Nymphet, my final word

Time to get the facts straight.



As I mentioned a few posts back, I was left feeling unsatisfied after reading Mr. DeAngelis' reassessment of the book. For one thing, he said that he found a particular later section unacceptable, but didn't day precisely how, nor did he give any hint at the contents. Since so many were saying the book was flat out child pornography, that seemed implied, but I was curious to know what, exactly, the content was that pushed him over the line. Was it something actually offensive, or something that he felt was indefensible by him, as a publisher, in the face of what was already brutal denouncement from people with no information on the book? Also, I'd have been much more willing to accept his opinion and leave it at that, were this not a popular book in Japan. And I did not accept the explanation that Japanese people are perverts, which several commentors (who would probably think of themselves as racist assholes, somehow) suggested. This issue of my needing to see for myself what was up with this book stuck in my craw so much that I actually took a half day off to track down someplace where I could see the specific pages DeAngelis talked about, and also interview some people who'd actually read the book. I found the forum thread that I posted below, and some kind people who read and were fans of the book were nice enough to give me some very thorough plot synopses, as well as send me some links to sites with scans of the offending pages. My questioning starts on Page six, after which responses intermittently follow. Shortly after my first post, someone explains the offending scene in context. On page eight, towards the bottom, you'll see two good plot synopses by users Chibi Flash and Crankydragon, which explain alot of the subtleties of the character dynamics in the overall story. Particularly enlightening is Crankydragon's post, where he discusses Aoki's suspicion that maybe Rin's father is sexually abusive to her, given her behavior.



And here are links to two sites with differing translations of the offending pages:



http://matthew.animeblogger.net/mabnews/

http://www.fs.thewafflehouse.net/?p=200



Okay, read all that? Good, now let me address the two accusations leveled against the book, kiddie porn and pedophilia. Let's start with the kiddie porn: there isn't any. No sex, no nudity. No porn. Capice? As for the pedophilia, I think people are forgetting basic definitions here. A pedophile is a person who is sexually attracted to children, which it's quite clear Aoki (the teacher) is not. Rin, the little girl, starts off trying to get him fired with sexual advances at him, putting him in awful situations where he appears to be a pedophile. Later on, she decides she actually likes him, and lays off a bit on getting him fired, focusing her energy more on jealousy when he goes out with adult women. The really bad sexual advances in the beginning were made in the context of getting Aoki fired, not in the context of her actually being a little girl wanting sex. But even if they were, that's STILL not pedophilia. Little person wanting big person is not pedophilia. In the "indefensible" closet scene, Aoki is getting extreemely uncomfortable with Rin's (now sincere) rubbing on him, made even more uncomfortable by the fact that she resembles a woman he's attracted to. But he never has any sexual attraction to her, whatsoever. No pedophilia.At all.

I'm putting this in italics, because it's important. To summarize:



There is NO kiddie porn here, there is NO pedophilia here. There's child sexuality, and there's plenty of jokes that I'd understand completely if they crossed the line for you. I'm not saying that being offended by Nymphet makes you stupid. The material deliberately pushed the line of what the author could get printed in the magazine they were publishing in, and I can't fault anyone if that means they find it distasteful, of if any combination of children and sexuality makes them so uncomfortable that they can't see humor in it. Discomfort with anything combining children and sex in the same context is a good thing. I'm not asking anyone to rationalize their discomfort or revulsion- those are feelings. You don't have to justify your feelings to anyone, ever. What I AM saying, is that if you slander and lie about books you haven't read, and say horrible, untrue things about them, you are a fuck and I hate you. Understand?



I can't say why, exactly, this Nymphet thing got me so pissed off. I mean, it made me really angry. It's not like it's any of my business- it ain't my book, it ain't anyone I know, and even if the idiots I'm bitching about read my blog (which they don't), it's not like my opinion would affect them anyway. Stupidity pisses me off, but that doesn't explain it either. I think what it was is, I thought about if I were in the same place as the book's author. I tend to do a pretty good job of making myself clear in my comics, but I often have trouble having my words misinterpreted. Especially, when you shoot your mouth off like I do, it's easy for someone to hear something really outrageous, and have them base their entire opinion of me on that. But what if that wasn't even the case? What if I made a comic about, say, race; one that I knew was riding the line of people's comfort zones, but that I'd been very careful to craft with care and sensitivity, and then some asshole who heard something from someone who heard from someone else some gross misinterpretation of what I'd done got pissed off and hit the message boards, and suddenly people were saying "Hey, Matt Bernier made a book about how he hates asian people! Don't buy his book!" And then suddenly I hear that people are saying on  blogs that they'd never even consider buying a book with vicious racist slander in it, and every time someone would step in to say "Hey, maybe Matt's book isn't racist, have you read it?", a host of raving pricks would shout that person down as just another racist making excuses for that foul racist pig Matt Bernier. How would that make me feel? How would I feel if, because of these stupid, lying, ignorant pricks, I lost a book deal in another country? And how would I feel knowing that all these people were going around making good and sure that my name was synonymous with hatred of Asians? I'd be sick to my stomach. I'd wish to God there was some way to talk to every individual whose mind had been poisoned against me, to tell them my side. But of course the damage would be done.



No matter what I say, or PROVE here, because of what happened, alot of people will think of Nymphet as the kiddie porno book, and they will write the Japanese off as perverts for enjoying it. It's not my business. It doesn't affect me. But it makes me sick, it makes screaming, hopping mad, and even if only like twelve people read this fucking thing*, I want to make sure those twelve have their story straight on this. The lesson, boys and girls, is that if you haven't read something, and if the people you're getting your information from haven't read something, shut the fuck up. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but what you have is not an opinion; it's rank ignorance.



*I don't know exactly how many people read this blog, but twelve doesn't seem far off. I may be exaggerating my numbers, in fact, since only, like, five people have commented. Mr. Popularity, that's me!

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