Hungry Like The Wolf: Sex and Sexuality in Beastars - Part One
Hi everyone! I took July off because I was on vacation and didn’t have much time for writing. This month I’m posting part one of a two-part post that is, functionally, a written version of the panel I presented at ACEN and Otakon this summer - Hungry Like The Wolf: Sex and Sexuality in Beastars. There’s some additional context in the written version that I just didn’t have time for in the panel, though to be honest I’m more confident in the panel because I think my jokes are funnier in person. Still! I said I’d get it up in August, and so I will. Look out for part two of this post in September!
A. This is (not) an allegory.
When discussing something like Beastars, with its propensity for social commentary and reflections of real-world dynamics, it is tempting to reach for an allegory-model. Yes, like Zootopia. It’s really, really tempting! Except that I believe that to do so would be to do a disservice to Paru Itagaki’s meticulous and (at least semi-)intentional worldbuilding. Paru makes it very clear that her idea for the world of Beastars is not quite “what if we talked about racism with animals” but instead more “wouldn’t it be fucked up if half of humanity had to eat the other half to survive?” – a question I find significantly more interesting and less likely to fall back on deeply harmful stereotypes or presuppositions about racial caricatures. Paru takes her worldbuilding responsibilities incredibly seriously – in fact, so seriously that it can seem as the series progresses that she loses sight of the trees for the forest. But that’s a different post. Paru likes to explore the world she’s created and explains its many intricacies through amusing side stories like the very proud hen, or through asides at the end of volumes, like her explanation that carnivores do not eat fish because sea creatures are considered a different society and eating them would become a foreign relations incident. Thus, she does not map species exactly onto character traits we are familiar with in humans like race, gender, sexuality or class. Species is its own axis of identity and it operates in complex and often frustrating ways for the Beastars cast.
Paru is clear that race, gender, sexuality, and class still all exist in the Beastars universe. Yahya, the titular Beastar, a horse, comments multiple times on same-gender relationships and brings Legoshi to an explicitly gay underground club where two female carnivores are shown having sex. Juno, one of the few female carnivores with a recurring role, faces commentary from her classmates on her gender and its relation to her species. Haru, our wonderful lead woman/rabbit, brings up her gender and her species combined when discussing her identity - two separate concepts that cannot be disentangled. Strikingly, in a side chapter that did not make the anime, Paru shows a caiman, a carnivore, selling parts of his body to be consumed by an elderly goat herbivore (so that he may have the “virility” to fuck his wife one more time before he dies - there’s a lot to unpack there). Even carnivores are not immune to the pressures of capitalism exploiting their bodies. And of course, there is continuous discussion in the fandom of the depictions of the Shishigumi as belonging to, quite literally, different races of lions (yet another thing that didn’t make the anime. Agata, baby, you deserve better).
Still, the world of Beastars differs from ours tangibly in that not only is species one of many important identifiers, it is the defining identity of each character. While intersectional feminism in our human society posits that there is no one true “core” oppression and therefore we must fight against oppression on all fronts, this just… isn’t exactly true in Beastars. Before anything else, an animal belongs to a species. Haru states this plainly several times. Regardless of any other aspect of her identity, or her and Legoshi’s relationship, he will always be a wolf and she will always be a rabbit, and there is nothing either of them can do to change that. Remember this, because it will be important later.
B. Species and Gender
To begin, I’d like to offer a disclaimer: I am no expert on Japanese culture, nor will I ever be. I am a white woman from the US who hasn’t even been to Japan. So while I might provide my own interpretations of what Paru’s intentions were when writing about gender and sexuality in Beastars, I know that I am missing context that would likely change my reading. For example, there are two relevant terms used in Japan - “herbivore man” and its counterpart “carnivore woman”. To my understanding, an herbivore man is a man who is passive, who does not seek out sex or relationships, or who is overly nice. In contrast, a carnivore woman is a woman who is active, “man-hunting”, and who seeks out relationships and children. Note that an herbivore man is a man who behaves in a way that is typically associated with femininity, and a carnivore woman behaves in a way associated with masculinity. Because these terms are associated with people who behave in gender non-conforming ways, they are both considered somewhat derogatory terms. To be an herbivore man in this sense is to be seen as lacking traditional masculinity.
In Beastars, this connection between species and gender intertwines to become what I might call species-patriarchy. Let’s look at our leading literal herbivore man, Louis the red deer. Louis is an herbivore who was born into what was, functionally, a child sex trafficking ring. Being rescued by the leader of the Horns Conglomerate and raised in a high status family does not erase this part of his past, which shapes his character through the plot of the entire manga. Louis, like many boys and men who are herbivores, must navigate living at a complicated intersection between his masculinity as a man and his status as a “weaker” creature, an herbivore. While class buys Louis a privilege he would not otherwise have – see: other animals’ reluctance to devour him due to stricter potential consequences – he can never escape from his species. He struggles to find power in a system where, regardless of his other identities, he could be eaten by any number of his peers at any time. Because of his traumatic past, and his material reality, Louis has internalized the world as one where the only way to be truly safe is to be in control, to be feared, and to have power over others. And thus, he makes what I would call a “patriarchal [carnivorous] bargain” for his own safety.
The term “patriarchal bargain” was coined by Deniz Kandiyoti in 1988 in her seminal essay "Bargaining with Patriarchy".* It describes the ways that those living under patriarchy – primarily women – are forced to make certain decisions to navigate a system where they have been set up to fail. A contemporary definition I find most easy to understand comes from Lisa Page, who defines this type of bargain as “an individual strategy designed to manipulate the system to one’s best advantage, but one that leaves the system itself intact." For example, a woman who decides to marry a high-status man in order to escape from a lower-class upbringing and provide a more stable life for her children is making a patriarchal bargain. Similarly, a woman who decides to take on the mannerisms and jargon of men in a business setting in order to infiltrate the “boys club” at her job and get a promotion is also making a patriarchal bargain. Lean-in feminism, as popularized by Sheryl Sandberg’s book of the same name is characterized almost exclusively by patriarchal bargains. These bargains benefit the women who make them immensely. But the patriarchal bargain always comes at a cost – the cost of others in your similar social group. The woman taking on mannerisms of patriarchy to get a better job tacitly agrees that traditional femininity is not suited for her workplace, degrading other women. Metaphorically, she steps on their backs in her stilettos to climb to the top. The woman who “marries up” to provide for her children does nothing to help women who still struggle financially. This is not meant to condemn these women, but to illustrate that they making their choices within harmful constraints.
Louis makes a very explicit bargain – he decides to use what powers he does have (his class, status, and devourability/desirability) to take control of the Shishigumi, a group of lion yakuza who will protect him with their lives. In doing so, he not only protects himself from being devoured, but props himself above other herbivores and carnivores as untouchable. The cost of this bargain? In order to do so, he must literally engage in carnivorous – and in his case, cannibal – behavior. He must become like those who tortured him, and he must condone the killing of those who were, at one point, just like him. In doing so, he distances himself from the trauma of his childhood, and from his own sense of self. He is no longer child #4 to be sold at the Black Market, but he is also no longer Louis the red deer, star actor of the Cherryton Drama Club and beloved by his friends and classmates. To Louis, who is obsessed with power, this is a cost worth paying.
If you have been following along, you can see how this applies to broader the world of Beastars as well. Each herbivore in Beastars is forced to make their own form of a patriarchal/carnivorous bargain in order to live their lives. Louis’ is just the most stark example. Haru makes her own form of bargain. She utilizes her devourability/desirability as a white dwarf rabbit – an animal considered cute, dainty, and feminine – to gain power in her relationships with other beasts, both carnivore and herbivore. The difference is that because of their differing backgrounds, Haru does not seek to have power over other beasts. Instead, she seeks to share their power, to be respected. She states that when she has sex with other animals, it is the only time she believes they ever treat her as an equal. Therefore, she regularly engages in sex with boys at school in order to feel like she has any value. Having grown up being bullied and ostracized by carnivores for her relative weakness due to her species, and bullied by other herbivores for her attitude, it makes sense that Haru’s primary motivation throughout the series is to earn the respect of other beasts. She is an independent rabbit and she will prove it, bending (emotionally) to no carnivore… no matter how cute and awkward and endearing the gray wolf in question may be. Haru’s bargain is still a bargain - she challenges no status quo - but she is able to remain true to herself, something that Louis grapples with as the manga progresses.
But what of the carnivores themselves? How do they navigate the ways that species-patriarchy permeates their lives? While carnivores do not have to handle the violence and fear that herbivores do (mostly), they must handle their own set of species related difficulties. In order to exist in a mixed-species society, carnivores in Beastars are forced to grapple (pun intended) with their physical strength and bodily needs in ways that negatively impact them as well. In fact, many of Beastars’ carnivores see their physical strength as a burden, as something they must hold but never use, as a loaded gun sitting in their palm that must never be fired. Some, like Legoshi, live in fear of accidentally hurting other creatures. Others, like the lions of Shishigumi, use it to their advantage to achieve whatever their goal is that week.
The plight of the carnivore is exemplified nowhere better than with Riz, the brown bear, who like all other brown bears must take medications to atrophy his muscles in order to not harm the smaller creatures around him. Without the atrophy medications, bears are at risk of accidentally maiming, disfiguring, or even killing smaller beasts, even just by grabbing their hand. While logically this makes sense, the impact it has on the self esteem and worldview of bears like Riz cannot be overstated.
Like, as a brief aside, this is deeply fucked up. If we did this in humans it would be considered chemical castration and probably banned by the Geneva Conventions. Forcing a population to take medication that fundamentally alters their being and harms their health for the sake of everyone being able to hold hands and get along is inexcusable, but that’s the world of Beastars. It is a philosophical and political nightmare. And I’ll come back to this later in part two of this post.
Riz views his strength as something he must control in order to be able to get along with the world around him, but he resents having to take these medications that cause negative side effects and alienate him from other species. This repression manifests in a complex psychological meltdown through the manga’s first half. He begins fantasizing about Tem, his alpaca friend and past murder victim, consenting to being devoured, seeing Riz for his true self without the medication and agreeing to be eaten by him. Of course, this isn’t an accurate recollection of the scene, but as readers it is difficult not to sympathize with Riz wanting his full self to be seen, loved, and forgiven. He wants his urge to devour, innate to his being, to be okay. For his strength to not be a liability that he must minimize but a desirable trait, one worthy of respect.
Legoshi’s struggle with his strength and carnivorous desire is, perhaps, the main plot of the manga. His feelings about being a carnivore, and a larger one at that, range from self-hatred, to anxiety, to guilt, to acceptance, to furious excitement. Legoshi’s fear of losing control forces him to distance himself from Haru, who he considers the love of his life even as he fantasizes about devouring her. His repression of his true strength and desires manifests as him admiring herbivores, internalizing self-hatred and seeing herbivores as being more honorable or worthy of desire than carnivores. He puts herbivores on a pedestal and his only sense of self-worth comes from being able to protect them. This places him in direct opposition to the series’ carnivorous villains who view herbivores with disgust out of their resentment of the forced weakness of carnivores. They view the Beastars society’s rules as being unnecessarily restrictive and useless. Legoshi views them as being morally good, categories of correct and honorable carnivore behavior. Personally, I fall somewhere in between.
These violently different experiences between carnivores and herbivores – these traded resentments – become a recipe for conflict in their interpersonal and interspecies relationships. Legoshi reveres Louis and Haru and other herbivores, who he views as graceful and dignified without having to use what he sees as brutish or ugly physical strength. But he is only able to view them this way because he is not them, because he does not have their experiences. What to him is a burden is to Louis a weapon, and one Louis will simply never have. Louis hates when Legoshi shows kindness or shyness because he sees it as Legoshi rejecting his privilege, refusing to acknowledge what to Louis is a material reality. Yes, it seems like the grass is always greener on the other side, but sometimes the grass really is greener on one side, because the grass on that side can at any time choose to kill the grass on the other side. You know? All of this to say that yes, being a carnivore is a privilege and a double edged sword at the same time. And shame and privilege interact in funny and complex ways.
When Louis sees Legoshi refusing to utilize his strength, he is enraged. He intimidates Legoshi physically, yelling at him to drop the act of kindness, while internally seething that he will never have the kind of strength that Legoshi does. Instead, his body is weak, physically betraying him at every turn. He cannot escape the evidence of his childhood trauma as it is quite literally carved into in his body… at least in the beginning. No matter what Louis does, he will never be able to win against Legoshi, and this fact is one that causes him real grief. A grief that is stepped on when Legoshi, addled by shame and repression, refuses to acknowledge this truth. Legoshi’s self-hatred triggers Louis’ trauma, and the two build an intricate and intimate dynamic both in spite of and on top of this cycle.
And Louis is far from the only one who is triggered by Legoshi’s behavior. Seven, Legoshi’s adult sheep neighbor, works primarily with carnivores. She is belittled by them every day, to the point where she intentionally takes the mixed-species train car to work in hopes of being devoured by a larger beast. She is great at her job and takes pride in her work, but she is miserable, unable to stop her coworkers from harassing her. And yet, all it takes is Legoshi, seventeen years old and brand new to the ways of adult life, saying one sentence to Seven’s carnivore coworkers to get them to stop mistreating her. Legoshi doesn’t view what he says as being particularly meaningful, but he is startled by Seven’s reaction, which is not one of gratitude but instead of anger. Seven is furious – not at Legoshi, not really, but at the world around her.
For those of us who are members of marginalized genders, or marginalized across other identities, this is a familiar struggle. For those who have ever looked at a man and realized “Oh. He could kill me without even trying. And he’d probably get away with it.” Or for those of us who have experienced violence at the hands of those with more privilege and known that there is nothing we can do to stop it besides beg for other privileged people to protect us. The kind of fear and rage that this creates within a person is real, and hearing men deny it or complain about their own struggles can be even more infuriating.
And yet, those struggles do exist. Now, please refer to the beginning of this post - I’m not saying that to be a carnivore in Beastars is to be like a human man. Species is its own identity. Men do not need to eat women to live. I am the furthest thing from a men’s rights activist you will ever find. But I am saying that groups can hold real material privilege and also be suffocated by their own identities. And I am saying that this suffocation does not negate the violence they can inflict on others, nor does it require sympathy from others. I am saying that in fact this suffocation exacerbates the violence they inflict upon others, and if we do not understand that, we fail to make any progress in ending it.
Now, how do we end it? Does Beastars think we can end it? And what does this all have to do with sex, anyway? Great questions – I’ll see you in September for part two. Thanks for reading!
*KANDIYOTI, D. (1988). BARGAINING WITH PATRIARCHY. Gender & Society, 2(3), 274-290.