Sexualization of girls and young women in the anime community, why won’t men take a hint?

Now I know what you might be thinking, why am I discussing on anime in a forum that’s supposed to be about gender? Well, I honestly get really tired of men in the anime community making excuses to sexualizing women claiming it’s an anime targeting boys so it’s apparently supposed to be like that.

And before you come after me, no, I am not the one spewing out bigoted bullshit. All of them are coming from someone else in a post on Reddit. I am using quotations to differentiate my words from theirs. Their words will also be boldened and italicized. The reason I’m putting them on here is because I want to do a commentary on that and why I believe sexualization of girls and young women is inexcusable.

With that out of the way, let us begin:

”I don't really mind fanservice. Whether it be in shounen or seinen, I never really found myself dropping a manga/anime because of fanservice. Hell, School Days had a pretty decent amount of fanservice, and it's one of my favorite anime. Because of this, I lack the perspective of someone actually bothered by it, so sorry if there's something I'm missing.”

No one is stopping you from liking specific anime’s and mangas, we are simply acknowledging the dangerous gender stereotypes and how it reflects negatively on our society. I’m definitely sure this is a middle aged man writing this who has no experience of having his body sexualized (i.e. harassment, catcalling, objectification).

“Anyway, a lot of people hate and complain about fanservice. I've seen rants like "fanservice is terrible", "I hate how shounen sexualize minors", "ecchi is ruining anime" on this sub, as well other subs/forums/comments, and it kind of confuses me? I mean, I get the sentiment, but its still weird once you take a step back and look at the demographic of the series that fanservice is usually in.”

How does it confuse you? Oh that’s right, you’re a middle aged white man who has no understanding of how objectification is harmful. The people you claim are complaining at least have an idea on what sexualization looks and feels like.

”Fire Force, Bleach, Fairy Tail, Eden's Zero, Seven Deadly Sins, Sword Art Online, Black Clover. What do all of these series have in common? They're shounen. Shounen are catered to 12-18 year old boys. So whenever I see things like "why are they sexualizing teenagers" or "why is there so much fanservice", it's weird because, hey, you maybe be in your 20s/30s, but the target audience consists of teenagers. And the reason why there's so much fanservice is because puberty stricken teenagers can be pretty horny.”

There’s your problem right there. Because specific anime genres are targeting teenage boys, that makes sexualization of women acceptable in your eyes. Not only are you okay with labeling women as sex objects (in spite of your denial), but you also label teenage boys as horny (because boys can’t help themselves, am i right?).

”I have this same problem with people saying female characters aren't developed enough in shounen. I mean, yeah, of course females aren't going to be as developed as males in a show catered to males. Just like in shoujo, male characters aren't going to be nearly as developed as the female characters because shoujo manga are catered to females. For example, if I wanted to find a well-developed male villain like Griffith, I'm not going to look in shoujo manga. Im going to look in shounen/seinen. If I want a good coming-of-age manga about a girl and her transitioning into middle-school, high-school, and adulthood, I'm going to look in the shoujo/josei genre.”

It doesn’t fucking matter if an anime is targeted towards boys. There are going to be girls watching it as well. There is no law saying that girls and women can’t watch male-targeted media. And since there are plenty of anime fans who are women, at least most of them are going to be rightfully appalled by how their gender is treated. Your argument is disregarding the female gender as a whole (aka half of the world population).

”Even in seinen, there's fanservice, but there seems to be less of it in the ones I read, so I suggest reading seinen if you want to avoid it. Same for josei. Anyways, if you dont want to see fanservice involving teenagers, you should probably look in a manga that doesn't cater to teenagers.  Now I'm not saying that anyone who wants good female characters/no fanservice/no sexualization of teenagers in shounen are dumb or stupid, hell no. But I wanted to give some perspective on why this stuff or lack thereof is so prominent in shounen manga and hopefully I did.”

Bro, you are lying through your teeth. You’re trying to justify sexual objectification by using cancel culture logic and saying “it’s not for girls, so they should stop complaining”. You’re clearly stating that boys (who will eventually grow up to men) should view women as nothing but sex objects.

This next comment is from another user, so brace yourselves:

”As a teenager myself seeing a anime girl get naked is noy making go omfg that's so hot its making me think god dam this shit is fucking annoying. Nobody watches shonen because there horny, nobody is going in there waiting to see some drawn boobs. We go to watch it for some entertainment and most boys watch it purely for the fight scenes so on behalf of teenagers we also find fanservice hella annoying.”

Ugh, so close yet so far away. He starts off saying fan service is annoying, but then goes downhill saying that boys are only interested in fighting. What in the actual fuck, dude? First of all, you’re labeling boys as being obsessed with violence. Our society is raising boys to believe that everything can be solved with violence, when plenty of action-genres are far more complex that one would like to believe. Second, why is it just boys liking action-themed anime? Are you saying girls can’t enjoy that stuff because we are born with uteruses?

Here’s the next comment from another user:

”I mean if kamachi has touma fall and peak on a girl naked cause he thinks its funny or if he has itsuwa put on a sexy outfit cause she's trying to win over touma... it doesnt mean he's a pedophile or anything.

Edit; apparently people think that basically almost all young adult authors are pedophiles judging by the downvote”

Ew ew ew ew, a thousand times EW!! What is it with men who think perversion is funny?! Oh sure, the writer can’t obviously be a pervert despite the fact he wrote that scene on purpose by means of getting his audience engaged. Also, you deserve the downvotes, idiot!

And now here’s a comment from yet another user:

”Do you think all YA authors should be teenagers?”

What the fuck are you talking about? This has got less to do with teenagers and more to do with not treating minorities like shit!

And finally here’s a comment made by the OP himself.

”All I'm saying in that a series for boys it's not expected that the girls are going to be well-written. Boys seem to relate to boys more than girls, so authors develop the characters they can relate to more. Boys can relate to adolescents/teens, so the adolescents and teens of manga get more developed. You'll rarely see an old man like Hiruzen get as much development as Naruto or Sasuke. But then again I haven't watched a lot of shounen so maybe there is one.”

Fuck all the way off! Once again, you’re completely ignoring the women who watch these shows. Not only that, but you also believe that because it’s a boy’s anime, it’s okay for female characters to be lackluster. And then you mention that boys cannot relate to girls so that excuses female characters being thrown under the bus. Let me go right ahead and use your logic for a moment:

If this is the case, if girls are watching certain shows that target boys, should girls be able to relate to an underdeveloped female character that the writers refuse to work on in favor of those that are male? What if I told you that there are girls who cannot relate to boys? What if I also told you that there are boys who cannot relate to OTHER BOYS? Do you ever consider any of those people? I strongly doubt it.

This is my issue with the double standards of the anime community. Men, particularly white men don’t understand the struggles that women have to go through. And being men, they think they shouldn’t relate to women and instead view them as sex objects. It sickens me how men will make justifications for their misogyny and excuse their own behavior as “men will be men, what did you expect?”.

Considering today’s issues us women are facing, you get where this is going. If they don’t see us as human, chances are, they most likely never will.