post #23: faceless men in hentai images

     I want to speculate about an art trend I've seen cropping up more and more recently in hentai images (e.g., manga, doujinshi, gamecg, etc.; see other essay for more insights into these declensions). *In this context, "art trend" means a representational strategy shared by multiple unrelated works made by multiple unrelated authors/artists.* That is, the trend of artists drawing faceless men (i.e., men without defined facial features such as eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth et cetera [or otherwise having their face cropped out of frame/turned away from view]). I've been trying to figure out how to come at my thoughts on this topic for a little bit now. My most extreme take would be that this trend indicates illustration-based media's version of the cinematic male gaze. When I was dead set on arguing this point, my intention was to suggest something like that the effect (and use) of these illustrated, faceless men resembles the compositional and editing strategies employed most obliquely by the images of Classical Hollywood cinema (see David Bordwell and Laura Mulvey for more on this). In the same way that the camera objectified women with a voyeuristic gaze and framed men as analogs to the idealized male spectator, these faceless men in manga images (saying manga here only because it has alliteration) positions the illustrated men as spectator analogs and the face-having women as objects of the reader's gaze. That hentai images are more obliquely sexual than Hollywood Cinema would help solidify the claims about voyeurism et cetera.

[^^ Random selection of images depicting what I'm talking about; I went to nhentai and these were whatever fit the prompt from what was on the home page; (i didn't look further than for that they fit the bill, so i can't testify anything to the effect of the character of text they came from) ^^]

     In addition to the cinematic male gaze argument, another narrative I can come up with is that artists draw faceless men because doing so enables the viewer to seamlessly enter their fantasy. If a man is faceless and a woman is faced, then there's less confusion over who the person is masturbating over. This narrative works on a "no homo" kind of premise. Additionally, if the man is faceless, then the viewer might feel less like they're having to compete with this man for the objectified woman's affection. The fictional male lover is a puppet figure in this reading. Even though he's demonstrably sexual, by not having defined features, he lacks a defined profile to threaten the viewer's fantasy with. This narrative works in tandem with an idea that fantasy profits from being distended from the Real.

     While I think these arguments can still be made and I think they still may be true, I've realized I'm less interested in making them right now (in seeing them to their conclusion). Instead, I want to talk about these representational strategies' potential byproducts. Accidental or intentional, depicting men as faceless has some kind of identificatory function.

     My thinking starts in the realm of gender studies. As has already been argued by several and summarized by many more, the symbolic image of a man (within the symbol set provided by Western patriarchy) is a relatively empty sign. (See Judith Butler's _Gender Trouble_, probably [i haven't read it]; or the many intro to gender studies video essays out there [i have watched these]). Jessie Gender has explained this concept by pointing out how the default option for most games with character creation features is a generic white guy. The analogy of the character creation menu is helpful because it indicates that the symbolic ideal is a kind of blank slate that other options can be written onto. However, what's different between this example and the art trend I'm flagging for discussion is that whereas with the character creator, you overwrite the default character's features when creating your own (e.g., switching the gender, changing the eye type, etc.), the trend of drawing blank faced men is an even more empty sign. Were these illustrations the default option when creating a character, I would describe the interaction of character creation as not overwriting the default but writing onto it (there are still exceptions to this such as changing gender or race etc., but as for the facial features themselves, they would be written onto the blank canvas of facelessness). I think this is an important difference. Whereas with the first example there was a bland default (that resembles what a person could look like), the images of men produced as part of this art trend deny even this. To me, these faceless men come off as the illustration equivalent of placeholder textures. In other words, in the images these illustrations provide, there isn't even a straight white man to identify with.

     This is the thrust of what I want to chew on here. With that said, I feel I need to take a brief detour to account for how the explicit sexual nature of these images (in comparison with, say, a character creator) may affect the calculus of this all. In my opinion, explicitly sexual images are more likely to be images dealing with fantasy. I was thinking through how I wanted to say this earlier today and here's what I came up with: in my mind, fantasy is essentially a kind of fiction with blown out speakers. Fantasy is a modality of fiction where fiction can be fantasy but isn't inherently fantastical. It's likely that things are never 100% fantasy. Compared to a character creation menu, I would say that hentai images peddle a proportionately higher amount of fantasy. Fantastical images, in this conception, have, on average, lower fidelity (this is the blown out speaker bit). For most fantasies (such as the sexual fantasies these images are concerned with), it's against the interest of the fantasy to get bogged down in the nitty gritty. Detailing the specific mechanics of Newtonian physics usually doesn't help someone get their rocks off, I think? This isn't an exact science, though, and I'm willing to admit I may be wrong on these things, but this is where I'm at in my thinking on the matter. I mention this to say that the fantasy of these images probably accounts to part of the reason as to how this art trend became a thing -- the fidelity of men's facial features was getting in the way of maintaining the fantasy. (perhaps).

     The bottom line is this: these images depict men. They may be fantastical men and they may not be the proper stand-ins for the idealized spectators, but they still are men. And fantasy still is fiction. This last clarification matters since fiction is populated with objects and uses referents from the Real to endow its objects with meaning. (Within this loose language, I'm saying people, such as men, are objects -- take it up with Laozi if you have a problem, I guess). When heterosexual fantasies imagine two people having sex, they generally point to concepts of men and women derived from the Real. However, when these men are faceless, I argue there can be a disruption in the significatory process. In other words, and the point of this whole aside: these are images of men (and women), even if for pornographic purposes or whatever; yet face-having men don't exist in these spaces. Only women have faces in these fantasies. The men are so blown out they might not even exist.

     Now, with this said, might it be problematic that women are depicted as expressive to the point of ahegao etc. in these texts? Maybe. But at least they exist. (Even if that is as objects of a gaze). Men, as the ones presumed to be gazing, however, are taken as default to the point that it's easy for artists to not write them in at all (whether intentionally or not). I argue that artists drawing faceless men bears no indication of their relative artistic skill. (Even if, imo, there is sometimes a correlation).

     Winding things down now. As much as I can intellectualize things, maybe the simplest answer is that I just don't get it. The fact is, I'm not the target demographic for this art trend. So much so, I often end up misinterpreting what I think these folk are trying to go for. Seeing all these images of faceless men and expressive women, it sometimes ends up coming off as eggy trans femme coded. The guy is there almost incidentally (as a genre requirement / quota). Sometimes I'm not sure if the images are about sexualizing / objectifying the woman or if they ever slip into a fantasy of, what if I (the imaginary viewer) could be her? I'm not trying to say that trans femmes are misogynists (at least I hope not). I think what I'm trying to say is something different, however, I could be messing up my semiotics or logic somewhere, in which case, perhaps disregard this bit about trans stuff. Consider this paragraph me hallucinating myself into everything else. She just like me, for real. (The "she" in question: an effeminate college guy estranged from his day-to-day life who just happens to lack a face; you can't get gender dysphoria if you don't have a face to see in the mirror, right?)... Anyways, my misinterpretations of erotic artists' intent is a topic for another day. (I'm looking at you, eroge--)

     With all of this said, please note that there are likely important factors I'm leaving out of my analysis. Being removed in:
1.) Interest (I don't share the sexual desire these images cater to; nor do I have a strong understanding of what motivates such desires)
and
2.) Space (the images I'm talking about are produced predominantly in Japan and surrounding East Asian regions, whereas I'm currently situated in the American East Coast; this is relevant insofar as distance likely reduces the fidelity of the images I have access to -- if not visual fidelity, than fidelity in terms of completeness of references or genealogy)
,
there will inevitably be informing factors I simply can't see right now and I just have to accept that for the time being. Despite being uninformed on the context of the totality, I feel reasonable about arguing for what I've said here based on what I know from what I've seen with what I have to go off of right now.