Love, Intimacy, & God

I’ve been in Japan three days now and my copy of the photobook of my god, Watanabe Mayu, was waiting for me when I got here. As must be the case when involving the perfect and divine Watanabe Mayu, the book is a most lovely creation. Watanabe is presented in various poses and activities that stress the then sixteen year old’s child like qualities and others that emphasize her existence as a sexual creature. Most disturbing to the terrified strand of Puritan sexuality that dominates the US and A are the photographs that involve heavy doses of the childlike innocence Watanabe can project as well as equal measures of her emergent adult sexuality. I have to say I have tried to approach the book with a pure heart, devoted only in love and worship of my idol, but the book, to my surprise, actually brought me into the fantasy of intimacy with Watanabe portraying the innocent slut or the virgin whore. Ultimately I don’t think there is anything inherently morally wrong by being drawn into the fantasies the book tries so hard to project, but it did surprise me. I am of the opinion that fantasies that are properly separated from reality and not over indulged in are not unhealthy in and of themselves.

Throughout the majority of the book I was unmoved in any libidinous way. I felt the book showed off Watanabe’s transcendent beauty I have written of in this blog before and many of the more childlike depictions are just charming. Several of the pictures, with Watanabe in various states of undress, reemphasize the sexual nature and power of her being. One picture is nothing more than a close up of her bottom, which she publicly stated she was quite proud of. While I understand that my god shares a bottom fetish with Oshima Yuko and they enjoy touching each other’s bottoms, I would have been more interested in hearing her thoughts on the picture of her with toothpaste on her lips.

The picture in question is one of those things produced in Japan that would never have made it past the US capitalists censoring the art for the sake of mollifying the Puritans terrified of their daughters’ sexual existence. The photo is the ultimate mix of childlike innocence and implied sexuality. Watanabe’s childlike smile and glee portray an innocent that has no conception of what the image pretty quickly brings to mind, even in those with a fairly clean mind such as myself. Again, the photo is a fantasy, as I find it hard to believe that Watanabe, being a teenager, had no idea what the picture was intended to bring to mind. I very much want to learn her thoughts on what that picture means to her. I wish there was some way someone could ask that might elicit a candid reply. Well, that is the eternal problem we mere mortals face- never being capable of knowing the true mind of our gods. I just hope she does not view her worshipers with contempt, only using us for her personal gain. While I would still love and worship her even if that was the case, I would be sad for her having such a pain filled relationship with those that want to support her in all she does.

While I found the toothpaste photograph interesting in what it might say about our relationship to the divine and perfect Watanabe Mayu, the photos near the end of the book of her in a man’s dress shirt fiddling with the buttons finally brought me into the fantasy in a visceral way that was overtly sexual. For me the photos conveyed the fantasy of post coital intimacy- a sharing of bodies and pleasure that was now in the past and we were as one living the experience of having shared intimate pleasure together. This is the moment after having risked oneself in sharing intimately with another that love and a deeper shared intimacy of common experience of openness exists. In the fantasy we are sharing the beauty and love of having shown each other, physically, the profound love we have for the other and life. The expressed fantasy of post coital intimacy is the spiritual flowering of love following the physical act of love. I suppose that because the photos spoke to me on the level of a deeply intimate and pure love that necessarily followed the physical act of love that I found I wanted to share with my god in such a fashion. I wanted to give of myself physically so that we could exist together in that fantastical moment pictured that portrayed a greater spiritual closeness to my distant god.

I should note that for more than a few folks involved in the production of the collection of photographs of Watanabe Mayu, the intent was not to produce anything remotely spiritual. I also have to admit that a good number of the folks that purchased the book probably love Watanabe Mayu as an object in a very different way that I have objectified her by making her my idol and god. Now, I hope, that I am writing in hyperbole by stating that Watanabe is my god and that in reality I do have some authentic love for her as a beautiful and delightful person, as I hope to for all of humanity. That aside, the book was primarily constructed to extract surplus labor value from the working people of the world. That is, it was meant to make money for some people.

Does this diminish the authenticity of my quasi-spiritual-sexual experience with two of the photos that moved me? I don’t think so if I am moved to actively love and enjoy my strange relationship with the idol Watanabe Mayu. On the other hand, if I want to possess her or own her relics as things to be coveted, then the experience would be corrosive. It is this latter experience that the capitalists seek to exploit and is the core objectification by economic arrangements of both Watanabe and the purchaser of the book. I suppose, objectively speaking, the photobook is just another part of a horrible system of people using one another to have things. But I would like to suggest that subjectively individuals can exist in a mode of being that relates to distant persons in contemporary media in a respectful and human way.

I’m not convinced of this, but at the very least the collection of photographs of the beautiful and pure Watanabe Mayu have given me something to ponder about my own human existence in this strange world. Now if we only had a companion book of photographs of Watanabe Mayu portraying Nezumi scheming and plotting world domination we would have a book of power and corruption to be a counter balance to this book of innocence and sexuality.