hontou ni Stripey Insists Sisters Cry Oniichan Now

the border of normality

In Ep 9, Kanako defends herself against charges of perversity:

Whether you actually carry out your delusions or not is the crucial difference between being a pervert and remaining a normal human. You don't touch her, you only use the hand in your heart to bust check her! You don't secretly film her, you just burn her image into the film in your head! I'm just a harmless, normal person! These are mere dreams!

re: "hug" vs "bust check", Kanako used one of my favourite words: momi so bust check it is - all hail Yagami Hayate, ahaha~♥

Actions can be completely contrary to thoughts, as seen from the protagonist (who is also a lolicon) of Gabriel García Márquez's Memories of My Melancholy Whores, page 65, via CultureCat:

Thanks to her I confronted my inner self for the first time as my ninetieth year went by. I discovered that my obsession for having each thing in the right place, each subject at the right time, each word in the right style, was not the well-deserved reward of an ordered mind but just the opposite: a complete system of pretense invented by me to hide the disorder of my nature. I discovered that I am not disciplined out of virtue but as a reaction to my negligence, that I appear generous in order to conceal my meanness, that I pass myself off as prudent because I am evil-minded, that I am conciliatory in order not to succumb to my repressed rage, that I am punctual only to hide how little I care about other people's time. I learned, in short, that love is not a condition of the spirit but a sign of the zodiac.

It doesn't matter what people think, only what they do; the former is not observable, the latter is. However, implicit in this defence is an invocation of the harm principle; thinking about something doesn't harm anyone therefore it is ok.

Mariya's foot-licking test presents the most common counter-argument; the stronger the delusions, then it is easier it is to cross that line, moving from delusion to RL action. Which Kanako goes on to prove. Likewise a saying in Strategic Studies goes:

They never say what they think. They never do what they say. But it doesn't mean they never do what they think.

Given how various "interests" (??) are important markers of identity and solidarity among the myraid tribes and subcultures of otakudom, loud proclamations of one's coordinates far away from the border of normality allows us to find each other and to gather and to talk within but also across the various groups. As Sasahara told Ogiue in yet another one of the Genshiken manga's moving conversations:

Nobody can stop their own fantasies. If I want to go out with you, I'll have to accept that as a part of you.

Though, it seems, some things remain beyond the pale especially when it comes to dealing with normal people.

Related posts:

1. I'm so there too / At the Border of Emptiness
2. A Certain LoliBiri Chat Relay
3. The Urticaria of Miyamae Kanako