Hi Flora! I'd like to ask you a question and since it's smutember this would be kinda on topic: what do you think of Usagi and Mamoru's sex life in manga? I remember how there's been debates for yeeears about how far they've gone and when (though there's no doubt about it in the final chapter lol) and the sleepovers and that infamous time in R, but then her words during body-switch with Chibs in Super and just... What do you think?
Hi anon! You are so right! This is the best fitting time for this question! And I LOVE THAT YOU ASKED IT. Of course, this has been discussed before, and way better, and so I’d like to point out that what follows is my OPINON, and nothing more! Anyway, some sites quote that it has been stated by Naoko that they did not have sex before the last volume of the Manga, so it’s perhaps canon that they haven’t – this just to preface – Howeverrrr.
Usagi’s and Mamoru’s relationship IS intimate in the manga. Definitely. However you want to argue it, these two are very comfortable in touching each other, are people who use touch-based comforting techniques, revel in each other’s closeness. In times of crisis, they hug and they kiss and they cling.
And outside of crisis, we see them making out in a very, very, healthy and trusting and emotionally connecting way that indicates physical intimacy, no matter how far they went with it.
So yes, we see them making out and being comfortable a lot.
So if nothing else, they probably did a lot of heavy heavy making out. Which we saw. Which is canon. Which is absolutely normal for two teenagers and such a beautiful thing.
We also tho have two famous scenes that argue against them being in a sexual relationship. One is a phonecall from Usagi with her mother going all ‘hehehe our relationship is PURE’ when she says she and Chibs will stay the night at Mamo-chan’s (which, if you want to check my #my mustard tag, I’ve taken apart before and really don’t think an expression like that from a teenager to her MOTHER can be taken at face value); and a different one, a little more convincing, is the fact that in the Manga scene in Japanese, where they enter High School and daydream about the things they can now do with their lives, Usagi actually says something along the lines of that Mamoru and she could now take the next step of their relationship; which many interpreted as being able to legally get married (which you can in Japan from 16 on) and others understanding it as alluding to taking it to the next step of a sexual relationship – which legally in Japan would have been possible way before for her)
But yes, keep in mind, when openly asked, Naoko said in an interview that they didn’t have sex before the last Manga chapter.
With all of this discussion tho, you do have to keep in mind the culture and the time Sailor Moon was written in. You have to remember that at the time is was a big deal that they even kissed in the show as much as they did. Other contemporary animes of the time didn’t do that as often and as openly and it was a Big Topic at the time. Sailor Moon was showing intimacy within an established relationship in ways that was a little groundbreaking at the time. And I am fully convinved that even IF Naoko had intended for them to have a sexual relationship beforehand, that she would not have been able to say so in an interview. Especially if you consider the fact that her publisher’s regularly stopped her in her sex-positive ways. That was one of the reasons that her final artbook, featuring among else a naked-from-the-waist-up and WINGED Usagi wearing sexy underwear among other sexy lingerie, was self-published, because her publishers were against it.
So anyway, I’m saying I’m pretty sure even IF (ififif) Naoko had intended it to be read otherwise (and we will never know) she would not have said so.
However, she did write the Manga in the way she did, open-ending scenes in which this could happen. The kitchen scene. We have a memory of Usagi where she pictures Mamoru naked at least from the waist up. She drew pictures of them like this plenty. Theirs is that artbook that features Usagi in very sexy lingerie, etc. She wrote Usagi naked and pure and fought a sexist standard in which these two would not go together.
Thus, I think the manga was drawn in the way that we could make up our own minds I think. We could decide, reading it, what happened between them.
And if look at this from a sex-positive (which Naoko definitely was) and likelihood view, if this were a real, non-fictional dynamic, I see this:
They were 14 and 16 when the Manga started. And they were quickly in an absolutely trusting, committed, head over heels in love relationship where they trusted each other with their lives. Where they expressed intimacy and comfort through reassuring touch. They would have been confident and trusting with each other enough to be intimate. And it’s not unlikely for teenagers that age who are in a realtionship as healthy as theirs to be intimate with each other.
Also, they probably remember having had sex in the silver millennium.
Plus, there’s the fact that they have been WAY more intimate than sex. They’ve been savng the world together forever, went through the most horryfying, most traumatizing, most intense things together side by side and holding hands. Trusting each other and counting on each other and nonverbally communicating.
If you ask people what they would do if the world ended tomorrow, a LOT of people answer with ‘have sex all day’. They’ve went up to face the end of the world a LOT, these two. AND they’ve proven to each other before that touch and intimacy is something that helps them through panic.
Judging from an overview of people and relationships and intimacy, I think if this were realistic, they realistically would have had sex at one point within in the story. (But you know, stories don’t have to be realistic! And neither do individual lives, for that matter!) And Usagi has proven to us over and over again that her beautiful portrayal of purity doesn’t include old-fashioned, harmful and repressing concepts such as linking sexuality to negating purity.
@luna-whiskers said it very nicely before:
“But I think Naoko gave us something different, and ignoring the sexual side of Sailor Moon isn’t doing women a favor either. Usagi is not a sexless being. She may represent purity and light and goodness, but she is not the virginal lamb to Beryl’s evil sex queen.”
I agree with this. And in that same vein, I think it is an absolute realistic portrayal to think these two teenagers who sacrificed themselves a lot for the world and loved each other to pieces and trusted each other with everything they had would have been lovers. And I also think this should not be such an emotional conversation anymore, with people being outraged if someone implies they were or could have been. I really think we’re past that.
And well, I do like to think if we’re ok with stories where we see a 14 to 16 yo teenager repeatedly die to save the world, we should be ok with her expressing her love and trust physically with her committed long-term teenage partner.
