Summary of SEAA Reads, session 12 from February 1, 2025

Akiko Takeyama 2023 Involuntary Consent: The Illusion of Choice in Japan’s Adult Video Industry

https://www.sup.org/books/anthropology/involuntary-consent 

Our book club discussion was co-hosted by Amy Borovoy and Chris Yano and began with readers briefly introducing themselves and giving a single word or phrase about the book. After the first 60 minutes of discussion the author joined in and many of the readers’ remarks and questions were addressed in an extended and thoughtful way. The free association of short impressions offers a kind of distilled droplet of the rich reading: precarity, illusions, “middle voice”* [chudou-tai; neither completely coerced nor completed consensual; hence the book’s title, “involuntary consent”], moving & well-written, liminality [between choices, none of which are good], intimacy problematics, methods [such rich dialogue like a “fly on the wall”; rapport; notetaking?], dignity in all interviewees, free choice ~ agency in critical light. Taken all together this web of related ideas connect to the “AV (adult video) village.” But things like production values, scripting, edits, and master narratives are not the book’s subject. Rather it is about, as the title says, Involuntary Consent; a seeming oxymoron, but one that makes sense in the lingua-culture of Japanese conversation wherein a “middle” voice entangles both sides in the resulting decisions and action. As such the emergent or interactional outcomes documented here occur in other spheres of Japanese public and private, paid and unpaid experiences.

Everyone seemed to have positive reading experiences of the book, most curious to learn the fieldwork methods to gain introductions to the many facets of the subject and how to document the conversations so vividly. Here are some comments, in approximately chronological order. There seem to be some shared characteristics in (chapter 5) AV fans who attend meet-and-greet events and one reader’s work on competitive players of Scrabble (free of hierarchies and social judgment while among fellow Scrabblers). The author seems to embody the “middle voice” by interviewing stakeholders and allowing them to verbalize or process their position, experiences and reflections. She is neither participant nor observer, but something in-between. The dignity that she holds with interviewees also comes through on the pages of the book presented to readers. How representative are the interviewees was a salient question: for a sensitive subject like Adult Video in Japan, it is difficult to get a complete or clear picture, even though those interviewed gave valuable viewpoints. Jumping to another parallel in Japan ethnography, the world of Pop Music (enka) shares similar features of youthful stars cultivated after spotted by scouts and managed for maximum camera value.

At the launch of “SEAA Reads” during the height of Covid-19, eleven sessions ago, there were recurring questions to think about when reading and talking about contemporary accounts of East Asia language and society: 

what does ethnography mean? <> how does ethnography mean? <> what are the limits of ethnography?

In the case of Involuntary Consent, the questions were spoken, but with so much else to reflect on, we did not dwell on these formative considerations. But certainly the book puts the readers among the interviewees singled out for each chapter’s position in the “Adult Video village.” Both in substance and style or attitude there is anthropological presence on every page.

With regard to “consent” that is not one-sided, independent of context and coercive factors, the author pointed out the use of the term, ‘informed consent’, for many spheres of modern life: medical, legal, social science research (IRB, Institutional Review Board), and contract negotiations, for instance. So the Japanese-language example of “middle voice” problematizes the idea that something like informed consent has been universal or works similarly no matter what language or society.

At the end of the Zoom meeting the question came up about the author’s fieldwork feelings when faced with difficult situations, distressing stories, and upset from learning harsh things normally hidden. In a strange parallel to the “emotional labor” carried out by women recorded for A.V. the fieldworker who hears the accounts also is performing a kind of emotional labor. Therefore, making time to de-stress and process the fieldnotes and the interview experience is important to do.

In summary, both the readers and author were pleased with this chance to explore the subject, the reading experience, and the “making of” the project in the first place. The subject of Adult Video production and consumption in Japan is complicated and offers a window to other spheres of social interaction where “middle voice” (involuntary consent) is present for groups or interpersonally; not only in Japan, either, but worth comparing in other societies, too. Like any well made and well written account, reading all over again reveals more, raises more questions, and reflects on things more widely - not limited to the stated subject on the pages.

The goal of SEAA Reads is to create community around the shared practices of ethnographic reading and reflecting.  Our session helped move us toward that goal through the prompt of Takeyama's book, as well as her generous and empathic sharing in discussion.

* The ”middle voice” has been illustrated in the surfer example: the wave on which the person rides partly determines the possible outcomes, but the surfer also has a degree of autonomy or agency within that set of possible outcomes. Thus, a mutually determined decision can also come about through the presence and participation of more than one person; mutual agency, or mutually determined decision could be another way to describe outcomes emergent in the flow of dialog and artful use of rhetorical structures and habits. 

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The next SEAA Reads gathering online is June 2025 and will be led by Dr. Bill Kelly, possibly revisiting a classic ethnography from earlier days.

See more about SEAA Reads at https://seaa.americananthro.org/seaa-reads/