Ace character in Vita Sexualis, a Japanese novel

[michaeld]

I posted about this elsewhere a while ago, but I thing it belongs here too.

 

We received a request from a college student a while ago about wanting to gather ace opinions about a particular character in a Japanese book called Vita Sexualis. I haven't read it yet, but apparently the character Kanai Shizuka could possibly be viewed as ace. But the researcher would like to obtain more opinions from aces.

 

It goes without saying that no-one can diagnose whether a fictional character really is or isn't ace. But I think ace people can still provide useful input about whether the character resonates with your and others' experience of being ace. Note the reasonably short deadline of 15 May. Let me know if you have any questions for the researcher or if you'd like to get involved.

 

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Vita Sexualis:

an early 20th century semi-autobiographical japanese novel about the "awakening" of the protagonist's sexual awareness, Kanai Shizuka.

Even though it's not recognised by the academia nor the general public, as an ace myself I soon realised his asexual orientation.
Now I'm trying to visibilise it via my final degree thesis.

LOOKING FOR: as many people as possible in the asexual spectrum who would read the 150-pages-novel. Anonymus, only needed to answer this 3 questions:

- Do you consider the character Kanai to be asexual?
- If so, what type of asexuality does he seem to experience (asexual, greysexual, demisexual, sex-repulsed, sex-favorable, sex-indifferent, etc.)?
- Have you felt identified with any of his thoughts or experiences (which ones)?

Any further comments you might like to make are welcome! (Maybe about his romantic orientation?)

If you can help me, please, send me your opinions and nationality (as a proof of the internationality of the participants) to tanoshiijapones@gmail.com or erica.ekobo@estudiante.uam.es (my student email).
Requirement: Needed before the 15th of May!

PDF available in Spanish, English, Japanese and German: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Htt1rzOBpDyjQxPdew7ki8QLyrRfYZPP?usp=drive_link

The google drive link contains the full text (which is out of copyright, so can be shared publicly like this).

[Sarah-Sylvia]

I'm going over it. Do I just put my thoughts here when I've gone through it?

[michaeld]

1 hour ago, Sarah-Sylvia said:

I'm going over it. Do I just put my thoughts here when I've gone through it?

You can do, and I'll pass it on! Or you can send to the address the researcher gave:

 

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If you can help me, please, send me your opinions and nationality (as a proof of the internationality of the participants) to tanoshiijapones@gmail.com or erica.ekobo@estudiante.uam.es (my student email).

 

Thanks!

[Sarah-Sylvia]

After reading it, I'll share my thoughts on the 3 questions.

 

1 & 2) Based on the start and bulk of the book within the book (in first person), it seems on the surface like Kanai-san is asexual, saying he has no real sexual desire (p.20) and not seeming interested in sexual aspects, though there's also an attitude that seems to be connected to morality as well (considering it 'wrong', maybe at least before marriage) but also he does say that sexual desire was the reason he didn't resist a sexual experience later (p.107). In the last pages the narrator describes with analysis how Kanai-san experienced it in the end (including when referring to the 'tiger' of sexual desire), and there was the mention of there being some, but not needing it. This is probably what makes it easier for him to 'tame' the urges, which seem to be low in the first place (though he does seem to say it can "terrify and awe" which is odd), based on how little interest he's had. So he might not be strictly asexual, depending on if this really is desire or if its libido.

 

It's a little unclear how much this has to do with low libido compared to lacking sexual attraction but it seems to be both if I consider everything, while also having some sex-negative attitudes in some ways maybe based on the morals and intellectualism he developed. My opinion is that the character can be interpreted to be either asexual or graysexual, with low libido, and probably not sex averse even though there are the attitudes I mentioned. I'd lean towards graysexual if I had to say, since he doesn't seem to only be referring to release. But I think it could be interpreted differently too.

 

3) As someone graysexual I do relate to what was mentioned regarding not needing it. which makes things much easier to control especially if there aren't strong urges. I also think that there isn't a clear indicator of clear sexual attraction which is pretty telling, and at this point for me would be hard to mention it if I wrote about my experiences (having attraction but not really something clearly sexual), though not much is said regarding his marriages besides some speculation at the end but I thought maybe it had to do with not really feeling more at that time either. I didn't have the same experiences as the character in my teens though since I did have higher libido then. I relate to more now, though.

 

* As for romantic orientation, he could be hetero-romantic, based on his dreams and interests in a love life, or maybe demiromantic based on his views around liking someone's soul rather than looks, though he did seem to have a crush at one point with that woman he thought a lot about, so I'd lean towards simply hetero-romantic and caring more about the content of someone. Maybe having less crushes like is the case for some asexuals.

@michaeld If you're still ok passing it on, you can. If not I can send it. I guess you can mention I'm Canadian, since that was mentioned.