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Answerman - Why Do Girls In Anime Say, "Now I Can't Get Married?"

Shiroi Hane wrote:

Nyren wrote: I think that stems, not from a purity standpoint, but from the old notion that only one's husband should be allowed to see them naked. Having someone who is not their husband see them naked would be seen as disgraceful among other things. I assume there's also the same kind of exaggerated innocence that leads to girls thinking that they will get pregnant because they've been kissed etc.

Okay, that one's really weird. A few months ago, I saw this screencap floating around the internet: [img= i.imgur.com/6Nzed3B.png][/img] Apparently it's from Chivalry of a Failed Knight and it takes place in episode 9, the same episode she asks the protagonist to have sex with her? It doesn't make any sense!

It's just a joke, it's fine. Nobody believes such a thing anymore in the Western or Eastern world even the most conservative don't think this way around here.

Western values are the ONLY way!

Clyde_Cash wrote:

Western values are the ONLY way!

I think that that I know where you're coming from; however, ethnocentrism is something that is best avoided.

It kinda amazes me anyone would ask this question, and I can't decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing. Is the writer so detached from women's issues that he (guessing it's a he from the name) doesn't understand the connection between being groped -> feeling "defiled" -> not a virgin -> can't get married? Or sweetly naive because he personally would never think of a woman with sexual experience as "damaged goods" and so doesn't make the connection?

I mean, maybe I'm the ignorant one, but I don't know of any large culture that doesn't, at least historically, place value a woman's "purity". Not that I personally think there's any value to staying a virgin or otherwise "pure" before marriage, Just saying that this view is so widespread across many cultures I can't imagine having never come across that viewpoint.

(Oh, and for the record, I think the joke in question is funny. I think it makes fun of the absurdity of "damaged goods" more than it encourages it.)

The only place Clyde_Cash is coming from is complete and utter sarcasm.

Within anime at least, it is usually the preserve of large family-owned conglomerates (think the Sakuraba in Ai Yori Aoshi, a show which also happens to invoke the "now I can't get married" trope at least twice, for the same character).
In real life, Adult Adoption definitely still happens and it is not dissimilar in the way it is used within large companies. I think the example used on QI was Suzuki, the current head of that company being the fourth generation to be adopted into the role.

I always felt like both this joke, and the one in the OP to some extent, kind of stem from the Otaku ideal of a pure innocent woman, to the point that she is ignorant of how sex and reproduction actually work. It's usually easier to exploit someone who is ignorant after all. It's also pretty common in hentai where the male character will be able to convince his moe companion to "service" him because she doesn't realize what she's actually doing. Anyway, I know that's a pretty dark interpretation, but that's where my mind goes when I see it. Especially considering it's usually the ultra-moe girls who say things like that. I can only assume some guys are into it.

Personally, I have less of a problem with conservative cultures that value virginity in men and women equally than those that enforce a double standard and punish or shame women for having sex while celebrating men for doing the same. The double standard tends to not only make life difficult for average women, but encourage prostitution and human trafficking so the men in the culture can have "non-pure" women and girls at their disposal, so to speak. I don't know if anyone's ever studied the correlation between double standard attitudes in a culture/part of the world and rates of human trafficking, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a connection.

I assume there's also the same kind of exaggerated innocence that leads to girls thinking that they will get pregnant because they've been kissed etc.

those that enforce a double standard and punish or shame women for having sex while celebrating men for doing the same.

Do you know the saying that a key, that opens any door is a master key, but the lock that gets opened by every key is faulty? In that perspective, it's not really a double standard, but acknowledging that guys and girls are different.

Agent355 wrote:

those that enforce a double standard and punish or shame women for having sex while celebrating men for doing the same.

Do you know the saying that a key, that opens any door is a master key, but the lock that gets opened by every key is faulty? In that perspective, it's not really a double standard, but acknowledging that guys and girls are different.

Here's another lousy old canard that's related to that one:" "no" means "yes" ". The idea was that men would tell other men that just because their girlfriends resisted sex didn't mean that they didn't really want to have sex, just that they were trying to maintain their "good girl" image, so it was the man's job to interpret when a "no" could turn into (or was really a disguised) "yes." This is an awful idea on many levels, but despite efforts to debunk it, it still lingers around. How many ecchi comics/doujinshi are written where the female character "protests too much" to show how good she is? And that's just a fictional example.

Agent355 wrote:

...when a "no" could turn into (or was really a disguised) "yes." This is an awful idea on many levels, but despite efforts to debunk it, it still lingers around. How many ecchi comics/doujinshi are written where the female character "protests too much" to show how good she is? And that's just a fictional example.

Is that how some guys interpret it? I always thought it was closely related to the whole "playing hard to get schtick," but maybe that's just the same thing, as from what I can piece together, playing hard to get, from the perspective of a man who wants a girlfriend/just plain wants sex, is that a woman is really pretending to not want the man's attention in order to entice him further.

I don't believe it happens nearly as often as these guys think it happens.