The reason I think some of the posts are creepy isn't necessarily because they are about fictional characters. Rather, its the language and the context of those specific posts. Also, creepy doesn't necessarily mean dangerous or bad, it just means it makes me uncomfortable.Jomei wrote:Setting aside personal tastes, I'm not sure how anything said about a drawing could be creepy or pervy. These just seem like normative judgments to me, and they also fail to take seriously that all of these characters are fictional constructs. Anime in particular has an autonomous reality instead of imitating real life. To take anything said or thought about these autonomously fictional beings as problematic somehow is to make the mistake of transferring them to real life existence, I think. Again, remember that the maid fantasy can exist only in fiction, then extend the logic.
In finding the characters "infinitely more interesting," there's a process of identification going on, I think--you see something of yourself in the gay male characters, and that's great, as people ought to identify with those different from themselves. But even for hetero women, it's not necessarily about desiring the males--or at least it's not all about that, and it doesn't transfer to a real life desire for gay men. The same thing is true of a lot of moe series, too, I think. When a male watches K-On! or some similar moe anime, he's not usually thinking about having sex with the characters. Rather, there's something pleasant about their lives, perhaps something innocent or even feminine not allowed to males normally, and he finds himself simultaneously attracted to (in this complex, pseudo-sexual manner) and identifying with the girls. When I post that I'm attracted to Mio Akiyama, I do find her attractive as a female character, but it's also--and perhaps more so--that I identify with aspects of her personality: the shy-ness, etc. It's neither 100% LEWD nor 100% without sexuality--and yet there's not a clear 1:1 relationship with real life sexuality, either, even if it's fraught with sexual intrigue. It's all dependent upon the fictionalized context.
And here I go, after I said I wouldn't get into it.
But yeah, I get what you're saying. And I agree. You've clearly put some thought into this
