2501 I actually thought Spy x Family’s deal with sexuality is a tremendously sweet and sincere alternative to common expressions of sexuality in anime/manga these days being wildly antisocial and shaped by porn consumption. Making us find two adult people in an emotionally reciprocal family unit sexy gets a thumbs up from me.
Never watched it or know much about it really, just the gist of it through cultural osmosis and seeing bits and pieces of it when my partner was giving it a try before getting bored and stopping. However, based on that interpretation and what I’ve seen that whether or not the creator meant to appeal to them or how reasonable people interpret it, I would imagine that Spy x Family still appeals to a lot of the same sorts of reactionaries, just a different subset or overall just from the opposite direction. The matching polo wearing reactionary types projecting the devoted subservient and matronly “tradwife” who is simultaneously the main source of domestic labor for serving the nuclear family, as well as their rightful reward for, idfk, wearing a suit and having a cryptocurrency portfolio.
Some things about Yor’s characterization in particular feels on the nose about fulfilling these unrealistic expectations and projections about female companionship–she’s a hypercompetent professional who effortlessly and outwardly displays a capacity for total independence and excellence, yet she also has a deepset yearning for homemaking, nurturing, and deference, on a level that is like a creepy sort of instinct. I think for a lot of these reactionaries, the point really often is to be able to be served the cake and eat it too, in that sense. It’s like they get a sick satisfaction about deference being a choice women make willingly, at the same time as they are unable to not make it.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying you’re doing any of that, just furthering the discussion, because yeah, whether or not it’s there in the text, I can’t help but see how it appeals to those kinds of reactionaries, and I think that this is as insidious a form of objectification of women as taboo and sexual deviance. As well, it feels necessary to mention this in reference to the western reactionary as aforementioned, but also as well as within the context of Spy x Family’s appealing to the target demographic domestically, what with the overall conclusions from sexual and gender politics within Japanese conservatism.
