30 Day Yaoi Challenge, Day 5: Caramel

Caramel by Puku Okuyama

Caramel is about a young boy named Iori who is planning his move to Tokyo for college. He finds a great deal on rent: he just has to do all the housework, cooking, etc. and the rent is free! Iori is fine with all this, since he’s been helping his parents take care of his three younger siblings for most of his young life.

Except the advertisement is misleading. Roku, the man who placed the ad, wants someone to sleep with him at night too! Because he’s scared of the dark. And he kisses people to say “thank you.” Still, the slightly uncomfortable Iori accepts all this and toughs it out, until one day Roku just throws him down and molests him while Iori repeatedly protests.

Iori runs away for three days, but slinks back to his apartment because he’s sick of sleeping on the floor. He doesn’t want to see Roku again, but, of course, Roku  eventually comes back from work. Iori isn’t too happy, but he’s too sick to move and when he sees how upset Roku is that he left, he…FEELS REALLY BAD FOR LEAVING ROKU. Then immediately after that, Roku opens up his shirt to take Iori’s temperature with an underarm thermometer and Iori freaks out! But it’s not Roku’s fault! Iori shouldn’t freak out over such a little thing! It’s not like he’s a girl! Why’s he so uptight?

……ARRGGGGHHHHHHHH! I just can’t. I picked up Caramel because it looked so cute and sweet!  The art is really cute, even if I can’t get over why Iori has such an ugly haircut that I can’t see any man wearing unless he was transgender. I thought Caramel was going to be a cute, but sexy manga… I want to give up hope of ever finding a yaoi manga without a lot of non-con right now. But I know they exist! I have copies of such manga! They might not exist in the pile of yaoi and BL I picked up from the DMP sale though… *sigh*

Back to Iori and Roku. They end up together, of course. Iori gets over it because while they’re fighting over the whole issue, particularly about Iori wanting to sleep apart from Roku now, Iori breaks Roku’s glasses and that just erases THE WHOLE THING. After they get Roku’s glasses fixed, Iori starts thinking that Roku’s actually pretty cute!  It just develops naturally from there. No more mention of the molestation. Roku is more gentleman-ly towards Iori (A.K.A. He’s less of a jerk.) Everyone’s happy.

You see my frustration, right? That’s not how romance should work. This shouldn’t be something to fangirl over. I could handle an unsolicited kiss, or something similar, but in this case the victim felt so uncomfortable that he ran away and freaked out when his attacker touched him. The attacker then manages to regain his hold on his victim, and the victim develops a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome.

So I find myself questioning if the prevalence of non-con in yaoi is a matter of wanting to see men being abused like women are often abused. If it’s a sort of subconscious revenge porn disguised in romantic fantasy. In which case, there are no words to describe how deeply disturbing I find that. Men really do get raped, molested and abused just like women do. Maybe it happens less to men than it does to women, but when you look at statistics about sexual abuse, they always talk about how many victims stay silent out of fear so it might not be true. If it’s not subliminal revenge porn, then is it a secret desire to see abusive relationships wind up to be happy, healthy relationships? I am trying to wrap my head around the logic of it and failing.

I’m really hoping that I’m wrong. I know a fair amount of fujoshi and I can’t imagine them getting excited over non-con in these ways. There must be something I’m not getting about the appeal of it. So I’m going to end the review here, and ask that all the fujoshi reading this explain why non-con is exciting to them. I need to understand. I can’t keep talking about it in yaoi without insulting all fujoshi and I don’t really want to do that.

About Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Daniella is a freelance manga editor and blogger. She likes collecting out of print manga and playing with her puppy. Yes, someone got her a puppy already.
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5 Responses to 30 Day Yaoi Challenge, Day 5: Caramel

  1. Sadly your theory about non-con, that the readers want to see the men abused the way some women are, has crossed my mind before and I really, really hope that theory is incorrect since it is pretty deeply disturbing. And this is why I read so little BL manga, I like my romance when both of the parties involved are happy with it.

    • D: I am kind of relieved that I’m not the only one. I feel really wrong for even thinking it.

      You say “when both parties involved are happy with it,” but that can apply to almost all these rapes I’ve talked about, excluding one from Affair. Afterward, the victim almost always sticks with his attacker. I think it’s better to say “when both parties involved consent to sexual relations ahead of time.” 😛

  2. Susan says:

    I don’t know if this will make you feel better or worse, but I have had this discussion with a fujoshi friend of mine about excessive rape/coersion in sex, and the conclusion seems to be that she just doesn’t see it.

    (Her: “Ooh, read Yellow! It doesn’t have rape in it!”
    Me: “OH MY GOD SO MANY OF THESE SECONDARY CHARACTERS ATTEMPT TO RAPE THE PROTAGONISTS. OR EACH OTHER.”
    Her: “Oh, I meant between the protagonists!”
    Me: “ONE OF THEM SPENDS HIS LIFE SEXUALLY HARRASSING THE OTHER, OH MY GOD.”)

    Or she does see it, but she doesn’t count it as rape? In that sort of “It’s not rape if the character/I liked it” kinda way – in that it can’t be problematic if she enjoyed reading it. I don’t know how wide-spread this view is, but it might be an alternate explanation?

    • You can enjoy reading something, but still find ways to critique it, in my opinion. For example, I’m enjoying reading Kizuna, but DAMN THERE’S A LOT OF RAPE SO FAR.

      So yeah, I find it problematic that your friend doesn’t count it if she liked it (or it’s not between the protagonists.) I really hope that’s not a wide-spread view because it just leads me back to the original question…

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