Content material Warning: Dialogue of sexual coercion and assault, sufferer blaming, fetishization of girls with penises; NSFW screenshots
Spoilers for Parade Parade
Seeking intersex or trans lesbian illustration in anime, chances are you’ll discover Parade Parade, and its opening theme tune “Ai-iro Otome” (Indigo Woman) is the very first thing you’ll expertise. After the title card fades, you see a woman on a stage earlier than a roaring viewers. She sways languidly, cradling her microphone in each palms as she begins to sing. “After racing via a cheerful season / What is going to occur to the footprints within the sand of my reminiscence? Tears are rolling right down to the seashore of my coronary heart / Wind wipes them away.” Her phrases are lonely however hopeful. The scene cuts away to the unnamed singer dancing alone on a seashore, looking at an overcast horizon, grieving a ache unknown to us. After we go away the panorama of her feelings and return to her on stage for the ultimate strains of the tune, we additionally return to a world that sexualizes her; the place the group cheers because the digital camera reveals close-ups of her physique and outfit from totally different angles. “Kindness pushes again clouds / However tears like rain fall from them / Generally, indigo lady / Disappointment is rather like a fast rain earlier than you develop up.” It’s all melancholy and wonder at the beginning.
Pornography as a medium of the margins
It is not uncommon in each conventional media and particularly pornographic media to signify trans ladies and intersex girl because the fetishized victims and perpetrators of rape and abuse. Nevertheless, Parade Parade‘s concentrate on rape and abuse in particularly lesbian settings and long run relationships is uncommon and value analyzing. The protagonist, Shiina Kaori—a pop idol—is an intersex girl whose fetishization presents her because the fantasy of a phallic girl which, in the actual world, can also be regularly projected onto trans ladies. Kaori is fetishized for having a penis and a vulva, each depicted as “absolutely purposeful” and able to ejaculating. This, to be clear, is an eroticized fantasy: no intersex individual is born with a totally functioning penis and vagina. Regardless of this fantasy, Parade Parade focuses very closely on solely one among these two organs, her penis, and its supposed distinction along with her female innocence.
The fixation on Kaori’s intersexuality in Parade Parade is widespread for the style of “futanari” hentai (“intersex” or “androgynous” animated pornography) which, in response to Professor of Japanese and Korean Language and Literature Daniela Moro, has its roots in kabuki performances by “double-sex”, “half-sex”, or in any other case intersex and androgynous performers referred to as “onnagata.” In a paper by Satomi Yamamoto, she argues that “Futanari” as a time period referring to intersexuality and double-sexedness goes again a minimum of so far as the Yamai no sōshi (Illustrated Scroll of Sicknesses) from the late twelfth century, through which intersex shamans are depicted in a derogatory and submissive method below the label “Futanari.” By the late 18th and early nineteenth centuries, when mainstream manga and hentai as we all know it at the moment was taking form, creators of “futanari hentai” adopted a lot of this degrading and fetishizing double-sex aesthetic and produced pornographic content material of intersex ladies for mass consumption.
Kaori is written as an elusive, unintelligible, fantastical lady, not simply in that she is a legendary double-sexed futanari “girl with a penis,” but additionally in her demure and weak persona. The central sexual pleasure of Parade Parade is that each of those elements of Kaori—her innocence and her phallus—mix completely to make a girl who might be abused after which satisfied that abuse is one of the best love she is going to ever obtain. Parade Parade was launched in 1996 by Pink Pineapple, a Japanese animation studio devoted to hentai productions. The Nineties was not precisely a time of wholesome illustration of queer characters, but it surely did see growing activism about marginalized identities, together with the intersex expertise. Viola Amato argues in her guide Intersex Narratives that by the Nineties, on account of the civil rights motion, there was an emergence of extra “autobiographical accounts of intersex lives, conveyed from the angle of intersex people.”
Parade Parade teases on the concept of an intersex girl with a voice: Kaori, on her stage, along with her tune, and her indeterminate however emotive lyrics all point out she has a narrative to inform. The writers of Parade Parade, nonetheless, by no means really enable her to be something aside from a fetish in entrance of an viewers. The widespread expertise of being fetishised that intersex and trans ladies share, and which Kaori represents, might be considered the fantasy of the Phallic Lady—the unique notion of “hermaphroditism” that has, traditionally, encompassed each intersex and transsexual ladies. Begonya Enguix Grau has described this “notion of hermaphroditism” as “related to the not possible, the unintelligible, the mythological, the unbelievable and the monstrous.”
Amato additionally talks about “narrative violence,” whereby a story and its creators perpetuate dangerous and inaccurate concepts a couple of marginalized identification. Parade Parade is narrative violence in its fetishization of the fantasy of an intersex individual, in addition to its obsession with this fantasy’s penis. Inside this violent narrative is Kaori, making an attempt to inform her personal story via her artwork, a shifting character and singer trapped in pornography. The narrative violence of the movie, to these of us who relate to Kaori’s place, is by no means in contrast to how the world outdoors of Parade Parade treats us trans and/or intersex ladies.
The narrative violence about phallic ladies (both within the fantasy of intersex porn or within the violent rhetoric towards any ladies who’ve penises) frames us as free-use intercourse objects, sexual fascinations, and playthings. In society we’re already the “chicks with dicks,” the “shemales,” the “he-shes,” lengthy earlier than we’re uncovered to media that affirms these damaging tropes to us. Rising up as intersex and/or trans is a psychological minefield.
However Parade Parade being pornographic makes it a extra doubtless place to seek out our experiences as marginalized ladies represented, as a result of even when we’re fetishized within the course of, that kind of narrative precisely matches what our on a regular basis lives already appear to be. As a result of we’re thought-about too unsanitary for the societies we reside in, we’re compelled to look to the margins of media for illustration, even when it additionally dehumanizes us. In consequence, pornography is usually the primary place trans individuals see proof of our personal existence. And since many people are raised with this concept of our inherent lack of worth as a human, we’re in a way primed by society to embrace no matter consideration comes our method.
Love at First Sight – Yuko Finds her Indigo Woman
Shiina Kaori, the protagonist of Parade Parade, feels she owes her profession as a pop singer to her girlfriend and supervisor, Imai Yuko. The 2 met when Yuko was scouting ladies in public to discover a lady who she may groom into the right popstar; a woman who had one thing undeniably distinctive about her. We see Yuko surveying the ladies passing her on a busy sidewalk and considering to herself “Nicely, each lady is fairly, however… I’m wondering, the place can I discover a potential candidate? Not only a good determine, however… Someone that no one forgets as soon as they see her.”
Earlier than lengthy she spots the again of Kaori’s head via the group, her lengthy brown hair and timid gait occluded partially by salarymen. Her eyes develop massive, and immediately she jumps up in pursuit, having an epiphany as she runs in the direction of the lady she has chosen: “Wait, what is that this? I really feel unusual.” She calls out to the thriller lady, who then turns round, and upon seeing Kaori’s face it’s clear: Yuko is infatuated. Her very first phrases to Kaori are traditional love bombing and sign her intentions: “It’s you. Sure. You’re the one.” Kaori is able acquainted to many phallic ladies who aren’t used to receiving optimistic consideration or affection. Kaori, like the remainder of us, is extraordinarily prone to like and even an imitation of it. Most of us know what it feels prefer to be ready to do something, settle for something, and endure something, simply to maintain feeling what looks like real love. As Carmen Maria Machado writes in In The Dream Home, “She just isn’t your first feminine crush, or your first feminine kiss, and even your first feminine lover. However she is the primary girl who desires you in that method—want tinged with obsession.”
Kaori herself confirms that she has fallen for the spell of Yuko’s love bombing. She admits to Yuko that as a result of she “has an odd physique,” she has “prevented public consideration” and has been lonely all her life. Kaori has been taught that as a result of she has a penis as a girl she is undeserving of affection and companionship in any kind. Yuko dismisses her emotional vulnerability, telling her merely to “cease saying such silly issues” and pinches Kaori’s face as a punishment sublimated as play. Whereas it’s clear that Kaori believes Yuko’s affection meant she was lastly seen as an individual and never an object, for Yuko, love was only a means to acquire that uncommon object for her personal.
“It’s larger than standard” – Phallic ladies as intercourse objects
As soon as Yuko has affirmed to Kaori that she is required, she begins to provoke intercourse regardless of Kaori’s evident discomfort. “It’s larger than standard,” Yuko says to an evidently uncomfortable Kaori, who mutters “cease it” in response. Pretending to not hear this, Yuko stimulates Kaori to orgasm, and Kaori’s obvious bodily pleasure in these moments happens as a direct results of Yuko’s refusal to acknowledge her girlfriend’s discomfort or revoked consent as actual.
Within the intercourse scenes between Yuko and Kaori, consent is blurry and most frequently coercive. Yuko by no means wants enthusiastic or re-affirmed consent from Kaori. So far as she is anxious, Kaori is her sexual property, and as such just isn’t really human sufficient for consent to matter. The push-and-pull of bodily pleasure, discarded consent, compliments, and humiliation are a mechanism of confusion by which Yuko seeks to do no matter she pleases to and with Kaori whereas convincing her that the need was mutual, that consent was tacitly given.
To Yuko—and to the supposed viewers of Parade Parade—that is completely smart. Yuko idealizes Kaori to the purpose of objectification, and her girlfriend’s worth comes from what she will be able to do for Yuko’s profession and sexual gratification slightly from who she is as an individual, or her ideas and emotions. Yuko doubtless additionally is aware of that as an intersex girl, Kaori’s life is undervalued by society at massive, and that being made to really feel wanted will change the real love that Yuko had appeared to vow once they first met. Kaori is unable to see that Yuko’s objectification of her just isn’t respect or love, however abuse. Yuko has made Kaori into the engine of her personal success and wealth within the pop idol trade, in addition to, we later uncover, used her to get revenge on an previous rival. However, nonetheless, Kaori doesn’t consider she deserves any higher—she doesn’t even know what higher seems to be like. All she has are the guarantees of affection and a future collectively that Yuko made firstly, and holds onto these to maintain believing in a relationship that doesn’t actually exist.
All through Parade Parade Yuko’s emotional and sexual abuse of Kaori performs out throughout the dynamic of Yuko as a supervisor/girlfriend and Kaori as one thing of a girlpet. Having been love bombed and reworked into the beloved popstar she as soon as dreamed of being, Kaori feels indebted to Yuko to the purpose the place she accepts her subhuman standing. Kaori’s actuality has turn out to be depending on her success of Yuko’s fantasy. Her function is to serve Yuko’s pleasure, or a minimum of her infinite pursuit of it. If Yuko had been a person, possibly Kaori would have had extra seen fashions empowering her to go away. However in a lesbian relationship the place her endosex girlfriend provides her recognition, and entry to a society that might in any other case reject her, Kaori wants Yuko, and the abuse is however a minor price.
The top of fantasy – seeing abuse for what it’s
It’s when Kaori is sexually assaulted by Yuko’s previous rival singer, Saki Midorisawa, that it turns into clear to the viewers that Yuko is meant to be portrayed because the more healthy, supportive accomplice to Kaori. She’s positioned in opposition to Saki, who’s used to decrease Yuko’s abusive conduct in contrast. Nevertheless, the sexual dynamic between Kaori and Yuko can also be abusive, even whether it is much less clearly excessive than the best way Saki treats Kaori. We’re inspired to consider that as a result of Yuko just isn’t abusive in the identical method as Saki, she is Kaori’s “hero” for whom Kaori needs to be grateful, and whose personal violence needs to be neglected. This upholds the fantasy offered by Parade Parade that the intercourse scenes between Kaori and her girlfriend Yuko are consensual, as a result of by comparability to Saki’s extra blatant sexual assault, Yuko’s coercive nature appears acceptable—even mild. Saki’s possessive pursuit of Kaori just isn’t as obfuscated by fake romance as Yuko’s was, and she or he admits she desires to “acquire” Kaori to offer her personal submissive girlfriend, Sayaka, a sexual accomplice to play with.
To emphasise the distinction between the heroic Yuko and predatory Saki, Parade Parade has Saki stalk Kaori after a present to graphically assault her in a rest room stall. As soon as Saki has Kaori pinned in a stall, she is shocked by Kaori’s genitals, and exclaims “What the hell is that this? A man? You’re a person aren’t you?” Kaori meekly responds “No,” and is evidently frozen. When Saki discovers Kaori’s vulva she, as an endosex girl, redefines Kaori in response to her fantasy: “So that you’re a hermaphrodite. That is the primary time I’ve seen one. This’ll be attention-grabbing.” The scene intends to pique the identical “curiosity” within the viewers; as John Phillips writes in Transgender on Display screen, “transsexual pornography performs on the strain between concealing and revealing to generate most pleasure within the viewer.” This scene is integral to how Parade Parade builds Kaori as a personality. She is a fantasy first, a “‘hermaphrodite”’ who represents the fetishization of intersex ladies taken to the acute, and her humanity is a possible within the narrative that’s by no means reached.
Similar to Yuko, Saki ignores all of Kaori’s protests. She ignores Kaori’s murmured cries of “please cease” and “please don’t contact me,” and forces her to orgasm. When Kaori orgasms by power and coercion alike, the viewers is supposed to consider that the seen climax of a penis—even when it belongs to a girl—is proof of her consent. Parade Parade doesn’t present this as something aside from regular, for the reason that function of Kaori’s existence is to arouse psychological and bodily pleasure via the “exoticism” of her genitalia. And so when Saki tells Kaori “You’re so fairly, however you react like a person,” relating to Kaori’s bodily responses to genital stimulation, she turns into a intercourse object who is straightforward to abuse, and whose victimhood is on the identical time made invisible.
Kaori as a proxy for repressed lesbians
In Episode 2, to settle their previous grievances, Yuko and Saki problem each other to a sexual contest: the primary to make the opposite’s girlfriend orgasm wins. If Yuko loses, Kaori’s intersex identification might be revealed to the general public, ruining her and Yuko’s profession. Kaori and Sayaka are pure intercourse objects on this scene, and exist solely as a method for his or her respective handlers to show their sexual prowess and wordlessly categorical their unconfessed attraction to at least one one other. Yuko wins the competition, utilizing her romantic historical past with Saki to her benefit. She, guessing that Sayaka would have discovered a proclivity for anal intercourse from Saki, performs the act that she herself launched to Saki once they had been collectively years in the past.
Though Saki has misplaced, the 2 are reconciled and confess emotions they repressed when each she and Yuko had been popstar contemporaries. Previously, Yuko suffered a vocal harm that prematurely ended her singing profession after which fled their repressed sapphic relationship with no phrase or hint. Saki admits she assaulted Kaori solely as a result of she was jealous and nonetheless wished to be with Yuko. Yuko, likewise, was solely utilizing Kaori as a proxy popstar to get near Saki once more.
For the 2 ladies, Kaori was not a girl, however a sexual portal via which they might lastly categorical their emotions for each other. And regardless of having been used on this method, Kaori nonetheless reveals compassion for each Yuko and Saki. In the direction of the tip of Episode 2 she consoles Yuko, who she remains to be dedicated to, as she cries about the best way she harm Saki by leaving all of a sudden. Kaori, stroking her girlfriend’s again, reassures her, whispering, “Yuko, I feel she undoubtedly understands your emotions. How bitter and unhappy you had been… She undoubtedly understands.” And whereas this prompts an apology from Yuko for hurting Kaori as effectively, Kaori merely reassures her that her life has been higher since assembly Yuko. By the two-part sequence Kaori has been always mistreated, assaulted, used for intercourse and for settling sexual grudges for somebody Yuko loves extra, and regardless of all this she remains to be content material to consider her life is healthier off.
Parade Parade just isn’t a standout manufacturing. It’s an obscure porn sequence from the ‘90s that fetishizes intersex ladies, all ladies with penises, and lesbians. However additionally it is an sincere illustration of the crude therapy and abuse we obtain in the actual world. The unsanitary and taboo nature of porn finally ends up changing into a house for narratives and illustration about intersex and trans ladies, whose actual lives are sometimes seen as too unsanitary to be mentioned in full element in mainstream novels, TV reveals, and movies. Shiina Kaori just isn’t a personality that would have been written into one other style or one other context, and whereas I want she was handled higher than she was by Parade Parade, she is someway extra true to life for the expertise of phallic ladies who’re dehumanized on-and off-screen.
