Something Iâve noticed about Yashiro and Ryuuzaki is that Yashiro seems to believe that if he were a woman, the men around him would treat him better. Ryuuzaki even implies that if Yashiro were a woman, he would protect him. But I donât think thatâs true at all.
Women â especially in the yakuza world â are treated horribly, reduced to objects for prostitution, and subjected to violence. Yashiro, having grown up in this environment, would have witnessed this firsthand. Itâs hard to believe he could think women are treated better when the reality around him shows otherwise.
As for Ryuuzaki, his says that heâd treat Yashiro better if he were a woman. He might believe that now, but given how yakuza men typically treat women, itâs likely heâd end up seeing Yashiro as just another disposable woman. Yashiroâs current position as a man â even one whoâs sexually exploited â still gives him more autonomy than most women in that world.
So, the idea that Yashiro would be better off as a woman doesnât hold up when you consider the brutal reality of how women are actually treated in the yakuza.
Please tell me what you think? Love your page!!!
Hi there, and thank you for your kind words!
Well, it's interesting. I don't know if it's necessarily that Yashiro thinks women are treated better than men, but that I think he believe women are more delicate than men and so should be treated better.
One of the few instances of Yashiro having sex with a girl, that we really know of, was when he was in middle school, and when he got rough with her, she started to cry, which immediately turned Yashiro off and he stopped. His entire foundational understanding of sex up to that point was from his own experiences, which were always abusive and violent, and so I think he didn't realize until that moment with that girl, that the way he himself had been treated during sex was unusual, or in the very least, not something acceptable when it comes to women. I think from that, Yashiro was given the impression that women can't handle physical violence or brutality during sex, that it isn't something they would want or desire, and despite what Yashiro thinks about himself, he isn't actually a sadist at all. He isn't the type of person to force something on someone when they don't want it. He doesn't have that desire or deviancy in him.
So, what I think it is with Yashiro, is that he imagines, if he were a woman, he could ask for gentle and kind treatment without being painted as effeminate or feminine for it. I've spoken before about how I think part of what causes Yashiro to become so physically ill if he's treated gently during sex is that he associates that kind of treatment with how a woman should or would be treated, and it reminds him of what his step-father told him in the years he was abusing Yashiro, that he was really a woman, etc... Being treated gently during sex acts as a trigger for Yashiro, and I think that's a big part of the reason why. But it also creates a conflict in him, because he wants to be treated gently. He wants to be treated "like a woman". But being treated like a woman, acknowledging those thoughts and feelings he has, this desire he has to be treated like how a woman would or should be, is like acknowledging that his step-father was right about him. That he's really a woman. And if his step-father was right about him really being a woman, then that also affirms all the other things his step-father said about him and all the other things he did to Yashiro.
Yashiro tells Kage at one point, after Ryuuzaki's girlfriend is raped and they bring her to Kage's clinic for help, that women are more delicate than men and so it's harder for them when something like this happens, to which Kage scolds Yashiro and tells him that isn't how it works at all. So we see that Yashiro has this idea that women, while they do get abused by men in horrific ways, aren't built for that kind of abuse, while he thinks men are. He thinks, at this point, that it's something a man can handle better than a woman, which is also how Yashiro copes with his own trauma, through this idea that the abuse he's suffered didn't really hurt him, or that it was something he wanted all along, etc... Really, because of the abuse Yashiro suffered, he just has a very warped idea of sex in general and also of gender roles and his own relationship with his gender and desires. A lot of people talk about how Yashiro might in fact be transgender, which I think is a totally valid interpretation. But if that's true, acknowledging that for him would be extremely difficult and grievously painful, because of the before mentioned trauma and trigger of acknowledging his more feminine qualities and desires. But also, if he was a woman, it might be easier for him to acknowledge and ask for what he really wants, without the fear or pain that he now experiences. I also think Yashiro's comment that sex with men would be easier if he were a woman is just him commenting that these hyper-masculine men that he's always around would be easier to convince to have sex with him than it currently is, with him being a man. But since we know Yashiro convinces himself that he likes to be abused during sex, his comment implies to me that he would still seek, at that point, to be physically abused by his sexual partners, even if he was a woman. I don't think Yashiro has any delusions about how women are treated by the yakuza or by society in general. I think there's simply a distinction in how he believes a woman should be treated versus a man. This idea that a woman needs to be handled with more care and gentility.
Anyway, I don't really know if Ryuuzaki wouldn't treat Yashiro better if he was a woman. We don't see any evidence of Ryuuzaki being abusive toward his girlfriend in the story, and indeed he asks Yashiro to go help her because he knows she's being subjected to rape by Hirata's men, which would indicate that Ryuuzaki isn't the sort to think raping a woman is okay. I think what Ryuuzaki is really referring to when he thinks about how if Yashiro was a woman, he could have protected him, is that there wouldn't have been the same sort of stigma attached to caring for and loving Yashiro if he was a woman as there obviously is with Yashiro being a man. Nobody would have bated an eye at Ryuuzaki taking care of and loving Yashiro if he were a woman. As it is, though, Ryuuzaki has to hide his love for Yashiro.
Anyway, I don't know if this was really the answer you were looking for, but I hope it was at least somewhat satisfactory! Thank you for asking!
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