I don't really think anyone here is saying that they're being *forced* to. But on the other end, I think we need to be careful not to assume that everything someone does is solely a product of their own desires, and that's especially so if it's their job, their livelihood. This *is* commercial art – it's a product and it has a target demographic to appeal to. I have seen Kinuko's work that she draws in her spare time (pretty disturbing by the way... naked dismembered hypersexualised women...) which certainly raises a possible complicating factor; if I was able to see it because she tweets it, then it's not private art and she may not be doing it solely for her own enjoyment. Plenty of professional artists create non-commissioned art to add to their portfolio and promote their brand.
I'm not saying this *isn't* something she and others enjoy creating, but really, is everything you do at work and at home to pad your resumé and get work because you personally enjoy it, or is it sometimes because you think your boss or hiring managers (your audience) will enjoy it?
I would assume things that are seen as
not okay to the public at large wouldn't be added to one's resume, at least those that have any aspirations of working in the mainstream scene. I would use both Kinuko and Shadman as examples here. They both draw highly disturbing art, some of which would flat out get them arrested in certain European countries. And yet, one actually did break into the mainstream while the other does whatever the hell he wants. If that wasn't what they wanted to do, then they're potentially diluting their brand for no reason.
Also, it seems like Wamusato Haru engages in a bit of self-objectification too, definitely going above and beyond what's required for her job. How a woman sees herself will definitely affect her art, and how she sees herself is also largely a product of her culture. You say she's not doing it for the money, and I'm sure that's true to an extent, but do you think she'd still be drawing the same things for her private enjoyment in, say, Victorian England?
I get what you're saying, but I feel like this is a much broader discussion that's almost philosophical with no tangible solution. We are all ultimately products of a number of external societal factors that we have no control over. These factors do change with the times, but once their set for any given individual, it is EXTREMELY difficult to "deprogram". In the case of kinks, it may flat out be impossible. So the discussion shifts over from how can
we change and into "better luck with the next batch". In the case of Japan, their stringent gender roles lead artists to both embrace and subvert that aspect of their culture, which may be a reason "gender-bender" is such a popular tag. And that's just one example.
Then we get into the very iffy reality that is those who don't
want it to change, not for a lack of progressive views but for their own desires in a world they see as divorced from mainstream culture. And really, I can't blame them. This is very much a historical hindsight thing and impossible to approach from an unbiased viewpoint when living in the present. 300 years from now, assuming we haven't blown ourselves up, certain types of porn may be considered even more demeaning than it is now and it would be social suicide if not flat out illegal to reveal one's interest in that type of porn. For people born into that time period, they won't see anything wrong with that.
Kind of went off on a tangent here and I feel like I had some kind of conclusion in mind, but I must have forgotten it....
