Can't Get A Girlfriend? How About A Pillow?
Last month, the New York Times Magazine ran a fascinating story by Lisa Katayama about the popularity of body-pillow girlfriends in Japan. Apparently, an unknown fraction of men - a subculture of a subculture - adopt "2-D" lovers as a substitute for the real thing. They take them out to restaurants, treat them tenderly, and bring them home to bed at night.
Unlike actual humans, body pillows can be purchased on internet auction sites and via discount retailers. They are emotionally uncomplicated, easy to replace and replicate, and make for cheap dates.
[T]he rise of 2-D love can be attributed in part to the difficulty many young Japanese have in navigating modern romantic life. According to a government survey, more than a quarter of unmarried men and women between the ages of 30 and 34 are virgins; 50 percent of men and women in Japan said they were not "going out with anybody."
The funny thing is, it sounds quite reasonable, in a sad sort of way:
The guru of the 2-D love movement, Toru Honda... has written half a dozen books advocating the 2-D lifestyle. A few years ago, Honda, a college dropout who worked a succession of jobs at video-game companies, began to use the Internet to urge otaku to stand with pride against good-looking men and women. His site generated enough buzz to earn him a publishing contract, and in 2005 he released a book condemning what he calls "romantic capitalism." Honda argues that romance was marketed so excessively through B-movies, soap operas and novels during Japan's economic bubble of the '80s that it has become a commodity and its true value has been lost; romance is so tainted with social constructs that it can be bought by only good looks and money. According to Honda, somewhere along the way, decent men like himself lost interest in the notion entirely and turned to 2-D.... Honda insists that he's advocating not prurience but a whole new kind of romance. If, as some researchers suggest, romantic love can be broken down into electrical impulses in the brain, then why not train the mind to simulate those signals while looking at an inanimate character?
The entire article is very much worth reading. Then go rent Lars and the Real Girl and make it a twofer.
Love In 2-D [The New York Times Magazine]
(Photo: kaex0r)
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Comments:
Because characters of women are so much healthier than the real thing... Geez talk about the objectification of women. This is really sad. Just a thought but rather than advocating for body pillow, why doesn't this guy create alternative dating venues with different rules so that these guys/gals can find actual love?
I bet the pillows still win arguments.
And is that the best pic we can find of these 2D love pillows? I can't possibly be persuaded by such a low res image?
Somebody should legally prevent those pillows from making their way back into the market as second hand items.
they need to man up.
I put hookers down as Plan B and, looking at this option, girl-pillows as Plan C.
Lisa Katayama has a history of knowingly distorting or misrepresenting Japanese topics in her articles so please take her words with a large grain of salt.
This type of 2-D love definitely exists as I've seen it in person, but it seems she will often imply or exaggerate points for the sake of clicks.
Id like to point out that Japan is currently situated between full societal rights for women and continued objectification and stereotypical expectations of them. Its not uncommon for men to expect women who are much more affluent than they are to become housewives. Of course, those guys never get a date.
And lets not get started on the fact that a significant portion of women in Japan are only willing to date men who earn 2 or 3 times the national median wage....
@dakotad555: I think there's this kind of opinion that everyone is deserving of love, which is bunk. I for one am a horrible person most certainly is ineligible for romantic love and am only eligible for familial love by blood until the rest of my family figures out how to alter their DNA and completely disown me.
Some folks just won't ever get there. These people that give up and settle are doing themselves a favor than reaching for a brass ring they'll never get.
I'm not sure how I feel about this... On the one hand, it sort of makes sense. On the other hand... "Toru Honda"? It's the name of the main female character of the immensely popular manga/anime series "Fruits Basket".
I guess as long as the pillow doesn't turn into a tiger when you hug it or something.
I feel bad that I treated my pillow girlfriend so badly growing up...I never took her out to dinner, movies or even a vacation.
This is what happens when you nuke a country, people. Do we really need any other discussions on why we need to disarm the world?
It's the only way to describe why there are so many creepy, pathetic, sad and otherwise WEIRD Japanese qualities that the rest of the world simply stares at and wonders what went wrong.
Hilarious and creepy at the same time :/
Meh, I just cuddle a regular pillow to sleep. Sometimes I whisper sweet nothings in its ear as well.
If you see me somewhere by myself, and gesturing and talking, do not take me to be a d-bag on his bluetooth headset. I am just a loser talking to my imaginary soulmate.
This article is highly suspect. It's been the subject of many blog posts. Basically the writer was shown one weirdo pretending to love a pillow and decided to write an article about this new "phenomenon" in Japan, as if the concept is widespread.
[www.japanprobe.com]
[www.japanprobe.com]
And fact-checking the whole article:
It's unfortunate, but nowadays you can't even trust the NYT.
This is sad and also creepy. But it's not nearly as creepy as the restaurants in which people (mostly men) are encouraged to role play with the wait staff (mostly women wearing costumes). And it's even not nearly as creepy as the men who
Oh, and I forgot to post this in the thread for the Japanese McDonalds commercial. For an interesting glimpse into Japanese youth culture, read this blog: [www.gaijinsmash.net] It's written by an American teaching English in Japan. He's been there for five years now, and it's fascinating, hilarious, and pretty bizarre what he goes through. He has a FAQ section, and here's one of the answers - it sums up a lot of the problems with Japan:
"Well, Japan's perverted. Yeah, people can take baths together and not freak out over it (I've had to learn that skill while I was here). But this is also a country where they had to institute "Women's Only" train cars because the groping problem was getting out of hand. Where high school girls can sell their unwashed panties for quite a bit of money. Where the men have an unhealthy preference for younger girls. Where camera phones have to make a very loud, very audible, non-mutable sound when a picture is taken, because the first models didn't do that and voyeur snapshots exploded all over the place. And one of my school nurses told me last week she gets quite a few students coming to her with sex problems. And these kids are in the 12-15 age range.
You can make of that what you will."
@MostlyHarmless: I don't sleep with pillows anymore after my last one drugged and violated me. The trust is gone, totally gone.
@Saboth: And don't forget that time you had the dream about eating a giant marshmallow, which was the same night she disappeared!
@pecan 3.14159265: Oops. I got cut off. I was about to add that it's not as creepy as the men who act on their ideas of fun by doing all of it and dissociating themselves from all family and friends.
So... these are Japanese Plushies?
@PingPongDarts: Thanks for the tip. Cuddling with your 2-D girlfriend I can understand, but taking her out to dinner? This article makes it sound almost commonplace.
@dakotad555: Yes, it's sad, but I don't see it as the objectification of women. Just a rather pathetic attempt to fill a whole in your life.
Everyone wants love. Unfortunately, a lot of people have unrealistic expectations of what love and romance are.
The funny thing is, it sounds quite reasonable, in a sad sort of way...
Toru Honda missed his calling. He should have moved to the US and became an attorney. If he can make sex with pillows sound reasonable, he'd be unstoppable as a litigator.
Do they make male pillows? Because damned if I can't get a boyfriend, and a plain white pillow just isn't smexy enough for humping on.
@pecan 3.14159265: Wait, what kind of role-playing? Although in it's face it seems like a very weird extension of the concept of the geisha.
@JennQPublic: Yeah, there are definitely some unusual people out there who will actually do these types of things but what I and many others take issue with is that these types of articles will often take many liberties and imply that these types of behavior are much more prevalent or accepted as the "norm" than they really are.
@pecan 3.14159265: Great blog, and thank you for dropping my productivity level to 0.
My boss hates you.
This isn't creepy to me because I saw the BBC America documentary about the Real Dolls.
That is CREEPY.
@JennQPublic: I don't see it as objectification either. Most likely these dudes WOULD like to have a real girl, but are either too shy/scared or too socially inept to get one.
@PingPongDarts: Come on, all the cool, er, uncool kids are doing it.
(hey, Consumerist, you should whitelist the <strike> tag.)
@dakotad555: Wait what? These guys can't get a date, they buy a sad pillow to keep them company and listen to their stories about "Sailor Moon", or whatever gay anime nerds watch these days, and cry themselves to sleep, and somehow you're twisting that to be about the objectification of women? Holy crap. If you're a girl, not EVERYTHING is about you, although I'm sure you wish it were. If you're a guy, then even being this pathetically sensitive isn't going to get you laid.
Yuk, I hope they're machine washable!
I had actually heard an interview with her on NPR about this. Interesting perspective: [www.npr.org]
@GitEmSteveDave_TryinToTakeItBack: Agree with everything you said except for the cold nights and dog/cats part. A pillow is an excellent insulator, and some of those things are large enough to rest your head on and still reach your feet and it is in fact an object that can be on the opposite side of a pet.
Not really arguing the case for pillow-girlfriends. Just being pedantic.
@sicknick:
Uh yea, this has more to do with the Japanese culture between men and women, and I'd say nothing to do with it's political history.
@sicknick: I'd like to point out the fact that basing your opinion of Japanese culture solely on the otaku is like basing your opinion of American culture on the media coverage of rednecks. Not everyone sleeps with their cousins/pillows.
I'd like to, but you're so busy conforming to your own stereotypes that you probably wouldn't listen to me anyways.
I would much rather see a man taking a pillow or a "real doll" on a date than attempting to rape a real person because he has no emotional outlet.
@aloria: Women absolutely and without a doubt already have the winning hand in the sex toys department. Rabbit-style vibrating dildos is to Fleshlight as the space shuttle is to the pet rock.
@dakotad555: And what about the objectification of men?! Yeah, that get's overlooked. Stupid double standard.
@RecordStoreToughGuy_IsTakingItBack: There are restaurants that encourage cosplay, which by itself seems to be a fairly innocuous hobby for most people - but when you have women greeting guests with "master" while they're in maid outfits, that just creeps me out a little. Ehhhh.
@aloria: Dating isn't required if you want to doink; especially if you're a woman. Just put it out there.
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![[media.photobucket.com]](http://media.photobucket.com/image/So%20ronery/Moniques3Monsters/more%20funnies%2010/ronery1.jpg){kind=link}
Yeah, but they won't keep me warm on cold nights, press cold feet on me, talk for 30-60 minutes about random stuff, and give my dog/cats something to get in between me and. No thank you.