Japanese Herbivore Men

MOST IMPORTANT THING!!!

This is not a place to judge Japanese culture or to say whether or not they're inferior or superior to anyone else. There might be a place for that somewhere, but this thread is not it. It is said in my locality that for every finger you point at someone, you point 4 fingers at yourself. Whether or not we know much about Herbivore Men or the phenomenon is important, but what's more important is that examining the culture and cultural trends in places different from us can serve as a mirror for self-reflection (on your culture and mine) or a lens of comparison. Even our limited understanding of the phenomenon can be enlightening.

It's a Rorshach test, of sorts.

MOST IMPORTANT THING!!!

I've considered starting this topic in the past in various contexts - dating, gender roles for both men and women - feminism. It's a complex, multifaceted phenomenon. However, there hasn't been a critical amount of English material about it until recently. Here's a few ones to get us started:

http://www.avoiceformen.com/sexual-politics/m-g-t-o-w/a-real-study-of-japanese-herbivore-men/

This one is not as bad as the link would suggest. It's still strongly patriarchal and traditional in perspective in all the usual ways, but it sticks to covering the paper, which is a semi-serious article trying to make sense of herbivore men.

http://www.goingyourownway.com/content.php?r=118-Grass-Fed-Herbivore-Men

This IS very much as bad as the link suggests. The interesting thing about this is that MRAs and MGTOWs appear to view herbivorism as a phenomenon that is very much according or sympathetic to their concerns. I never thought of it that way, so the appropriation is very jarring.

https://asexualagenda.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/whats-the-deal-with-the-japanese-herbivore-men/

This one is a blog post from a self-confessed asexual woman (?) looking at the phenomenon from the ground level, as personal experience. Of note here is that the concept of carnivorous and herbivorous are not gender-specific now, but they used to be. This reflects a complete rebellion against very strongly held gender roles by a large fraction of urban men in the island nation. I can't imagine how shocking that is for the Japanese, but maybe it's like half the people in the city suddenly decided that BDSM was a great thing? That sort of wholesale cultural upheaval seems consistent with radfem wet dreams.

http://skepticsplay.blogspot.com/2013/10/japanese-herbivore-men-hold-mirror-to.html

Finally, something more along the lines of where I'm going with this. The phenomenon as viewed by us, both as a group and individually; what it means for us and what our opinions about this say about where we are and where we're going.

http://jezebel.com/5284708/japans-herbivore-men-refuse-to-adhere-to-stereotypes

I couldn't dig up that many feminist sources commenting on the phenomenon, but here's a short article published in Jezebel. Briefly, it says that young people challenging harmful stereotyped gender roles is a good thing.

Are you trying to strike up a discussion about this? Where are we starting from? Because this -

This is not a place to judge Japanese culture or to say whether or not they're inferior or superior to anyone else. There might be a place for that somewhere, but this thread is not it.

- was likely never going to happen and I find it strange you began the post that way.

For myself, I skew very close to the description of herbivore men.

I'm unclear on whether "herbivore men" is a deliberate movement or just an observed trend. Also, this struck me as curious:

You know all those articles in the American press asking, “Can men and women really be friends??” Well, in Japan, they don’t even ask that. It is known that women and men cannot be friends. (When I foolishly let slip to my all-girls class that about half of my friends were guys, they responded with audible gasping. One of them even asked me afterward, “What is it like? You know, being friends with a man.”)

Is this actually true?

LarryC wrote:

However, there hasn't been a critical amount of English material about it until recently.

There's been plenty of English articles about it starting around 2009 (which is not long after the phrase was coined by the Japanese in 2008-2009):

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapc...
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/...
http://boingboing.net/2009/06/08/jap...

Right. Me, too. Japanese men and women have very strict gender ideals and they're strongly expected to stand by them. The fact that so many are willing to go against these roles is nothing short of flabbergasting. That said, some authors insist that the "herbivore" ideal was more commonplace before WW2 - specifically before the US conquered Japan and Japan began its economic rise.

While we may think nothing of baking, cooking, sewing, or actually making friends with people of different gender expressions (shock!), we are still bound by the gender roles that are inherent in our society. In some cases, some of us may be like herbivores in adopting a very radical stance against our local traditional gender roles.

complexmath:

Haha. I actually don't know if it's true or not. I did think that the Western (as I see it) question was very weird, in itself. When I saw the scene in When Harry Met Sally, I was like, "Wait, what?" Making friends with all sorts of people in the first step in finding romance here. Some subcultures eschew that for casual sex, and this norm may be changing with the youth today.

I can't help and post this semi-equivalent song for the same phenomena in America.

LarryC wrote:

When I saw the scene in When Harry Met Sally, I was like, "Wait, what?" Making friends with all sorts of people in the first step in finding romance here.

That's what happens in the movie as well. The point of that scene isn't that Harry's right, it's that he's an asshole.

shoptroll:

I think I've read those back in 2009. I don't think they paint a very accurate, nor a very interesting picture, so I declined to refer to them. But if others find those useful, more power.

I do not think it's a sex thing. I do not think it's a confidence thing. But again, that's my take on it; which says more about me than it does about them. If I were in that position, I would very likely make the same choices. I wouldn't say no to a relationship or to sex; but the toxicity of gender relationships in the current environment would definitely encourage me to simply engage in other pursuits.

Maq wrote:
LarryC wrote:

When I saw the scene in When Harry Met Sally, I was like, "Wait, what?" Making friends with all sorts of people in the first step in finding romance here.

That's what happens in the movie as well. The point of that scene isn't that Harry's right, it's that he's an asshole.

I dunno. The end of that movie has them getting together. How does that affect the point?

So, given my merely-passing familiarity with Japanese culture, what's the story here? That some Japanese men are choosing to forego the prescriptive roles pushed on them by society? Didn't I read this exact story about the rise of the hikikomori a few years ago? And again a few years before that, but about otaku?

It's not quite the same. Hikikimori withdraw from the world. It's a serious social condition. As far as I can tell, herbivores continue to engage with the world, but on their own terms; radically against traditional norms for their assigned gender.

LarryC wrote:
Maq wrote:
LarryC wrote:

When I saw the scene in When Harry Met Sally, I was like, "Wait, what?" Making friends with all sorts of people in the first step in finding romance here.

That's what happens in the movie as well. The point of that scene isn't that Harry's right, it's that he's an asshole.

I dunno. The end of that movie has them getting together. How does that affect the point?

He's less of an asshole by the end?

LarryC wrote:

Haha. I actually don't know if it's true or not. I did think that the Western (as I see it) question was very weird, in itself. When I saw the scene in When Harry Met Sally, I was like, "Wait, what?" Making friends with all sorts of people in the first step in finding romance here. Some subcultures eschew that for casual sex, and this norm may be changing with the youth today.

I feel like maybe there's some cultural background going unstated here: my impression of the West as a westerner is that it's not "making friends" vs. "casual sex." Though things are changing, the norm has been (and I'd say still is) dating, but dating isn't either of those. You're not just making friends and seeing what happens, but you're also not just interviewing potential sex partners and maybe that sex will lead to something.

Clarification: I am not a Westerner. When I say "here," I'm referring to my location.

I confess that the entire idea of Western dating has always felt nebulous and baffling to me. I make friends and interact with women on a regular basis. All of my friend groups have women (more than one) in them. If I were to select a date, I'd probably ask one of them, or ask them to introduce me to new people - who I will then make friends with.

I think there's probably a much better conversation to be had specifically regarding herbivore men and Japanese culture than there is to be had about herbivore men outside Japanese culture.

Divorcing the two brings me to an interesting point, though. They didn't become herbivore men specifically in order to reject Japanese gender roles. They are herbivore men because they've done a lot of self-examining about what masculinity means to them and as a result have placed themselves outside of society's norms. Knowledge of masculinity / gender roles is high among these men in the same way I see religious knowledge is often high among atheists: In choosing something other than the default they've done research and introspection to find another point of view.

While I heavily dislike the term 'radfem wet dream', I would have to agree that having a large segment of male society that both works toward male / female equality and seeks a personal understanding of masculinity outside of traditional gender roles is an outstanding result.

LarryC wrote:

Clarification: I am not a Westerner. When I say "here," I'm referring to my location.

I confess that the entire idea of Western dating has always felt nebulous and baffling to me. I make friends and interact with women on a regular basis. All of my friend groups have women (more than one) in them. If I were to select a date, I'd probably ask one of them, or ask them to introduce me to new people - who I will then make friends with.

Oh, I thought you were talking about the West. So they're just going right from "making friends" to "casual sex" as a social phenomenon there? That's interesting.

And don't worry--plenty of Westerners find dating nebulous and baffling too! In all seriousness though, I can see how the way in which it's a 'norm' for us is maybe a bigger deal in cross-cultural understandings than anyone realizes at first.

edit: for instance, I wonder if the idea of 'carnivore' evokes a very different image in Westerners than among the people who originally coined the term.

Hm. There's a great many subcultures everywhere, in the West and where I live. In my own social circle, we go from being friends to being something else, and maybe back and forth for a bit. It's very hard to court a woman without making an acquaintance first (outside of specific subcultures) because she would be naturally suspicious of your intentions. I would be, in her place. It's not just creepers and rapists, you understand. Strange men courting you can be assassins, swindlers, or industrial/political spies. It's not wise.

There's entire subcultures built around casual sex, with all the lingo and signalling and such; and another built around FWBs. However, the general rule is that you have to make friends first.

Of course, the converse is true, also. Women can't just go around propositioning men, in general. It's very suspicious behavior.

The herbivore movement, more than anything, seems like a recognition on the part of the males that their side of the social contract is pretty sh*t as well and they are opting-out accordingly.

A great deal of the things that a society requires, are based on the assumption that you're always going to have more people in that society tomorrow than you have today. This sort of growth is pretty darn dependent on standard gender roles. I'm not saying what's right or wrong. But for the great majority of people, if you want upward mobility, there's not really a much better answer than 1 constant earner and one caretaker. Traditionally, this has broken down to the man earning, since his workload can remain fairly constant due to the lack of necessity to take time off to bear and feed the offspring.

There are plenty of people who rail that the idea that a woman's default role of breeder and caregiver is bullsh*t and oppressive. Whatever. For some people, maybe it is. But the default role of provider and protector, for some folks, is also bullsh*t and oppressive.

I do the standard traditional family. I like to say it this way. My wife's 'job' is the more important one. I say it all the time, to anyone who will listen. She's the one who supplies the lessons and comfort while I can't. But she can't do her job, if I don't do mine. So I work, to provide my family with the space and resources they need to grow up safe and relatively sane. I contribute to family life with course corrections and additional input. Her job, is also more rewarding, in some ways, because it's spent actively caring for those she loves. I'm sure that it's frustrating at times. She sometimes feels like she can't get away. I feel the same way. I've done a job that I literally hate, for a decade now, to make sure that things function smoothly. This microcosm, is the social contract in action.

We both understand, that we're working towards our best interests as a family unit. We both understand that we have the same goal. She has made sacrifices to make sure that things function smoothly. She understands that this is what she wanted. She also understands that, I didn't necessarily want it, but this is what we have and I honor it - for the sake of the unit. To make it work, requires sacrifices on both sides.

The social contract is on some level, recognition on both sides that sacrifices need to be made to make a working family. There is a growing awareness, on the male side, that there really isn't anything in the social contract for him anymore, unless he has an overwhelming desire for children. I'm not sure exactly what the female side of the social contract offers the ladies over there, if they aren't interested in kids, but the option to not have to work for a japanese corporation(as I hear them described) doesn't sound all bad.

But as far as herbivores go, it looks like new generations of japanese males are looking at what their fathers and grandfathers ground themselves into dust for, and thinking maybe that doesn't seem all that appealing. They are weighing the risks and time and reward and drawbacks and figuring that maybe they should just stay clear of physical entanglements... if they don't feel that sacrifice is worth it. One of the linked articles says that 38,000+ japanese killed themselves in 2009, with wiki saying that they have had a 14 year avg of around 30k, with a 70% male balance. Staying out of japanese corporations, could be a contributing factor for the lower rates among women.

One major problem though, is that if the population rate decline over there doesn't turn around, they are looking at some dark days ahead.

oddity wrote:

One major problem though, is that if the population rate decline over there doesn't turn around, they are looking at some dark days ahead.

Largely because of their restrictive immigration policies.

LarryC wrote:
Maq wrote:
LarryC wrote:

When I saw the scene in When Harry Met Sally, I was like, "Wait, what?" Making friends with all sorts of people in the first step in finding romance here.

That's what happens in the movie as well. The point of that scene isn't that Harry's right, it's that he's an asshole.

I dunno. The end of that movie has them getting together. How does that affect the point?

The 20 year friendship that happens in between.

oddity wrote:

The herbivore movement, more than anything, seems like a recognition on the part of the males that their side of the social contract is pretty sh*t as well and they are opting-out accordingly.

Can someone more attuned to Japanese culture verify that this is true in Japan? Even oddity knows this is a false statement when applied to America -- or any Westernized culture.

I do the standard traditional family. I like to say it this way. My wife's 'job' is the more important one. I say it all the time, to anyone who will listen. She's the one who supplies the lessons and comfort while I can't. But she can't do her job, if I don't do mine. So I work, to provide my family with the space and resources they need to grow up safe and relatively sane. I contribute to family life with course corrections and additional input. Her job, is also more rewarding, in some ways, because it's spent actively caring for those she loves. I'm sure that it's frustrating at times. She sometimes feels like she can't get away. I feel the same way. I've done a job that I literally hate, for a decade now, to make sure that things function smoothly. This microcosm, is the social contract in action.

We both understand, that we're working towards our best interests as a family unit. We both understand that we have the same goal. She has made sacrifices to make sure that things function smoothly. She understands that this is what she wanted. She also understands that, I didn't necessarily want it, but this is what we have and I honor it - for the sake of the unit. To make it work, requires sacrifices on both sides.

Sometimes I think you'd benefit from feminism more than some women I know. Sounds like the patriarchy has trapped you in a pretty sh*tty position. I'm not aware of a single healthy child bearing relationship in my generation that is as you described, and you would definitely categorize all of the relationships I'm describing as feminist or post feminist.

----

Some clarification questions for Larry. I wanted to post yesterday but using food terms for sexual description took me several hours to internalize. I'm still not comfortable with it but whatever.

Was this an official movement founded by a person/group? Or are we just noticing a relative coincidental shift in physical/emotional male presentation? If it's the latter, I would say this isn't confined to Japan. My experience with bearded millenial hipsters (a term I'm equally uncomfortable using as "herbivore") -- especially in the gamer/folk rock/craft alcohol segments -- have produced many examples of what I would now describe as "herbivore." These are men uninterested in pursuing sex. Men who prefer to focus on other pursuits, who genuinely prefer an emotional connection with partners over a physical one.

The analogy isn't perfect. Many of these men are as androgynous as one can be with a beard, but many are also very lumbersexual. (I don't like that term either). And as long as androgyny isn't a facet of the term herbivore, a lumbersexual would still be a close fit; men who take careful pride in their appearance, don't aggressively seek out sexual relationships, and focus on their own hobbies and pursuits.

If I'm accused of shoehorning a Japanese concept into a western phenomenon, I'll accept it and just keep lurking. But the similarities seem to fit to me.

Seth wrote:
oddity wrote:

The herbivore movement, more than anything, seems like a recognition on the part of the males that their side of the social contract is pretty sh*t as well and they are opting-out accordingly.

Can someone more attuned to Japanese culture verify that this is true in Japan? Even oddity knows this is a false statement when applied to America -- or any Westernized culture.

The male side of the social contract can be better than the female side without the male side being good. Two things can be crappy even if one is crappier than the other. Especially if the easiest way to make your side less crappy is to make the other person's side more crappy and you refuse to do that.

complexmath wrote:

Also, this struck me as curious:

You know all those articles in the American press asking, “Can men and women really be friends??” Well, in Japan, they don’t even ask that. It is known that women and men cannot be friends. (When I foolishly let slip to my all-girls class that about half of my friends were guys, they responded with audible gasping. One of them even asked me afterward, “What is it like? You know, being friends with a man.”)

Is this actually true?

It is not. I'm not even sure where that comes from.

Edit: I can pretty quickly and easily explain Japan's cultural shift. Old people aren't dying out. Young people have to pay for them through the national pension. More old people than young people and everyone is aware that when they are old, the pension most likely won't be around for them. Old people don't retire as early and, typically, it's unusual for a Japanese person to switch companies in their career. Advancing is difficult, salaries are low, Japan is expensive, and taxes are high. People live with their parents for a long time unless they move for school or for a job. Parents', usually outdated, view is imposed on the children. The children (20-40 year olds) grew up in a very different society than their parents. We're seeing a backlash against all these factors.

Paleocon wrote:
oddity wrote:

One major problem though, is that if the population rate decline over there doesn't turn around, they are looking at some dark days ahead.

Largely because of their restrictive immigration policies.

And mix their policies towards immigration with prejudice...well there's a reason my wife and I decided to leave Japan.

cheeze I'm moving that particular thought to the Feminism thread.

Seth wrote:

cheeze I'm moving that particular thought to the Feminism thread.

Really? That thread is like the Dark Souls of P&C. ; D

edit: it is probably beyond the scope of this thread and actually does belong there, but I'll just say I wasn't thinking about some individual woman having a better life than some individual woman. I was talking about something more like this, where even if an individual man has it better than an individual woman, that doesn't mean the social contract he's been offered is good.

Like when you said to the other poster "Sometimes I think you'd benefit from feminism more than some women I know. Sounds like the patriarchy has trapped you in a pretty sh*tty position." I think it traps a lot of men.

Vector wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
oddity wrote:

One major problem though, is that if the population rate decline over there doesn't turn around, they are looking at some dark days ahead.

Largely because of their restrictive immigration policies.

And mix their policies towards immigration with prejudice...well there's a reason my wife and I decided to leave Japan.

Pretty much.

The sh*tty outcomes they are experiencing now are entirely predictable and entirely of their own making.

They also happen to be a blueprint for Republican immigration policy.

That sort of wholesale cultural upheaval seems consistent with radfem wet dreams.

Yeah, no.

Just.... eh, there's no point.

Seth wrote:

Sometimes I think you'd benefit from feminism more than some women I know. Sounds like the patriarchy has trapped you in a pretty sh*tty position. I'm not aware of a single healthy child bearing relationship in my generation that is as you described, and you would definitely categorize all of the relationships I'm describing as feminist or post feminist.

About this x1,000,000

Vector wrote:

Parents', usually outdated, view is imposed on the children. The children (20-40 year olds) grew up in a very different society than their parents. We're seeing a backlash against all these factors.

I see an element of "screw this; the game's rigged, I'm not going to play" in this and the hikikomori.

I don't see it as a "going Galt" (as the MGTOW dude said, and as their stick figure mascot suggests).

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/z3D3Bn4.jpg)
"Very well, madam, I shall take my erect penis elsewhere."

Paleocon wrote:
Seth wrote:

Sometimes I think you'd benefit from feminism more than some women I know. Sounds like the patriarchy has trapped you in a pretty sh*tty position. I'm not aware of a single healthy child bearing relationship in my generation that is as you described, and you would definitely categorize all of the relationships I'm describing as feminist or post feminist.

About this x1,000,000

I'm on break at work but will be happy tonight to add some of my experiences and observations having been stationed in Japan and working alongside the JSDF. But in the meantime I wanted to ask if there's an assumption that a single breadwinner and sahp is inherently sexist and unhealthy for the kids since I don't think that's fair. Not trying to derail just wondering if the above comments are aimed at Oddity or at the very idea of SAHMs and breadwinning dads.