Yaoi is Not About Women, Except: Caged Slave Review

Apparently it isn't about men either.

Yuuen to the left.

Despite my Complaint that men are as interested in romance as women (yet pretend that they are not), I typically see the pairings in yaoi as physically male yet gendered archetypal.

By "archetypal," I don't mean "androgynous." Androgynous characters in yaoi seem, if anything, to be gendered female--even sometimes so radically female in appearance that if I was reading Wild Rock in Japanese, I would assume Yuuen was a young woman.

Archetypal pairings refer, rather, to "introvert/extrovert," "pessimist/optimist," "satirical/serious," or, to get all Jungian, "mentor/disciple."

Caged Slave, a light novel by Yuiko Takamura, surprised me since I began to think of the main character as female while I was only about half-way through reading.

Believe it or not, this rarely happens. I didn't react this way to the main characters of Guilty or S or Only the Ring Finger Knows. It surprised me so much, I went back and threaded my way through the slim novel more slowly. Why would the main narrator of Caged Slave be gendered female? That is, what stereotypes or assumed traits usually associated with female characters are associated with Tsukasa?

Akihito doesn't attract Asami's attention

because he is passive--rather, he attracts

it because he jumps off a building.

The gendering comes down to one overwhelming trait:

Passivity

I should state immediately that passivity is not a female trait. It is a gendered female trait--at least literarily. In older romance novels, it involves several linked behaviors all of which can be witnessed in the main male character of Caged Slave, Tsukasa:

1. Willingness to be Kept in the Dark. 

Yaoi often utilizes a seme (dominant) and uke (submissive) pairing. However, the roles rarely denote passive behavior, at least not in contemporary manga. Ukes are often overactive and curious (Akihito, Finder), bad-tempered (Seyun, U Don't Know Me),  reflective and inwardly tough (Ryo, Fake), aloof and organized (Katsuragi, Blue Morning).

Women in romance novels fall into an equally broad range from optimistic Phoebe (Total Surrender) to brassily self-confident Sophy (Heyer's Sophy), from sardonic Elizabeth (Pride & Prejudice) to otherworldy Jane Eyre.

Note the woman's

passive posture.

The attachment of passivity to the female character is an applied historical cliche more than a literary or even true historical typing--that is, we tend to think that women in the past were passive even though they were not. But older Harlequin romances are responsible for presenting generations of passive female characters who suffer at the hands of fate, i.e. the dominant male character.

Tsukasa's passivity in the face of his nameless lover who refuses to reveal his identity is far more similar to Celia's behavior in Grace Livingston Hill's Best Man, written in 1914, than to any uke's behavior from contemporary manga. Celia is forced to the altar to save her family; weak and pathetic, she marries the wrong man, who then takes 1/2 the book to confess his true identity. Celia never questions her "husband," assuming he miraculously altered his entire personality in their few years apart.

2. Preference for Verbal to Physical Action. 

Tsukasa's passivity shows up not only in his amazing willingness to ask no questions (to be fair, his reluctance to ask no questions is in keeping with his overall personality and bad dating history) but with his tendency to verbally rather than physically spar.

Verbal defense can be a powerful weapon, one that Elizabeth uses with such effectiveness that Darcy is only capable of responding through a written letter. This technique is typically gendered female rather than male despite the clever verbal quips of the sons of Frasier and the cops of Barney Miller.

Physical responses are not only gendered male, males are assumed to be invulnerable to physical assault.  Not so in reality: according to Nursing Standard, 37% of gay men had been in an abusive relationship--these abusive relationships were physically violent over 50% of the time. It is also often assumed that women don't act out physically at all, yet studies on abuse reveal that women hit and throw things as often as men.

However, the gendered perception is that women are less violent and aggressive--a perception likely encouraged by the fact that male violence tends to have more noticeable and irrevocable outcomes.

3. Docile Acceptance of Being Indulged.

Tsukasa and Takeshima meet at a

fancy hotel.

Tsukasa is surprisingly willing to be wined and dined by his wealthy lover. This is a trope in paperback romances although many romance heroines protest, as Jane Eyre does, at being overwhelmed by gifts.

Tsukasa's reaction stands in stark contrast not only to romance heroines but to a great many yaoi heroes; poor lovers of wealthy men generally fiercely protect their independence--Akihito not only keeps his job as a photographer but becomes embroiled in independently investigating Asami's enemies ("Everywhere I look," Asami says, "you're covered in bruises.") while Toya from Guilty refuses to move into Hodaka's penthouse in order to keep his work role (as Hodaka's editor) separate from his private role (as Hodaka's lover).

The assumption that Tsukasa won't protest at gifts and special dinners--and is actually pleased to be treated so well--seems to be based on the assumption that a wealthy lover is what everyone is looking for, which is probably kind of true (it's not like anyone is going to turn money down). But it is an assumption usually applied more to women than to men.    

Eleanor of Aquitaine makes everybody

look passive.

To sum up:

1. The gendering of woman as passive is not true to history, to contemporary life or, for that matter, to all literature. It is simply a gendering that readers recognize.

2. I don't consider these literary passive women to be an example of chauvinism. I think they represent a kind of wish-fulfillment. Like the passive heroine of Twilight who never just leaves her small-town weirdness behind, these passive heroines temporarily set aside the cultural insistence that they safeguard their virtue, look after their families, and bolster their men. They can simply . . . rest.

3. It is perfectly okay--as much as it is okay for anyone--for men to be passive. The issue here is characterization, not what reality should or should not be.

4. Caged Slave has a decent, clean (not "clean" in the erotic sense but in the organizational sense) plot. It is also incredibly reminiscent of older (pre-1990s) Harlequin Romances.