Character study plus observations of lesbophobic and misogynistic online discourse on LIHKG with regards to a queer JAV porn-star
SapphicCritique here again. Today, I would like to introduce an awesome queer celebrity to you and be a killjoy and rant about what I find to be troubling lesbophobic and misogynistic online discourse on LIHKG in a discussion thread of running commentary on Shiina Sora’s performance in her newest films. I am not going to expose the usernames of these forum participants, but I am going to quote some of them in this blog.
Shiina Sora is this hot JAV porn-star who came out as a lesbian ciswoman in the year 2013. She is open about her sexual orientation and her personal love life and even produced a series of real-life sex documentary called ‘Bibians’ with her ex-girlfriend (then girlfriend) in the years 2013-2015, making her a pioneer as the first gay woman to come out in the industry in Japan and the first star to produce a real-life sex documentary with her actual lover. Her godly status in the industry is seen in her title, the female version of Taka Kato the Adult Films King (unrelated: why is the male version unmarked and the female marked?) Her performance in adult films is subversive due to her queer identity and high acceptance of different forms of sex. She is supportive of queer rights and sex-positivity, and she is also an active fighter on the front of dispersing AIDS-related attacks on the gay community. She is also known for her genderfucking performance as an occasional casual drag king and a woman penetrating man in some of her films.
(Shiina Sora with her signature pose, with the same name as her self-dubbed title, the god of Teman [fingering in Japanese])
The discussion thread I meant to discuss here shows the construction of gender ideals on digital media through a homosocial, misogynistic and heteronormative discourse. Namely, it is an online co-construction and re-articulation of the tough masculinity ideal which involves homophobic slurs and sexual objectification of women as vile bodies. It is needless to say I was very mad and dumbfounded to see some forum participants of LIHKG take this female subject who is queer and assumed agency through her openness about sex out of context and objectify her as merely “the sex” and the queer other, and proceed to talk about conquering this “unattainable prize” in the language of rape culture. I believe that online discourse and social reality are co-dependent and what we talk or hear about online affects how we think and act in real life. Therefore, it is highly meaningful for us to always question how online discourse is shaped in such a way that it both informs and re-articulates gender ideals both online and in real life.
Some of what these forum participants said brought my attention to their alarming lesbophobia and how it is vastly different from homophobia charged towards gay men. Some of the forum participants said and I quote, “Fucking a pretty tomboy is THE dream. Fuck her so hard until she turns fucking straight.” “Since she admitted to the public what her sexual orientation is, it makes it that much more exciting to jerk off to her films.” “Cunt’s fucking unwilling face when she’s getting fucked… like it is I who is fucking her out of her mind and reverting her into a damn normal woman.” It seems significant that this kind of “conversion by sex” criticism is phallocentric, and I seldom hear of criticism of male-identified homosexual people in the same manner. I wonder if it has to do with the notions of the penis as powerful and the man as the conqueror. In this discussion thread, I also catch some hints of gay-suspecting in the forum participants. Some are dissatisfied that one of them found Shiina’s gender performance of ‘female masculinity’ hot and subjugated him to gay-shaming, insinuating that maybe he “wanted to be fucked by her wearing a strap-on dildo” and was latently gay, thereby not belonging there with them. I wonder if these two ideas are conflicting, or if they are two facets of one tough masculinity ideal. Why in the homosocial interaction, the majority of the participants policed dealignment from heterosexual masculinity through a homophobic discourse? Why did one person’s dealignment harm the group’s heterosexual masculinity?
The group-dynamics in this online locker-room talk is so strange when I notice that both online and in real life, some men tend to boast of their sexual conquests (or made-up sexual conquests) and that it is strictly homosocial yet universal, almost as if they either want or need to massage their and each other’s egos by upholding this façade under some kind of peer pressure. It is deeply troubling that they do not see (or they knowingly ignore) the misogyny in this behaviour. I seldom find women doing this. I think I first became aware of this kind of behaviour when reading Deborah Cameron’s blog, language: a feminist guide, where she noted that nearly all men partake in misogynistic conversation to uphold a kind of strictly heterosexual masculinity and foster heterosexual homosociality, to distance themselves from any doubt that they could be homosexual and thereby not masculine. This leads me to ponder the heterosexual matrix proposed by Judith Butler in Gender Trouble, where sex shapes gender and then shapes desire, and all of them work in tandem with each other such that each one affirms or negates the other. If you are born with a penis, you are a guy and you love women. Contradicting one of these three notions will disqualify the other two. As such, a man who loves another man is not ‘masculine’, and thus is ‘less than’ a man. (huge urgh) In this thread, it seems that it is imperative for these ‘straight cismen’ to appreciate and police Shiina’s body in a misogynist conquering manner while putting down any dissenting gender performance (such as appreciating Shiina’s manliness) lest it harms the masculinity of the whole.
Another thing that I deem worth looking into is the conflicting desire that the forum participants voice out in the thread. On one hand, they seemed to enjoy criticizing the Shiina’s body and her performance, comparing her to the mainstream porn-star persona. On the other hand, they value her uniqueness and unattainable status, claiming it makes her hotter. This is shown when they argued that as a “tomboy”, she is very hot because “tomboys” are “unattainable” (by men) in real life. At the same time, some of them argued that she can’t be a real lesbian and must instead be a bisexual woman (and must be by deduction “attainable”) (as if women are objects to be acquired) (huger ugh). Why is an ‘unattainable’ female person both more appealing and less appealing to them?
Yet another mystery bigger than the discussion thread itself is the thread’s oddity in the forum. Although LIHKG users often joke that there are no “sisters” (female users) in the forum and all those whose user name is red (it can be either red or blue) are gay male users, not female users, they also good-naturedly joke that it is the largest local gay forum. They say so because there are often posts advocating for queer rights or promoting equality movements in Hong Kong, and when it is discussed as a big topic, it is more well-received than hated. But in this discussion thread, I see homophobia dominating and underlining a misogynistic discussion over a female body. I can’t help but wonder, where do participants draw the line? What makes the political queer matters serious and deserving support, but Shiina and her fans laughing stocks?
(meme with the caption: LIHKG The largest local gay forum)
I am probably reading too much out of what these men called ‘having a bit of fun’. But it is definitely not okay when it is at the expense of women or queer people. In fact, it is not okay on any person, and I am not merely being a killjoy when I problematize online discourse oozing in misogyny and lesbophobia. Online discourse and social reality are co-dependent and what we talk or hear about online always affects how we think and act in real life. Normalizing sexual objectification by letting it pass us by without comment is dangerous. We can never be too careful what we take in unconsciously and when we inadvertently help re-articulate ‘toxic’ gender ideals.
