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Hi! My ask is related to your latest answer about Yashiro’s interest in leaving yakuza. You mentioned that not showing Yashiro and Miaumi sex was a smart decision and it caught my attention. So I wanted to ask how do you interpret that specific choice? I’m very curious about your take on that cause that’s something I’ve been wondering about but I couldn’t come up with any real answers, I had only some vague feelings about it.
hi hi, thank you for the question! i did spend a lot of time thinking about that choice, but i wouldn't say that i hold any real answers either, especially since we're talking about absence of a scene rather than analyzing something that exists in the text. so ultimately this is just me trying to put my own somewhat vague feelings into words
in my opinion not showing misumi and yashiro having sex renders the sexual violence invisible (in a literal sense, you know it happened, but don't have the mental image to recall every time the man shows his face) and therefore forgettable. it has a lot to do with how misumi is written in general - he is violent and cruel, but the cruelty doesn't come out that often, doesn't seep through his every word like it does with inami for example, where it's difficult to see a person through the anger and disgust that he evokes (it's still important to try to, though). misumi as we know him now is arguably charismatic, usually relatively calm, even funny at times, and his conversations with yashiro come off as friendly and lack the edge. so you're inclined to forget how violent misumi can be. that is, until he says or does something that reminds you of how much control and power he actually has over yashiro (which is also why his cruelty is so... effective? for the lack of a better word). that outburst in vol 7 and the seeming ease with which yashiro deescalated the situation only make me wonder how many times it had happened before and how much it reflects what their dynamic was like when they were sleeping together
i think there's also something in how you learn about misumi being sexually involved with yashiro in ch 1, without it being shown, and later in the same chapter learn about yashiro's stepfather abusing him, once again without being shown anything. you're not forced to look at it. and then in vol 2 you get both the flashback to yashiro being raped and to the physical violence he experienced at the hands of misumi, as well as the lead up to them having sex for the first time (consider the importance of misumi calling yashiro his "son" in this context), but only that - the sex itself isn't shown. you know it happened, you know it will be happening for a while, and you know that it's about control, but you're spared the visuals. here's the thing though, at that point you've already seen yashiro having sex with so many men that adding one more scene shouldn't matter, right?
which leads me to the question of dignity. i don't remember if the word is ever used in the text, but it's always at the back of my mind when i (re)read saezuru. there's a lot to be said about who has the privilege of their sex life being respected and private, who can walk away from a sexual encounter without being branded a whore or a faggot (not yashiro, but seemingly every man who had sex with him. i've got to mention, especially since it's you who sent the ask, that transmisogyny read on that is absurdly easy to make), how different characters' sexual trauma is treated (e.g. aoi's is described by doumeki without her knowledge or consent and simultaneously made into his trauma in a way, and you're shown it, too; doumeki's is only described, not fully, and he talks about it himself), etc. it's a very broad topic, but back to misumi - not showing him having sex is about his dignity. you as a reader are not privy to seeing him exposed the same way as yashiro. you never see misumi having sex with women either, but he boasts about how many lovers he has, because it's a status symbol. so the power and status are established and maintained without his vulnerability being exposed. misumi gets to have dignity, yashiro doesn't, and by not showing them have sex misumi is not put down to yashiro's level, which simultaneously puts him above men like ryuzaki (look at the group sex during the flashback in vol 2 and ch 5 from this perspective, how misumi gets to watch and interrupt both times, whereas his sex with yashiro most likely always happened in private. control, entitlement, possessiveness. privilege of privacy. you know)
to be clear, i don't think that that's how yoneda kou herself looks at things. she wouldn't have been able to put so much love and care towards those undesired otherwise. and as far as i'm concerned, there is more dignity in aoi's shaky voice or yashiro licking his own cum off the floor than in anything misumi has ever done with his life. but that's not how the society both in the context of the story and in real life looks at it. and if we're going with the idea that the author wants to have a conversation with her reader and poke at some biases they might have, then it's worth considering why she chooses to show some things but not others