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Changing The Furniture Won’t Change What He Did

It was not the best of times, but it certainly was the worst of times, it was not the age of wisdom, but it certainly was the age of foolishness; so goes the ballad of Tatsuhisa Suzuki and the tale of two women in his life.

LiSA and her husband Tatsuhisa Suzuki have recently been in the news for all the wrong reasons. The mess that their affair created can be touted as one of, if not the only example for a celebrity marriage gone south.

Infidelity isn’t new, nor is it the Haley’s comet of household mishaps. Look closely and you might find one stinking in your own house (oops).  But, given the paparazzi and the attention that LiSA and Suzuki got, it was hard to miss even the smallest of threads in this scandalous web. 

If the details about Suzuki’s under-the-blanket adventures weren’t blown up or, say, covered enough, the ones about LiSA deciding to forgive her husband, along with the conditions she put forth certainly blew it out of proportions. 

I mean, it isn’t as if fans or the press really have a say in what goes on in a person’s private life, but sometimes when you are in the eye of the storm, pleasing the masses is an unsaid rule in the book.

Here’s the thing, the LiSA-Tatsuhisa scandal took a whole new route with LiSA deciding to forgive her husband, much to my dismay. I don’t know what disappointed me more, the act of forgiving itself or the conditions involved in it. 

When I first read about it, I couldn’t help but think that it was funny beyond any reason. The tabloid headings made LiSA look like a furniture digger. And the adjectives that her minions slapped on her made my general discontent seem inconsequential, but it wouldn’t go away. Something about the whole thing bothered me.

Apologies were made from a hospital bed and demands were set in response to it. In the end, a new address and some replaced furniture doesn’t seem like a huge price for Suzuki to pay, unless he is made to bear the brunt of laying the bricks and moving the furniture all by himself.

It’s hard to set a materialistic value, let alone any value on the act of being unfaithful. But if changing furniture was all it took to get over an affair, if it was the “abra cadabra” for a clean slate after a wild night without the missus, then IKEA would be climbing the ladder catering to a whole new breed of amorous people.

And as you take a stroll down the neighborhood, you wouldn’t be surprised to hear something like “Oh Honey I kinda had an affair. Why don’t we change the furniture and get over the fact that I cheated?” Hitting the furniture store would be as common as going grocery shopping or even, say, breathing. (Okay okay, maybe I went a bit over the board there.)

If granted permission to speak freely, not that I hadn’t been already, I would desecrate the very idea of affairs, till I experienced the joys of one at least

As of this moment, however, I am not very happy with the way the incident between LiSA and her affair husband played out. However, being an editor requires me to exercise my objectivity and think about what possibly prompted her (probably love) to forgive the affair husband so easily.

But easily is a very subjective word. Especially when it is tied into how cheating is perceived in different countries. For instance, Japan ranks 7th in the world when it comes to infidelity being morally acceptable, according to a study by The Economist.

True, infidelity might not be a “big deal” in Japan, as some say. But is this nonchalance rubbing off on LiSA as she forgives her husband, for something I would term a paltry price?

I mean, in a place where spouses or partners are perceived (rightly or wrongly) to be not just forgiving, but also as silent encouragers of the act of finding sexual satisfaction elsewhere, my dissident opinions or screams wouldn’t amount to much. 

Keeping in mind how the traditional gender roles still rear their head from time to time, suggesting that Japan might not have completely shook off sexism, I would like to ask this; if the roles were reversed in this scandal, if instead of Tatsuhisa it was LiSA who had decided to humparumpum with a male fan of hers, would he have been equally forgiving? Would the magic of new furniture work there?

But then again, this isn’t something we can find answers to by simply analyzing a country, here, Japan. On the other hand, analyzing Tatsuhisa’s personality could be of some help, because at the end of the day, it is he who has to make that call. And by call I mean a call on the matter and not placing a call to the fan.

As Japan maintains its patriarchal notoriety, thanks to the male dominance in professional and business life, there is no denying that it is hard for women to hold on their own resolve. While this article from CNN delves deep into this issue, I can’t help but wonder if this somehow influenced LiSA’s decision? Was she trying to maintain her image?

One could argue that the entertainment industry has its fair share of female stars, but taking a closer look we find ample evidence to suggest that the industry is unforgiving and biased. To add to it, the veil of purity is something that female entertainers can’t take off at any time, thanks to the expectations from the fans who look up to them.

We would be lying if we said that the weight of positive public perception wasn’t hanging over LiSA’s head as she took the decision.

However, I could not help but notice that this very same need to maintain a perfect image, was what put her in a bind this time around. 

Nevertheless, all it takes is a small mistake, for someone in the limelight to tumble down from their high seats. 

And as we come to the end of this piece, overflowing with my dissentous views, the one thing I wanna say is this:
CHANGING FURNITURE WON’T CHANGE WHAT HE DID. Though it most certainly will give the place a facelift, that’s there. But then sometimes replacing people, is a wiser choice than replacing lifeless things that really had no say in the course of actions.