抄録
This article examines recent male practices of communicating through ‘bishōjo’ avatars in social virtual reality spaces such as VRChat and YouTube. While prior scholarship often celebrates such cross-gender embodiment as a means to escape the emotional limitations imposed by hegemonic masculinity, I argue that this discussion has misdiagnosed the core issue. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s concept of body schema and Watsuji Tetsurō’s notion of aidagara, I propose that users create a ‘fictional body schema’ and a ‘fictional aidagara.’ These constructs selectively appropriate the “thin” aspects of femininity–such as kawaii affect, tactile proximity, and empathic expressivity–while overlooking the “thick” aspects of female experience, including sexual objectification, menstruation, the capacity to bear children, and exposure to gendered violence. This selective appropriation results in an aesthetically disrespectful portrayal of female embodiment rather than an ethically neutral experiment. Using ethnographic data on kawaiimove training and avatar performance, I show how these practices reinforce pre-existing anime-derived norms rather than challenging gender binaries. Therefore, male emancipation from relational oppression cannot be achieved by donning bishōjo avatars; it requires the development of alternative male body schemas and aidagara. Reframing the issue in terms of aesthetic value clarifies why the appropriation of bishōjo imagery is inherently problematic for both feminist critique and virtual embodiment studies.
