Paper short abstract:

The paper will discuss female fan culture surrounding male porn actors in female-friendly pornography, and face-to-face interaction that they have with them. In order to shed light on how addiction to simulated intimacy affects female fans' gendered understanding of love, intimacy, and marriage.

Paper long abstract:

The paper will discuss female fan culture surrounding male porn actors in female-friendly pornography, Josei-muke (literally means "for women" in Japanese) adult videos, and face-to-face interaction that they have with them. Since the decline of Adult Video industry, which is equivalent to Japanese porn industry, due to free online streaming sites, one of the biggest AV companies in Japan, Soft on Demand (SOD), decided to launch a new production line for female consumers in 2009, called SILK LABO. The crucial innovation of SILK LABO is the cult-like fandom that has evolved around its male actors, Eromen, which is a combination of erotic and men. Their main job is to act in SILK LABO's films and to interact with fans at fan events where fans can shake hands, take photographs, or hug them. Sometimes fans that belong to official fan clubs set up by SILK LABO can apply for lunch dates with Eromen, so that they can enjoy a pseudo-relationship. Alexandra Hambleton (2016) has argued that the discourse which SILK LABO produces was submissive because it was 'reinforcing ideas of normative female desires and sexual behavior' (2016, p439) in Japanese society. However, underlying problem is not just gender clichés, but also fans' understanding of love, intimacy and marriage due to their ability of buying intimacy from Eromen. The paper will discuss the cognitive problems of those female fans who are addicted to such a consumption of intimacy based on fieldwork which has been conducted from September 2018 to August 2019.