[MMM]

At least in Japan I have observed that men tend to live with their parents until they marry, so women are sometimes raised to basically take the reigns from the mother to be the next woman to take care of her man.

This is a generalization, but I see that the older generation of men, at least, are not very good at taking care of themselves. This may be partially due to a lifetime of handholding, from mother to wife. Men are lucky their wived tend to outlive them. I knew of a older Japanese guy whose wife sadly died. He didn't know how to cook, and ate instant ramen one or two meals a day. He died of malnutrition a year later.

I think the image of Japanese women as "submissive" is a bit of a misunderstanding in the west. (Again, generalizations) but Japanese women tend to "take care" of their men, but they certainly like to be taken care of, as well. I think relationships in Japan are 50-50 in a way as well, but What BELly is describing is in America men and women doing EVERYTHING 50-50. Today I'll wash the dishes and you dry, and tomorrow you wash the dishes and I'll dry. This kind of thing is pretty rare in Japan, the 50-50 is more global in perspective. You make the money and I'll take care of the house, keep you fed. Japanese women allow men to look like the boss on the surface, but behind closed doors everyone knows that women run the household. It isn't uncommon for men to give their wives their paychecks and the wife to give the husband an allowance (again, my experience is in the older generation, so I don't know about newlyweds today).

Maybe it is because I lived in Kansai, but "submissive" is one of the last words I would use to describe the women I knew. Sometimes quiet, sometimes demure, but rarely submissive.

I am not sure that pornography is reflective of the fantasies of all of America, but rather reflective of the people that consume pornography, which I don't think is a majority of the population. Just as the I don't think the wild and weird pornography of Japan is reflection on the entire country. Maybe the reason women in some pornography are submissive is to fulfill a fantasy that does not exist in reality.