This really is Friday's column -- yesterday was a bad day for writing. (Actually, it was a pretty good day for writing, just a bad day for focus.)
I'm fed up with commenting on the news, frankly, and I've found something more interesting to comment on under the heading of "gay issues." I'm feeling my way through this one, so comments and observations are very welcome. It may very well run into several installments, because it strikes me that it's a huge topic. This facet is specifically about relationships between men, and it comes from a couple of yaoi manga that I've read recently. The first is Satoru Ishihara's Kimi Shiruya -- Dost Thou Know?, which I reviewed here a couple of weeks ago, and which has a more substantial review coming up at Green Man Review on February 8. The core issue from that for this column is something I investigated a bit in an essay I wrote on the book (which may itself get published here, one day), in which I said:
This book is built on metaphors, both the central image of kendo, and others that essentially structure the various chapters. The courtship here is cast as a duel: both Katsuomi and Tsurugi are fiercely competitive young men, heavily invested in the sport, and each sees the other as his chief rival, in spite of their immediate attraction to each other.
This in itself has more than one layer. On the one hand, Ishihara has based the central metaphor, kendo, on one of the most important characteristics of relationships between men: whether you ascribe it to nature or nurture or some combination of the two, men are competitors -- for many men, perhaps most, that's a central part of their identities as men, whether we agree with it or not -- which makes a romantic involvement edgy, at best. It's that phenomenon, more than anything else, that explains Tsurugi's motivations, his resistance to "surrender," not surrender to Katsuomi, particularly -- his attraction to Katsuomi is as strong as Katsuomi's to him, that much is obvious early on -- but surrender to the idea that there must be a loser here: he, like Katsuomi, is trying to take control of the situation, not to change the outcome as such -- he doesn't want that at all -- but to hold onto his dignity. (Ishihara has stepped right out of the standard seme/uke pairing here; while that stereotypical role-playing may have some basis in Japanese gay culture -- and I don't profess to know -- the relationship developing between Katsuomi and Tsurugi is, I think, more immediately comprehensible to Westerners.)
Some observations: I tend to think that there is a strong biological component to men's aggressiveness: testosterone keeps you on the edge. Anyone who's ever had any sort of therapy involving either periodic shots of testosterone or drugs to mediate the action of testosterone knows this very well. That much, at least, is iinnate, and to a large extent it's historically been reinforced by the demands of "masculinity." I think, as gay men have become more visible in society and there are now male role models for younger gays, the old idea of "masculine" and "feminine" partners -- exemplified by the seme/uke pairings so common in yaoi -- are going by the wayside: as we learn to function in relationships in which both partners are facing the same emotional strictures and the same expectations, we learning new meanings to use to support those relationships. (I should also point out here that Kimi Shiruya is one of the very few yaoi that I can think of at this point that actually shows a relationship between men and not a heterosexual relationship transposed to two male partners -- the basis of the seme/uke pairing, and a cliche at this point in the real world. (I hope.) That's an important disctinction to keep in mind. Others that come to mind, for those interested, are Ellie Mamahara's Alley of First Love, Momoko Tenzen's Paradise on the Hill, and Isaku Natsume's Dash!, all of which are comedies, although in none of these are the participants seemingly as conscious of what they are doing as in Kimi Shiruya. They all also transpose the competition into a form of egalitarianism, at least in the emotional context -- and that, after all, is what's underneath this point of view.)
It's also instructive that the central conflict between the two characters is cast in terms of "surrender" -- something that is absolutely not allowed for men.
That works naturally into the idealism of the sport -- and I mean that in its most literal sense. The ideals of sport in general are, aside from the benefits to health of physical activity, the main reason given for teaching competitive sports in schools: teamwork, sportsmanship, dignity in defeat and magnanimity in victory. Add in the warrior's code, with its emphasis on ideals we no longer encounter on a daily basis -- honor, integrity, mercy, purity of purpose, the kind of self-respect that must be earned -- and you begin to get a very good idea of where both Katsuomi and Tsurugi are coming from. It's this idealism that sparks the relationship between Masaomi and Saya, as well: after being shamed by his older brother for leaving Saya to the mercy of the bullies among the older students, Masaomi realizes that Saya understands the honor of the swordsman -- there are things he won't do, even to defend himself -- and out of respect for that and for his own honor, he must step in.
That's one possibility for us: I think we can respect each other as men based on an ideal of masculinity that has as its basis those positive aspects of competition. And, at this stage of the game, if you don't respect each other, you don't have much of a relationship -- and there's another statement of an egalitarian basis for male/male relationships.
I can't stress enough the role that I see the Ideal playing in this work. It is, indeed, almost platonic. (And keep in mind, these are young men, and the young are still idealistic.) Underlying the surface action is a pure form of the story: on the one hand, there is no compromise on either side, the situation is yes/no, surrender/conquest. That is what Katsuomi is consciously reaching for. On the other hand, as it develops it transmutes itself: after all, no one in his right mind wants that kind of relationship with another human being if you're going to call it "love." As Masaomi observes, they're reaching for something new, something, as it turns out, "beyond gender, beyond viewpoints," beyond that win-or-lose dichotomy: as it grows, they grow into it.
I think we've made a lot of progress in this regard, but, like Tsurugi and Katsuomi, we're feeling our way forward.
In that intersection of the ideal and what stands beyond it -- the competitiveness and the ideals of the warrior and the reality of learning to love -- lies the tension that supports the story and that provides the foundation for the relationship and the characters of the two men. Katsuomi is a "stampeding boar warrior," all power and speed, direct and unstoppable. He has the courage to lay all his cards on the table (as he does in one scene, when he tells Tsurugi "I've shown you everything I've got.") and the patience to wait for as long as it takes. Tsurugi is the wind, all grace and finesse, elusive but more than able to come back with a telling strike. And he has the will to play this game his way. Katsuomi may be the irresistible force, but Tsurugi is not an immovable object: in their final, climactic battle, Katsuomi screams at him to "stop dancing around -- stand and hold your ground." It doesn't only apply to the physical contest. (Tsurugi calls him a "log-splitter" and goes for the opening Katsuomi has left.)
Looking at this passage again, and thinking about the characterizations in the book, it's apparent that Tsurugi is cast in a traditionally "feminine" role here -- at least, on the surface. The key phrase, I think, is "the will to play the game his way." That's something that I can't see as reflective of a particular gender role -- there are as many strong-willed women in the world as there are strong-willed men (hell, I was raised by one). There is also the fact, which I think I mention in the GMR review, but not specifically here, that these characteristics as stated are incomplete: Katsuomi does reveal a deep patience, while equally, Tsurugi shows a degree of stubbornness that's really almost admirable.
One thing that struck me about the portrayals in Kimi Shiruya: as the relationship develops and the boys become more comfortable with each other, they become playful. Maybe that's another aspect of that competitiveness that forms the core of the story: the last two chapters (which give their collective title to the book) are filled with scenes that demonstrate the degree to which Tsurugi and Katsuomi have become a couple in everything but the surface manifestation, and they play together, whether it's something as understated as sitting on the deck quoting children's books at each other, Katsuomi joking about how being assigned to share a room with Tsurugi is asking too much (he won't be able to restrain himself is the subtext), or Tsurugi setting up those room assignments to begin with.
Of course, there have always been male couples that fit into this framework. I think the importance of this is that we're now at a point where it is a norm, although that certainly wasn't the case. I think the real importance is, as I noted above, that here is a model not tied to heterosexual expectations.
I may come back to this -- it's gotten too big for my brain to encompass this morning -- both to comment further on the competitive aspect of male relationships and to examine some other types.
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