Kodomo no Jikan, drawn by a woman. But is it really pervier than stuff drawn by men?
Screencap from the BokuImo OVA
But that's not the main point of AA's article: author Scott VonSchilling suggests that female-written ecchi works stand out more due to their "feminine touch," that "when you have a woman writing the story, you tend to get a much deeper and more dramatic plot" to keep the fanservice together.
I can understand the temptation for someone-- particularly someone who may not have picked up Sho-Comi, and has made his un-fondness for yaoi well-known --to instinctively think that way. But speaking as someone who reads through a LOT of shoujo manga, including those not cherry-picked for US release, and who has also read an awful lot of yaoi, I can tell you right now-- women are perfectly capable of writing shallow fanservicey crap. And some of it is still hiiiighly attractive. I promise.
Male-drawn Yubisaki Milk Tea-- That is ALMOST a Nipple on the Cover
In other words, men and women can all draw pervy content, and some of them can do so while also creating complex, layered stories and characters.
Really? Chu-Bra's anime was pretty bad, but the MOST perverted/female-degrading out there?
EDIT: If you want another example of a manga by a woman that you might never expect-- have you ever seen the hentai anime The Rapeman? Its original manga was written by Keiko Aisaki, a woman, and drawn by Shintarou Miyawaki (probably a dude, unless that's a pen name). I can't believe both VonSchilling AND I managed to forget that one!) I've only watched the OVA, which I see as a dark satire, but clearly the concept is bad enough to many: the manga actually got mentioned in an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit as one of the comics an oblivious dad let his teenage son read.
But back on to the "why."
First, the obvious reasons: that content sells. Erotic doujinshi makes up a laaaaarge chunk of the sales at Comiket and I would imagine this carries over into the professional manga world as well. And I would bet that men buy more smutty manga than women (if only due to societal pressure-- I can tell you right now that as a woman I didn't even feel welcome in porn shops in Japan).
And then, of course, there's another obvious reason: some women like being submissive, or like seeing other women being submissive. Like men, why wouldn't these women draw what's attractive to them?
Moving into less obvious reasons, I'd suggest that some of the thought process behind it stems from similar reasoning behind yaoi manga: you can explore all kinds of things in fiction that you can't, or wouldn't want to, in reality. The most obvious example is something that shows up constantly in the mostly female-drawn world of yaoi, as well as plenty of shoujo: molestation, coersion, and rape. From there we move into a level of psychological theory I'm not entirely comfortable making sweeping generalizations on the matter, but it's clear that there are many women who enjoy men who are aggressive towards the objects of their affection-- in their FICTION. Surely this carries over in manga as well as in prose (see also: bodice-ripper novels, most yaoi fanfiction, and western counterpart slash fanfiction as well).
So, what do you guys think? Do women write and draw better perverted manga than men? Why or why not? Do you think it's empowering or damaging to women in general, or neither or both?
