I feel compelled to write something about why it's such a big deal to me that Io is clearly portrayed as naturally a submissive lesbian, rather than being groomed into being one: The origin of the word "grooming" in this context was coined to describe pedophiles training children to take precocious interest in sexual acts and relationships, normalizing behavior far younger than they'd otherwise engage in it. The far right jumped on this and twisted it, using "grooming" to describe children being given access to queer media or exposed to queer role models and thus coming out as gay or trans themselves as an act of self-realization. This disgusting association is why so many people (like myself) have fully abandoned the term and use other phrasing to describe the actions of child predators. Neither of these definitions of the term apply to Io, which is important. Io's sexuality is not a corrupted version of her natural state, not something imposed upon her. It's a completely healthy aspect of her, as shown in the downright wholesome relationship she has with Misa. Io is a submissive gay woman, not because of abuse or trauma or deliberate sculpting of her sexual interests or personality, but because that's just who Io naturally is, and that's a perfectly okay kind of person to be.
This is important because there is a LOT of stigma around being queer, around being into BDSM, and just around being a woman with particularly strong sexual interests in general. Io's at a specific nexus of traits that make characters like her almost ALWAYS portrayed as unhealthy victims corrupted into that state. This contributes to a whole lot of shame in the real people who share some or all of those three traits, which is obviously fucked up and really bad. I've talked to fellow lesbians who've been pushed so far by this shame that they feel an impulse to suspect their perfectly normal non-abusive parents of having done SOMETHING that they just don't remember, since they've got these interests that are almost exclusively shown as the result of sexual abuse in the media. I've seen so, so, so many people absolutely terrified of their own sexuality because they have fantasies about being a dom and they're convinced they'll hurt people if they don't bury those feelings. Flowerchild portraying Io and Misa as being perfectly healthy and happy together is a really positive thing that can help real people reading this feel so much better about themselves.
Thank you for sharing this, this is really powerful. I hadn't thought of the manga from this perspective, but yeah, I think that is really cool. Even though the way Io and Misa came together in a way that's messy, with a lot of dangerous aspects with the potential to be traumatic to people experiencing them, the core attraction between them and what they are building seems to be healthy and positive. They fit together well. I think it's really cool that this work gives grace for some of the unorthodox ways that queer relationships can come about when we have to move through the world the way we do.
W/regards to my initial post: perhaps groomer is not the right word for what Hase has been doing over the years, then. It seems to me that she has spent a long time cultivating a poor understanding of boundaries in Io, who she has had access to since she was 14, to allow her to control her and get close to her in ways that are not safe, healthy, or appropriate. It would make sense then why Io, who for the most part is very conscientious and reasonable, approaches Misa the way she does, like going to the address she read on her business card and waiting hours for her to come out of the building. There doesn't seem to be particularly negative weight cast on that behavior from Io, so perhaps it's not connected to her treatment by Hase, and is instead just mean to reflect the unusual ways queer women have to go about pursuing connections with one another--or perhaps it's meant to be taken in the same vein as Misa's pushiness and touching without consent, with the idea that, despite the potentially harmful things we carry with us, sometimes things just work out right, people fit together right, and with good will and mutual care we can build healthy relationships despite it all.
Regardless, I'm interested to see how things develop. This is such an interesting manga on a lot of levels.
