Kabedon: How About Kabe-Don't

    A couple of years ago, this trend called kabedon (kabe = wall, don = bang) became a thing both on TV and presumably to some extent in the lives of some teenagers and young adults somewhere in Japan. In this action, the two normally stoic characters, a girl and a boy, will be standing near a wall. Neither of them is willing to talk about their feelings and both are obviously interested in each other. In an act of unbridled passion uncharacteristic of the natural reserved nature that is expected of people here in Japan, the male will lean in close to the female and smack the wall directly beside her head, showing her with his loud display how great his passions are.

    In the TV shows, this is where they lock eyes and finally understand that the other party is romantically interested. I'm telling you right now, if this had been common when my husband was young and he had tried this kind of crap before we were actually dating, I would never have dated him. I would have considered him aggressive in a way that is not interesting or safe.

    As far as I'm concerned there are about a thousand reasons not to like this including the fact that people in general are not always aware of how they themselves are feeling nor how the people around them are feeling. This is even worse in the case of young people who have a hard enough time dealing with their own hormones that perfectly guessing the interest of another cannot be expected, especially when completely understanding their own emotions is at best unlikely.

    How is he to know that she is actually interested in him? If she's not, this is terrifying. How was she to know that he's interested and expecting her to also be interested? I can think of numerous times as a teenager that I thought people were interested when they were not or realized too late that other people believed me to be interested when I was not. No one punched a wall next to my head to tell me of their affections, thankfully.

    In a country and culture where the very language females are supposed to use is forced into a level of politeness that men do not always have to apply, understanding when someone intends a romantic situation or is just being nice to you might be really challenging for anyone, especially some of the still-developing prefrontal cortex.

    I see kabedon as a huge danger signal. I can imagine being the receiver of this attention and feeling attacked, not knowing how to explain that this was not what I wanted while also feeling like the pounding on the wall is only inches from being pounding on my head when I reject him. I can also imagine being the boy who has gotten up all of his courage to try to show a girl he is interested only to smack into the wall and terrify her. Then he is left to wrestle his ego, urges, and hurt confusion, all while trying to save face after making what should have been a romantic gesture and is instead an act of aggression. We should not be suggesting these themes of aggression in romance toward our young people.

Toilet spray corners Deodorizer to declare his feelings. If kabedon were implemented here, would she be excited? Scared? Petrified? Confused? The best time to find out is probably not after you punch the wall next to the head of the person you care about.

    "I want you so badly I need to punch this wall next to your head" should not be a normalized turn on. Everyone has their own kinks, but wall-punching as a normal teenage mating ritual should not be condoned.

    Perhaps deliberate and conscientious conversations about emotions are not sexy. Young people especially tend to prefer stories in which the action is fast and active. The idea of a slow maturing process isn't typically sought after in their fiction. Stories where the hero and heroine take books upon books and stories upon stories to finally get together aren't really aimed at the under-twenty crowd.

    But teaching boys that an act of aggression near their love interest's head is somehow romantic can be very dangerous. What if he's clumsy? He may stumble into her and damage either or both of them. If done very poorly, this could look very much like assault.

    As I've said before, boys in this situation being able to accurately predict the feelings of themselves or other people putting a lot on the shoulders of young people. Girls should not be raised to expect people punching things around their heads. Boys should not be expected to show aggression in order to earn favor.

    It is likely that this was not intended and a constant or regular activity, but I also find it disturbing as an ideal. We're still marking male aggression as a romantic positive which can be dangerous. Likewise, female submission is reprised and regarded favorably here. Both are bad calls if you want a society of people who understand and communicate emotions well.