Heidi Nast: "Into the Arms of Dolls: Japan's Declining Fertility Rates, the 1990s Financial Crisis, and the Comforts of the Post-Human"

Towards the beginning of the semester, Heidi Nast, a professor at DePaul's International Affairs department, came to give a lecture in one of my classes. She presented her latest project (title above) which has to do with "doll culture" in Japan, relating it to what she calls the "death-drive" of capitalism. The whole presentation was quite a whirlwind, and a couple of us in the class took offense to some of her points (specifically, her characterizations of otaku and even trans identity as privileged opponents of agrarian culture), but overall I thought her ideas were extremely interesting.

I'll do my best to describe her thesis here:

The popularity of "doll culture" among men in Japan is a result of (1) capitalist prosperity, (2) the financial crisis of the 1990s, and (3) feminist progress. In the big picture, this is related to Japan's declining birth rate.

1: Japan is a privileged "first-world" country where many people have disposable income to spend on hobbies. Therefore, there is a thriving market for expensive "doll culture" merchandise such as dakimakura, sex dolls, ball-jointed dolls, vocaloid avatars, figurines, etc.

2: After the financial crisis, young have people felt discouraged to go out and find jobs. Instead, they "turn inwards" (hikikomori) and this fosters otaku culture.

3: As a result of both feminist progress and the financial crisis, men have felt emasculated. They find that less women are willing to get married and play the role of mother and housewife. They also fear for their ability to be the male "provider." As an alternative, they find the female roles of mother, sister, wife, girlfriend, and sex friend in dolls, which can be idealized unlike actual women. Rather than spending money to support a family, they spend money to support "doll culture."

This is related to Japan's declining birth rate (the capitalist "death-drive") because while women are less interested in being wives, men find replacements for wives in dolls, therefore less people are having children... and ultimately this leads to a "post-human" society of machines.

(If you want to read her paper, let me know and I'll send you the PDF. Since this is a public website, I don't want to post it here. Copyrights and all.)

-Angela