Welcome Back, Alice - Vol. 7 Ch. 40.5 - Afterword

[youkari]

In fairness, it is complicated for some folks because of how heavily tied together the concepts may be. It changes from generation to generation and culture to culture, so it's quite a stretch to look at someone who's 41, raised in a culture that has relatively strict gender roles, and go "oh you're just overthinking it".

What you're offering as solutions aren't going to help with the psychological connections. I agree that Oshimi isn't necessarily cis, but hypersimplifying the matter is kinda gross.

Never even implied I thought he was trans. You're trying too hard to find subtext where there isn't. It's never too old for a person to figure their shit out. But he's in his own head and hasn't engaged in play in any meaningful way except draw similar themes in manga over and over. It's obviously not working.

 

[vvboondoggirl]

some of yall seriously sound like "gender exploratory" conversion therapists. i hope you recognize that railroading. If my parents had their way I would be in a never-ending therapeutic process of ever-moving goalposts blocking me from transition until I magically fixed things that are like lifelong struggles or could be doctored into lifelong struggles like idk, bullshit Anxiety Disorder dxs or bs Chronic Depression dxs, that like, is going to ignore the giant fucking elephant in the room of gender identity. A self-sustaining pit.

 

[outinthegardener]

This afterword hit me particularly well. I spent decades coming to terms not with my sexual orientation (full disclosure: straight as an arrow), but rather my identity as a sexual being, largely due to being raised Catholic I suspect. In trying to remain asexual outside of specific contexts (that being a romantic relationship) but also borderline addicted to porn, I ended up developing a bifurcated personality (one clean and one filthy) and oceans of self-loathing every time I "failed myself." Coming from the USA's perspective, where culture is also conflicted on the question of sex as both the end-all of gender identity (a patently ridiculous concept, but yet deeply foundational to the discourse) and yet something to be cleansed from the public sphere at all costs, I was constantly bombarded with negative reinforcement of this bifurcation and consequent cognitive dissonance.

yooooo shout out to being sexually shamed by religious peers in a fail-headed substitute for sex education.

 

[ariel_haymarket]

Never even implied I thought he was trans. You're trying too hard to find subtext where there isn't. It's never too old for a person to figure their shit out. But he's in his own head and hasn't engaged in play in any meaningful way except draw similar themes in manga over and over. It's obviously not working.

"Trying to find subtext" comments aside (it's not subtext if phrases like "I wish I was born and raised a girl" are staring you in the face) ...
I agree that he has the opportunity to look and see what vocabulary, if any, fits, but it's going to require action on his part. I can speculate only so far as to what, but, at the end of the day, I agree that the onus is on Oshimi to explore what these themes are coming from and see what acting on them does as well.

But if writing these stories is Oshimi's idea of exploring them, then that's Oshimi's choice and comfort zone.

Fact of the matter is that he is frequently writing content that is ridiculously trans.

 

[AverageDudeWithAveragePenis]

Can I state the obvious here?... This mangaka talks alot about sexual desire, porn addiction, gender norms it's like a mixed bag here. Are we overlooking how people see how he could be transgender?
I mean, it doesn't necessarily say so much about him, just the people who think he is.

I'm not shocked at this though, AGP looks like a big factor in how alot of people transitioning for some reason.

 

[ahhahahahhahaha]

L, G, B, T, Q and + all at once? Amazing.

I'm a trans woman and he's eggy as fuck and living in a society where it's a lot more terrifying to approach transition and a lot fewer online spaces to explore those feelings.

get a life

 

[AverageDudeWithAveragePenis]

Never even implied I thought he was trans. You're trying too hard to find subtext where there isn't. It's never too old for a person to figure their shit out. But he's in his own head and hasn't engaged in play in any meaningful way except draw similar themes in manga over and over. It's obviously not working.

Yeah I wouldn't take anything I see from that guy seriously.

Spoiler

If ur confused, look at the @ in Tweets and name in these forums it's the same person.

 

[mangareadre121]

I hear you. I'm an intellectual (c.f. my reading list...) so complexity and depth in the discussion is what I always aspire to. But aspirations and reality have this nasty habit of only occasionally overlapping.

(this, incidentally, is why I can claim I'm never wrong. It's the universe that gets things wrong)

I can only hope that by raising the point, eventually one person will adopt a new perspective, and society can be considered to have taken a incremental step forward. That's part of the reason I enjoyed suffering through this work (even with its faults and self-insert traumas), since it forced me to consider a perspective that still feels foreign. It gives me understanding even when I don't have native empathy for the perspective.

I think that's a pretty well put world view, I think your experiences reading through this manga, suffering while considering a foreign perspective to gain understanding is something I relate to and agree with.

I thought it was strange a strange idea to pursue, it seemed weird to put yourself through discomfort for the sake of understanding someone else, and I guess I kind of stopped when it seemed inconvenient.

I'm pretty thankful for you pointing that out actually, I think it helped me rediscover what I was missing.

Also, your reading list seems to be empty? Do you have a reading list on mangadex or somewhere else?

 

[Doomroar]

Is this the fabled incel to trans pipeline that people keep talking about lmao?

 

[vvboondoggirl]

if cis women were applied the same "standard" as AGP the only ones that wouldn't meet that description would be like asexual women. lmao. actually get outta here with that garbage. masturbation and heavy porn consumption are symptomatic of someone struggling with their libido, which like, yeah if your libido causes this kind of huge dysphoric stress because of the way it is gendered, functioning, and presents, you get obsessed with trying to control it in the way boys/men are taught how. The more apparent explanation of "I can't control my sex drive" is preferred over "my sex drive is at odds with who i am". Most cis men, wont entertain the latter past 'I don't want to be a jerk off'. It's another thing to engage it and start questioning one's masculinity, especially when ostensibly, high libido is esteemed in conventional masculinity. I empathized heavily with those portions on libido during puberty, as it was nightmarish. I relived some of that when my doctor detransitioned me which really made me go huh yeah I hated that in high school because it was not who i was. Porn consumption really has no bearing other than like, theres a shit ton of transphobic porn out there that definitely does 0 favors to trans people, and like porn should not be your sole introduction to like x minority or y sexual dynamic, thats really a public education issue.

 

[romie68]

God, I hope oshimi learns that transitioning is a thing someday

A thing that leads to suicide

 

[AverageDudeWithAveragePenis]

if cis women were applied the same "standard" as AGP the only ones that wouldn't meet that description would be like asexual women. lmao. actually get outta here with that garbage. masturbation and heavy porn consumption are symptomatic of someone struggling with their libido, which like, yeah if your libido causes this kind of huge dysphoric stress because of the way it is gendered, functioning, and presents, you get obsessed with trying to control it in the way boys/men are taught how. The more apparent explanation of "I can't control my sex drive" is preferred over "my sex drive is at odds with who i am". Most cis men, wont entertain the latter past 'I don't want to be a jerk off'. It's another thing to engage it and start questioning one's masculinity, especially when ostensibly, high libido is esteemed in conventional masculinity. I empathized heavily with those portions on libido during puberty, as it was nightmarish. I relived some of that when my doctor detransitioned me which really made me go huh yeah I hated that in high school because it was not who i was. Porn consumption really has no bearing other than like, theres a shit ton of transphobic porn out there that definitely does 0 favors to trans people, and like porn should not be your sole introduction to like x minority or y sexual dynamic, thats really a public education issue.

I read your essay like 10 times now, I legitimately cannot figure out what you're saying here. It is hard for people with high libido to control their desires. And your paragraph almost kinda sound like what the mangaka wrote in this chapter. Almost.

One thing of note is that you don't disagree that trans people and the paraphilia of getting off to being perceived as women are a thing. I can't say for sure what you're saying is true though or more less the same when a amab has it. Our sexual bodily functions are different, and so is our sexual morphism.

You should quote me next time I find this an interesting discussion.

 

[LadyTyche]

This is the modern version of Mortification of the Flesh, but instead of whipping yourself you get to make a carreer out of telling everyone how much you hate your body, and how it doesn't line up with your ego's expectations.

As a bonus, white knights will argue that people aren't allowed to analyze you for openly making your obsessive fetishization of self loathing and despair a career.

 

[Lustrist]

well. i hoped this manga helped. good luck mangaka

 

[vvboondoggirl]

I read your essay like 10 times now, I legitimately cannot figure out what you're saying here. It is hard for people with high libido to control their desires. And your paragraph almost kinda sound like what the mangaka wrote in this chapter. Almost.

One thing of note is that you don't disagree that trans people and the paraphilia of getting off to being perceived as women are a thing. I can't say for sure what you're saying is true though or more less the same when a amab has it. Our sexual bodily functions are different, and so is our sexual morphism.

You should quote me next time I find this an interesting discussion.

I'll stop you there. AGP is patent bullshit. I did no such thing to validate any paraphilia as necessary. All I said was that people use porn and it's mostly fine to do that, what gets construed as an addiction to porn is not really consequential to people transitioning or not. Obsessive porn use is symptomatic of many different possible problems. For trans people I was specifically noting it in regards to "troubled relationship with libido" which can range from its actual "physiological level", to one's psychological disposition around it, to dysphoria induced by it which are reasonable explanations besides that junk AGP garbage. Anyone can have an abnormal amount of porn consumption for a variety of reasons, basically. The presence of such isn't the green light to screech about debunked bad medical theory that describes like 98% of cis women. I just was describing a reason why trans women might have, at one, very fraught time in their lives, had such a compulsion, which has nothing to do with getting off while being perceived as a woman.

If you accept that trans women are women, then the point i made behind saying cis women are pretty much all 'AGP' too is apparent that there is no functional difference in trans women and cis women's sexual desire psychologically, and virtually physiologically given hormonal treatment too. You don't seem to accept as much is where I can see confusion.

In regards to libido being gendered, the way it functions/presents in AMAB people, I'll clarify. I guess it should seem obvious but if you don't like having a dick, having it literally remind you every single morning that its there and is expecting sexual function would be distressing yeah? Even if you weren't particularly dysphoric about having it, like for example, myself there still is a reminder of all your body is "obliged" to do. It can feel deterministic, inevitable, libido in general that is, especially when it has these gendered expectations around it for both men and women. Like dudes love talking about erections lol. Most of that distress is derived from the socialization of it, seeing as like, women do have comparable arousal as well. I mean, I don't believe we are really meaningfully sexually dimorphic at all.

 

[SpunkyDragon]

God, I hope oshimi learns that transitioning is a thing someday

The eggest egg of them all

 

[SpunkyDragon]

O

He is aware of that, he wanted to be born as an actual girl instead. This is an afterword from his another manga 'Inside Mari'

Oh man, I understand what he says about "experiencing the world as a man".
Osamu Tezuka said something similar in BlackJack, and I think he's talking more about his own experiences than transitioning. I dunno if he's disillusioned with being a man, of if just the idea of gender as a construct is what fascinates him. Someone please introduce him to the author of Shimanami Tasogare, maybe they will make him see the light or something.

 

[SpunkyDragon]

U

I like to think that I'm fairly knowledgeable on gender/sexuality (being part of LGBTQ+ myself) while still being able to look at these issues objectively without being caught up in "sensational" ideas like: having pronouns/labels for every possible variation of gender/sexuality, or having to heavily modify your body just to be comfortable in your own skin.

That said, I really can't tell for sure what Oshimi's trying to deal with (in his own life, not his works). All of his "after-words" in this series and others just contain a whole lot of nothing. I'm not sure if it's because he has too many issues that are interwoven, making them too complex to properly explain/express; or if he has some simple issue that he just really really sucks at explaining/expressing and is overcomplicating it. Still, I think it's the latter, so I'll try to give an (somewhat surface level) interpretation of his mentality anyways:

• It all started because he became disgusted by his own sexual desires due to societal norms telling him to be. And he happens to also dislike how he looks or looked due to puberty. Both of these combined caused him to want to be clean/pure/beautiful.
• As such, he wants to be a female, because he associates those ideals with the idea of "femininity". From what I can tell, he thinks this because he viewed women as completely holy/perfect/clean.
• But then again, this contrasts with how realistically girls and women have been portrayed in some of his works: they're not perfect and clean by default.
• Still, even if he recognizes that, he still places "femininity" on a pedestal due to how unattainable it is to him (both physically and mentally). He wants to actually be a woman because he thinks there's some hidden secret he will never know about due to having been born a man (spoilers: there isn't). And if he had been born a woman, everything will just click and he'll be happy (which is just way too idealistic).
• But besides all of the above ideas, something he strongly believes is that societal norms can be really toxic. He also wishes for people to treat individuals as the complex individuals they are, rather than treat them as neatly-wrapped packages with labels perfectly describing what they are. These are expressed quite strongly in this manga. (These are just valid ideas and not an inner turmoil like the ones above)

To summarize: the societal norms regarding being a man have made Oshimi deeply unhappy from a young age so he wants to not be "a man", but he can't (for reasons he can’t articulate).

My answer to his dilemmas (and it’s possible this is too narrow-minded) is: he’s overcomplicating things. He just needs to recognize that there's nothing inherently wrong with sexual desires; it's not inherently better or worse to be a woman; and societal norms aren't always "correct". Feel free to like what you like (if it doesn't actually harm anyone) and act however you want (if it doesn't actually harm anyone). Life is really not as deep as many people make it out to be, and Oshimi is just stressing over nothing.

I don't think he's obsessed with sexual desire, if anything, based on what he said, he's struggling with them because he doesn't even know why he has them. He has them because he has been conditioned to believe he should have them. But he also despises them because they make him feel filthy and disgusted at himself; probably because he doesn't have an "actual reason" to have them. He also mentioned this in InsideMari, and Devil's Ecstasy. I feel like japanese society puts a lot of pressure in men to be "carnivore" (an actual term used there) and be interested on sex so they can increase the birth rate; but as he said, that leaves trans people, gay man, and asexual men out. That might be part of the situation.

 

[SpunkyDragon]

This is the modern version of Mortification of the Flesh, but instead of whipping yourself you get to make a carreer out of telling everyone how much you hate your body, and how it doesn't line up with your ego's expectations.

As a bonus, white knights will argue that people aren't allowed to analyze you for openly making your obsessive fetishization of self loathing and despair a career.

I mean, that's what brings food to the table? Tarantino does the same, more or less

 

[MangaField]

Why did he not even once mention “transgender“? Thats‘s clearly what he is. Why is he saying all that pseudo-profound bullshit instead of actually naming the core issue?

What is going on here?? Surely he must be aware of transgender people, even if it‘s Japan we are talking about. Just transition and live as a woman. It‘s not that deep or complicated. And if his surroundings don‘t accept it, create a new one.