Before I get to discussing the title, I would also like to start with another case of inappropriate physical intimacy in this story. She’s under the impression that the ML is faking being in love with her, and asks him to prove his love. The chapters we had recently gotten giving ML’s pov set up a lot of ways he could do this that I thought the author was setting up. He has gifts over the years that he wanted to give to her but never found the chance, letters he wrote but never sent. I was under the impression he still had these, and that he would show them to her to show that they were accumulating long before the accident. Then in a later chapter we see that he remembers obscure details from years ago, like how she loves his mother’s sandwiches. He could also prove he always loved her by demonstrating all the little details like these that he noticed about her. Either the physical evidence or the memories would be great, and both together would be even better.
Instead, he proves his “love” by pushing her down for a really intense make out, pulling down the front of her dress, and showing her that he’s aroused. Which was also quite forceful mind you. So he proves that he truly “loves” her through lust, as if there aren’t plenty of guys (and people in general)who can make out with and get turned on by a girl they don’t give a crap about. Just absolutely terrible.
I know that sometimes in manga there can be an issue with girls saying no while a guy continues to make out with her and it’s treated like it’s okay, and I understand that there are some cultural differences at play there and consent isn’t maybe as firmly in the cultural discourse there. However what happens in the story goes beyond what I can possibly tolerate or write off as a poor portrayal of intimacy that doesn’t translate well. This guy is making out with her and pulling down the front of her dress (a different forceful make out session than the one I described previously), and she sounds and seems incredibly adamant about not wanting to continue, but anytime she tries to pull away or shouts for him to stop he just responds by kissing her more, and this happens repeatedly and goes on for way too long. Given the nature of their relationship how does he even know she wants this level of intimacy in the first place? He has a whole thing about wanting to do things right, but this isn’t it. He and the author justify it by the fact that she is enjoying it (physically), and part of her is happy afterwards about the intimacy because she’s loved him all this time, but what is depicted is still not consensual.
If you offer me cake, and I say no, or eat a little and then want to stop, you cannot proceed to force feed me the cake while I try to pull away, constantly tell you no, that you should stop, that we’re in public and I don’t want people to see the embarrassing sight of you forcefully shoving cake down my throat—and then justify it by the fact that I technically am enjoying the cake. I said no and continued to say no to the cake. Just because some base instinct of mine may have wanted it, and I may have technically physically enjoyed it, does not mean you get to override that decision for me. Maybe I’m trying to watch my health, or maybe I want to save the cake for later when I am in dire need of cake. Whatever the reason, that’s incredibly inappropriate, and yet this metaphor is essentially what was going on in the chapter where I dropped.
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