Yukiko Motoya - The Lonesome Bodybuilder - Stories

Q. What did you find difficult about being in the spotlight?

A. Expectations about me soared. I was someone who knew all there is of love. A connoisseur of the finer things in life. A woman who could take a joke. A lifestyle to aspire to. Style you’d want to copy. Frank views on sex. I could barely keep up.

Q. What’s the total number of questions you’ve answered over your career?

A. Thousands? Tens of thousands? Even people I met in my private life couldn’t help but spill their troubles to me within the first sixty seconds of our acquaintance. This magazine’s main readership is women in their twenties and thirties, so most of the questions are about love relationships. Your concerns when it comes to love are much less unique and interesting than you imagine. The majority are variations on the following: How can I get the person I’m interested in to talk to me? He’s having an affair. He won’t have sex with me! My boyfriend is an asshole. And so on.

Q. Problems that come with being an agony aunt?

A. I started to feel that I was continuously giving advice in my daily life, whether I was getting my hair done, or having a meal, or walking a pet. If I was at lunch and dropped my knife under the table, I would ask myself, “Does the classy woman pick it up herself, or does she call a waiter?”; walking down the street, it would be, “Does the sexy woman turn left, or does she turn right?”; while having sex, “Does the woman of our dreams pursue her climax here, or does she wait?”

Q. In your forties, you continued to be a leading figure in the world of women’s magazines, and one of our most widely admired. However, on television, your somewhat unique voice and personality became the target of humor, inspiring jokes and widespread impersonation. How did you really feel about this?

A. The imitations were malicious. They would trim their bangs into unnaturally straight lines, or try to outdo each other with the most pronounced lisp, or repeat comments that I had said just once as though they were catchphrases, to poke fun at them. I suppose it was gradually dawning on people that I was losing my way. And it was true—I didn’t know how long I could keep going. I didn’t know whether the world was trying to make me into a role model or a clown, and felt like I was walking a tightrope on an extremely precarious balance. I guess people were watching to see which side I fell on. As I was, myself.

Q. Your fifties?

A. I wasn’t sure if my answers to people’s questions were masterful profundities or the mad mutterings of an old hag.

Q. In your sixties?

A. I stopped caring.

Q. In your seventies?

A. Mad mutterings of an old hag.

Q. If you could give one piece of advice to your twenty-something self, what would you say?

A. Beware the pressure of having to represent the platonic ideal of an attractive woman! The constant tension of having to be ready to talk vivaciously about romance twenty-four hours a day, of exposing cleavage without flaunting it, of making sure to cross and recross your legs while wearing a short skirt. There will come a time when all your sex appeal can do for you is to make you want to vomit.

Q. How do you feel about the support you have enjoyed from women readers of all ages?

A. When so many people were doing impressions of me, and the prevailing culture came to see my existence as comical, it was only thanks to the support of my readers that I was able to escape being swallowed whole by the swirling torrents of malice. At that time, I felt I was desperately clinging to a small raft, and spent months in terror of capsizing. The muddy water only kept rising and rising. Many nights, I woke from the nightmare with a start, and jumped out of my bed in the dark to spit out the mud I could taste in my mouth. That I was able to regain my standing as though nothing had happened—no, even more, to further cement my place in the popular consciousness—once I had resigned myself to living as a clown: that was nothing short of a miracle. And I owe it to all of you.

Q. You’ve said, “I can only be me.” Please share the source of your unshakable confidence.

A. When I had lost my way many times over, and didn’t know where to turn, what I needed to do in order to find myself again was to let myself do an impression of myself. That’s right. For a long time now, I’ve only been doing what everyone else was doing already—impersonating me. My mannerisms, my voice, the things I say—“What would I say if I were me ?” “What would I do?” When what I really wanted to be was a tap dancer! But what does what I want have to do with anything? Other people made me into who I am. Isn’t that actually far more glamorous?

Q. Do you ever still have doubts?

A. None whatsoever. Once I had made the decision to live and die with you all, my conviction never wavered. Even now, in my eighties, I still intend to continue to be “what every woman aspires to be,” in both mind and in spirit, albeit from my sickbed.

Now, for the very last time, one of the most iconic columns in the history of women’s magazines, and the culmination of my life’s work: questions on life and love from you, my readers.

Q. I can’t leave my boyfriend, even though he’s physically abusive. (Nurse, 28)

A. Challenge him to a duel. Call him out to the river at midnight, and have at each other once and for all. In the face of your resolute blows, set free from the bounds of reason, he is unlikely to be able to resist picking up a rock. It may hurt, but that’s where you’ll need to be brave. You will find you already have what it takes inside you. Drift along the border between life and death for a while. Try to act very dead. He will probably be frightened into leaving the scene without checking whether you are or not. When he finally goes, take all the time you need to shiver with joy.

Q. I always end up waiting for him to call. (Aspiring homemaker, 23)

A. Long, long before we learned to wait for things like that, we were already waiting for something else. We’ve been waiting our whole lives for the moment when everything we can see vanishes in a puff of smoke, and someone claps their hands and says, “Your whole life up to now has been a lie. Your real life starts now.” Which is to say that he is not the one leaving you hanging.

Q. I can’t seem to meet the right person. (Office worker, 34)

A. It’s about time you faced up to the fact that this is a thoughtless delusion. There’s no way there isn’t a right person out there for you. After all, aren’t we all born right people? What I mean is, we all limit our own options too much. Have you considered someone from a different country? Someone old enough to be your father? Make a big change and try being with a woman. If you still can’t find the right person, then try expanding your age range all the way down to newborn. Once you can include ten- and eleven-year-olds, the possibilities will only widen. Look into partners you may not have previously considered. Animals are good, as are inanimate objects. If you genuinely desire not to be alone, I recommend that you take a bicycle saddle as your next partner. You think that’s out of the question? But a saddle is shaped surprisingly like a human face, and once you pull it off the bicycle, you can take each other out anywhere. When you go on vacation, the money you save on the second fare means you can make many more happy memories than if you were with another human. Best of all, a saddle can’t speak. You lament that you can’t find the right person because you have too many expectations of men who speak, and end up seeing too many of their failings. But if your partner is a bicycle saddle, there’s just one thing you need from them: to gently and lovingly support your ass.