and they seem like perfectly normal guys to me. None of them have ever talked about anything creepy (to my knowledge). They genuinely like and support the girls. Obviously there are some who need to just go away forever, but not all of them are like that.

Idk I just don't like foreign fans assuming that every single Japanese male who likes idols is creepy/a pedophile. I know some of them are but it's not like it's all of them...

[AyuHikaru]

^ Wota kind of perpetuate the stereotype sometimes, like when they saw the MM ranking poll H!O did and were wondering why Riho wasn't higher, a bunch of them responded "It's because only Japanese like lolis" *headdesk*