Fan-service titillates and panders to the audience’s desires. It’s used to make strong characters, usually female, appeal attainable. Upskirt views, swimsuit displays, cleavage shots, and other forms of objectification allows the audience to visually possess a character and build a fantasy around that character. Waifuism often uses fan-service as a part of its fantasy. Other types of fan-service exist, but the sexually-focused types, which are the most common, concern the parents I’ve spoken with so that is what I’ll focus upon here.
Christianity teaches against objectification and lust. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul states sexual immorality goes against God’s intention for the human body and urges Christians to flee sexual immorality. Jesus states lustful thoughts are the same as the act of adultery (Matthew, 5:27-28) and tells Christians to remove such from their lives. However, lust is different from momentary titillation. Titillation is a fleeting response to something like fan-service. Lust, on the other hand, is a self-focused state of mind. It is a craving that consumes your thinking and drives you to attempt to sate it no matter the consequences (only to have it return). Many today, however, believe lust involves the momentary sexual desire we feel when something sexy appeals to our senses. Lust goes further. It is a habit, a state of mind, that goes beyond the moment. Lust comes from embracing momentary self-focused desires whenever they arise. This waters the seeds of lust. Fleeing from it–because we really can’t resist them–waters a different type of seed. Lust involves seeking these fleeting moments instead of fleeing.
Anime’s fan-service constitutes as lust when we seek it out and dwell on it. Momentary titillation is a normal part of the human body. It’s hard to look at a good-looking person, plate of food, and other physically appealing things and not feel desire. The body is wired to want such things, and the momentary wanting isn’t necessarily sinful. It’s automatic and makes us seek things like food that we need, but when it rules our every action, that’s where lust comes in. Selfishness sits at the heart of the problem. Now, anime fan-service seems harmless. After all, fan-service is just drawings of people that do not and cannot exist. However, it creates a habit of self-focused titillation that can morph into the habit of lust.
Of course, all of this depends too. I don’t feel titillation whenever I see fan-service in a story. I feel annoyance and even anger at mishandling a character. Christianity leaves room for individual differences, but it also cautions us to be careful not to delude ourselves about our strength. Fan-service may not affect me, but it may affect you. If so, Paul would urge you to flee. It takes self-awareness and a desire to pursue other, longer-lasting types of self fulfillment. However, there is pressure from sections of the otaku community to consume fan-service and to think in selfish ways.
I want to be clear. Not every aspect of the anime community encourage lustful views or other views contrary to Christianity. Much of the community is warm and positive. Likewise, waifuism doesn’t always have sexual components to it. For many, waifuism is a way to step out of self-focus. It allows people to learn how to step outside their views and into that of another. Of course, it can also foster self-projection. Everything can be used by God to pull people closer to Him, but sin can also distort those tools too. Waifuism can encourage compassion or encourage lust.
Christian parents have their own balancing act to perform. Teens compose anime’s main audience, hence the rather tired high-school setting. Forbidding anime wholesale will only encourage the teen to go behind the parent’s back. It also prevents the teen from accessing anime’s stories that can be uplifting or help the teen through a rough patch. Anime often addresses teen-identity problems and problems in friendships in helpful ways. Fan-service can also be used as satire to point out problems within anime and how we view clothing. Nudity can also be used as a character trait–showing innocence of a character–such as Holo in Spice and Wolf.
Our lives are formed by the stories we live within. For example, we live in a world that believes in the story of resource scarcity, and it impacts how we view life. Likewise, anime and its fan-service can impact our views of the world–for better or for worse. Fan-service is designed to appeal to our base instincts rather than cultivate a more God-focused perspective. But fan-service can allow for a teaching opportunity, such as this article. I’m not a parent. I can’t offer any true advice. However, a shared interest in anime can allow parents and their children to bond and discuss issues like fan-service and the nature of lust. The stories we consume shape our thoughts. Many people downplay anime as mere entertainment, but it contains messages that we consciously and unconsciously add to our characters. We do the same with movies, books, and the stories people tell us. Anime, like all stories, has positive and negative messages. It’s up to us to decide what messages to consume and which we need to flee.
In my experience most teens hide their love for anime from their parents in fear of retaliation. Most people begin to “find themselves” during their teenage years, and start to move away from their parent’s values. These days since most teens spend time online and watch anime via Crunchy roll there’s a good chance the parents don’t know what kind of anime their teens are watching. Based on my own personal experience my parents are neutral when it comes to my and my sibling’s anime fandom.
You make a good point. Many parents do not know what their teens watch, but some parents feel uncomfortable with anime’s fan-service after watching several episodes of certain titles. The parents that have come to me with their questions didn’t want to ban anime altogether. But fan-service worked against what they were trying to teach, namely not to objectify people. I suspect most parents are neutral like yours.
what nonsense, don’t force your cultures silly prudish views on another’s. Normal healthy desire that continues the human race isn’t “sin” nor “lust”, you are a pervert calling that which is good to be an evil thing. Take up another hobby if you can’t handle anime the way it is.
In the piece, I didn’t equate desire with sin. Rather lust, as I defined it, is a sin because of its destructive tendencies. I also noted how the development of lust depends on the individual. Some, like me, aren’t affected by fan-service. I don’t find it sexy; I find it annoying because it hurts storytelling in most cases. It creates contrived, templated stories. Fan-service as in Kill la Kill, as one exception, aids the story. So it is possible for fan-service to be an aid to story telling. However, many Christians struggle with matching fan-service with their sense of morality. This post seeks to answer the questions they’ve sent me.
I’m clicking through several essays tonight and something I’ve never commended you on is your incredible ability to judo-conversate. I honestly don’t know how you do it. I can spend an hour trying to write something in response to a glib attack with the intent to speak well, but I in my wordiness never come close to your stolid presence of mind and stunningly neutral voice. How do you do it?
That’s a good question, and one I haven’t considered. I suspect part of my “how” comes from my personality. I try not to be ruffled by events, and when I am, I try to remind myself of death. That makes everything else a trifle. It doesn’t always work, of course! I don’t see people as opponents (at least, most of the time), but rather as people who have a perspective they hold as valid and true. It doesn’t matter how objectively factual that perspective may or may not be. Narratives influence us regardless of factuality. So, I try to focus on providing a different narrative I might or others might hold. Whether or not the reader considers that narrative is beyond my ability to influence.