“In-house Marriage Honey” is what I call a “Princess and the Pea” drama.

From the looks of it, INMH is cute and fluffy like a bed piled with 20 feathered quilts. When you sleep on it though, you discover that it’s an uncomfortable bed. Something is niggling at you and you can’t tell why. Only by digging deep through the layers of fluff do you find a pea. It seems inconsequential because it’s small in size. But when it’s ignored, it creates a cognitive dissonance.

source: thedoodlediner

I first called Agdr03’s attention to this drama. (Let me transfer all our comments from the Takane and Hana thread here.)

Me: I’ve another Jdrama to recommend to you. I think YOU will like it because of the kisses. It’s only 7 episodes too.

Agdr03 answered: Are they good kisses? 😜 Yes please then! 😄 I’ve kinda miss my drama kisses with SH and TS having a couple of it then nothing yet for Hani and YH. ☺️ @Welmarus recommended In House Marriage. I can watch it because Sisyphus and Hello, Me is finished this week.

I replied: Lol. That’s it! “In House Marriage Honey” is kinda …??? I get the kisses and all. When it comes to the kissing and make-out scenes, there’s one every episode. But there’s something about them that I find seedy. 🧐 Go ahead and watch it. I’ll open a thread for us.

I didn’t want to spoil the story further for @agdr03 so I stopped there with one word, “seedy.” I thought the word was a nifty play on:

a. the sense of sordidness I derived from the viewing the show.
b. the pea-size, niggling problem I had with it. I couldn’t invent the word “pea-y.”

credit: as tagged

Agdr03 answered: Oh seedy. 🤔 Wow! One every episode?

I insisted: Just see it for yourself. I need a second opinion and since we’re “connoisseurs” of kisses, you might see something that I’m not seeing. 😂

Agdr03: Oh oh we’re ‘connoisseurs’ of kisses 😂 Okie doks! I’ll definitely watch it and see how we go.

I replied: “Connoisseurs” sounds more refined than “perverts” or “degenerates.”

Table122000 wrote: I enjoyed In House Marriage Honey. It was a cute rom com. For nice kisses, I recommend C Drama My Little Happiness. It’s also at Viki.

Welmaris added her opinion on this. She wrote:

@Packmule3, my first watch-through of In-House Marriage Honey left me with the impression that it was racier than the Kdramas we usually watch, but I bristled a bit at the word you chose–seedy–because I thought the jdorama was sweet overall. So I decided to rewatch IHMH to see if I could pinpoint what might make its presentation of the leads’ relationship a bit off. I meant to only skim, but ended up watching it a second time in its entirety. It’s so short, I could do that in one afternoon.

My second watch-through, I didn’t get as strong a feel of it being racy. Maybe that’s because the surprise element was gone. There was frankness in this jdorama about sexual desire: the new wife tries a number of ploys to prod her husband to initiate the physical intimacy, and he doesn’t seem altogether against the concept, but he wants her to be emotionally ready. Remember, she entered this marriage after breaking off a five-year relationship with the wedding only a short time in the future. I imagine she’d been intimate with her ex. When Ami discovers that her new husband has ordered condoms, she’s initially shocked, but her main complaint isn’t that he’s rushing her, but that he’s being a tease. As their relationship develops within their marriage, I think this jdorama is realistic in showing the newlyweds desiring and valuing physical intimacy.

Scenes that may have led me to initially characterize this jdorama as racy included the couple in bed together with Manatsu’s back and Ami’s shoulders bare. Kdramas I’ve watched don’t often portray skinship with bare skin. And there were other intimacies shown between Manatsu and Ami that I can’t think of seeing in Kdramas: his finger tracing the side of her torso, his nibbling her ear. I didn’t like the way bed scenes looked stereotypically art directed: camera focusing on the prone couple from behind his shoulder, then on their interlaced fingers, then on her face with a coy smile as she turns her head while he buries his face in her neck. The seedy vibe may come from these soft porn tropes not particularly furthering the story.

I admit that a scene can be charged with sexual tension without nudity or giving viewers the sense of being voyeurs. For example, in the last episode of Dating in the Kitchen, Lu Jin comes to Shengnan’s apartment to reconcile with her. She’s angry with him, but becomes less so when he hugs her. As they embrace (fully clothed),
LJ: I’m hungry. Stop being mad at me, will you? (whispering in her ear) I’m really hungry.
SN: Then cook some noodles for yourself.
LJ: (barely above a murmur, into her ear) I want you to cook them for me.
SN: Wishful thinking.
LJ: Then I’ll wish for even more.
He hoists her, her legs go around his waist, and he carries her to the bedroom. We just see his foot kicking the door closed. (And all watchers with a pulse feel their hearts skip a beat.)

I just finished watching the Kdrama My Lovely Sam Soon. First aired in 2005, it is the oldest Kdrama I’ve yet seen. And I was surprised that it was more upfront portraying sexual relations than more recent Kdramas I’ve seen. I’m not saying that it contained graphic scenes, but it openly presented the concept of consenting adults having sex outside marriage. And it had what I thought was a hilarious sequence with Hyun Bin being kicked out of bed by his ladylove to go buy condoms so she wouldn’t get pregnant, and him having to go from convenience store to convenience store before he succeeded in securing them. When he finally came back to bed, she was fast asleep and didn’t want to be disturbed. Also funny was the depiction of the aftermath of their first time having sex: they’re lying next to each other in bed, quilt up to their chins, spent, and both sporting bloody-nose tissue plugs.

The impression I got from watching In-House Marriage Honey is that it was like a primer on marriage compatibility, depicting examples of a couple discovering they’re on the same page on important issues such as communication, finances, whether or not to have children, and, yes, physical intimacy.

I replied:

Welmaris, This is a great comment and I’ll open a thread for the discussion of “In-House Marriage Honey” and transfer this there later. Thanks. And now, that you’ve brought it up, I’m beginning to understand why I said this drama looked and felt seedy to me. I’ll have to explain that, too. It is seedy. Maybe not for you, but it was for me.

source: pinterest, illustrated by Sheila Carman

GrowingBeautifully the joined the conversation. She took the words right out of my mouth.

In-House Marriage Honey/Shanai Marriage Honey

I was in the middle of watching this series when I read @Welmaris and your review, and have just completed it. I might have just breezed through it (with some lifting of eyebrows at every ‘love’ scene) and wondered why, with all the sweetness and happy smiles, I’d still find something disconcerting about this little series. But your comment on the ‘seediness’ of it made me think about it.

On the one hand it has been given the appearance of respectability. What can be more respectable than a married couple having a great time being married. And yet, I get the feeling that the contract marriage seems to be used as a means to justify the many ‘love’ scenes. There was something ‘sleazy’ or ‘base’ about their frequency and execution. It could still have portrayed a couple falling in love, and used all that time spent on ‘love’ scenes, in on the many other attributes that make marriages work.

As it was, the couple got together as total strangers, and were married at their second meeting! And never addressed matters of greater moment than their jobs, being cute, being jealous, etc. It was only later that the question of having children and meeting the parents cropped up.

Show wanted to make the point that the sequence could be messed up but that a marriage could still work, but too much emphasis was placed on the physical aspects of the marriage, so much so that the wife practically appeared to be wanton. Show seemed to equate sex with being in a loving relationship. The wife said that she thought she could be in marriage without love, but changed her mind, and her steps to be loved included acting cute, ‘attacking’ her husband with texts/selfies, and in short in attention getting antics, usually with sex as the end objective.

I wondered if the gratuitous and slow love scenes were aimed at bringing a younger audience on board, or a less discriminating audience. Since we got most of the point of view from the woman’s side, I feel this show is aimed more at young girls. However I’d never recommend this show to my kids or any young person.

If it was to promote happy marriages, then show failed in offering good advice. Since the focus was more on the wife’s point of view, we find she had insufficient good reason to want to be married. It was a union on the rebound, after almost marrying a boyfriend of 5 years.

The wife’s attitude is flippant (and she flip flops). She was dumped, so she decided to use another guy to drown her sorrows, and within a day or a few, she’s practically throwing herself at the husband, without knowing whether he was emotionally invested in her or not. Sex seemed to be a way to ‘get’ the man. And in the office, she continues to be ‘cute’ and flirtatious with more than one male colleague.

The general tone and attitude was one of immaturity and superficiality. Even at the end, when the couple confessed how at the first meeting or at the wedding they were already drawn to each other, it was and could only have been based on being attracted by each other’s good looks.

Show makes the couple out to be interested mostly in the physical aspects of their relationship first, instead of wanting to get to know each other’s character, whether they have compatible ideas and plans for the future, and even what makes the other tick. This is the opposite from what we would do or advise our kids/young people to do in selecting their life’s partners.

I believe Japanese society (and most Asian societies) would frown on the seemingly ‘overly free’ behaviour of the woman. She seems to not value herself as she should, when she behaves like a coquette to get men’s attention. Show is demeaning and cheapens her. Show by applauding her flirtations as cute, seems to be normalising what is considered vulgar and ill-advised behaviour.

As mentioned by @Welmaris, after one bedroom scene, it could have omitted all others already, since they added nothing to the plot, but show kept on at it, practically 1 per episode, and even verging on soft porn, I feel. What is troubling also is that if this is aimed at young girls, they are being ‘educated’ on how they are to initiate, or behave and receive the advances of men. It was a ‘lesson’ repeated far too many times to be merely part of the storytelling.

So what would have been a sweet, light and fluffy, ‘innocent’ drama turned out to be somewhat sordid in the end. Pity.

People can have different interpretations of this drama.

What makes this drama seedy for me? Aside from what @GB said, here are the other things I found unsavory about this whole dorama.

1. It’s about rebound sex with the stranger, pure and simple.

The girl was dumped by her boyfriend of 5 years. To recover from her broken-heart, she married a stranger she met on a dating app. She wanted to seduce him so they could have sex but she stupidly (yes, “stupidly” given her age and circumstances):

a. didn’t know how the guy truly felt for her.
b. didn’t think of protection, and was embarrassed to see the condoms.

Good grief! If she was already squirming with embarrassment to see the box of condoms, then would she collapse and faint upon seeing WHERE the condom was going? I don’t get all this fake maidenly vapors over condoms.

Really, this heroine’s perspective on sex is NOT how mature woman think. Rushing into sex before before both of them were emotionally and mentally ready for it was a sign of her low self-esteem and was asking for a world of hurt. As it was, she was full of insecurities because she knew next to nothing her husband.

2. The girl was sly. As much as I initially liked her cute face and toothy grin, it repulsed me that she used her cuteness to get her way. By Episode 2, the guy was onto her trick and called it “cunning” (per Viki subs) or “crafty” (per Kissasian sub).

She herself confessed to manipulate people with her cuteness.

Once I realized that her fulsome compliments and her sparkly smiles were for “effect,” her “kawaii” tactics turned me off big time.

With a client that she just met.

This is unprofessional. If I were her employer, I’d pull her aside to talk to her about her lack of decorum.

And her husband warned her about using her cuteness at work.

Ugh. Her cuteness is seedy. Look at her giving her colleague that cute face.

If a newly-married hero flirts like this with another girl, we’d scrunch up our face in distaste.

Then, after he told her off for “acting” cute again when later that night, she kept doing it.

Ewwww.

She became as sleazy as a con artist preying on women with disingenuous words and slick moves.

3. By the last episode, she felt that sex wasn’t right.

One moment, she was excitedly playing with the control buttons in their love motel room. The next moment, she was worriedly admitting that she lost her token ring. The guy didn’t understand what she was worrying about.

Guy: Then, you don’t need to panic so much, right?
Girl: But it’s the precious ring I got from you.
Guy: (pushing her onto the bed) But more importantly, take my watch off please.
Girl: (sulkily) That’s not more important. (removing his wristwatch anyway)
Guy: You’re right, sorry. (unbuttoning his shirt) Hey, take off the bottom, too.

The girl then reached behind her and unbuckled his belt. The guy proceeded to kiss her. Finally though, he sensed her lack of cooperation.

Guy: Maybe not today?
Girl: Huh?
Guy: You’re not really here, Ami-chan.
Girl: Oh. Sorry. It’s not really like that. (removing his shirt and kissing him to prove him wrong)
Guy: (undressing her)
Girl: (thinking to herself) I thought we’d become a real married couple, but what is this feeling?

Sigh.

If she were my daughter, I could have told her that her feeling of discontent came from her rushing into sex.

From the start, she equated sex with marriage. She demonstrated a very naïve understanding of marriage. To her, married couples have sex, and since they were married, they should have sex. That’s why she was in a hurry to get him into bed with her. To validate and authenticate her phony marriage to him, she leveled up their relationship to sex.

Of course, that he was physically attractive was a bonus.

That’s how she ended up in this bind. She was beginning to realize that sex wasn’t the answer. There was something more that she needed from this relationship. She wanted him to console her for losing her ring. She wanted him to understand why the key was so important for her. But he wasn’t attuned to her needs.

To me, however, she couldn’t expect her husband to be a mind-reader when she didn’t have a mind of her own. She herself couldn’t articulate her attachment to the ring because she didn’t understand the premium she had placed on the ring as a sign of his commitment.

4. Intimacy is the pea.

For me, all the cuteness and sex in this drama couldn’t hide the pea-size problem of this couple. They lacked intimacy.

Married couples have intimacy. It’s this emotional and intellectual bonding that leads to the physical connection (aka sex). Without this unequivocal closeness, the sex act looks sordid.

No matter how hard the writer and director tried to convince me that there’s romance in the characters’ sexual encounter, I can’t suspend my disbelief.

Take for instance, the sex scene in Episode 4.

She was waiting for her property rental manager to inspect her vacated apartment. While waiting for him, she took pictures of her empty place. The guy saw the pictures on social media, and hurried off to her place. He was worried that by disclosing her whereabouts on social media, she was inviting stalkers.

She teased him for his over-protectiveness, and the guy insisted that she was being unmindful of her safety.

Guy: I think you’re so lax.
Girl: (pouting again) You’re so mean.
Guy: Have a thought for somebody who’s worrying because his wife is too cute. (kissing her)
Girl: Hey, don’t go all mushy all of a sudden.
Guy: (lays her down on the floor and unbuttons her shirt)
Girl: Wait. There’s no curtain. Anyone can see us from the outside.
Guy: Didn’t you want to be seen?
Girl: No way!
Guy: Then…what is this? (showing her the post on her social media)
Girl: Okay. I’ll delete it. I’ll delete it. I’ll delete it so just wait a second.

This is problematic.

Although I liked how concerned he was for her safety, I don’t like that he used sex to teach her a lesson. He wanted to prove to her that he knew better than she did, and that she should obey him or he’d undress her and have sex out in the open. He just made sex look sordid.

In addition, there’s no equivalence between posting a picture of an empty room on social media and exhibitionism. Uploading the picture on social media was her innocent mistake. Making out with his wife in public, on the other hand, was meant to embarrass her into submission.

Guy: Do you really want me to wait? (continuing to unbutton her blouse)
Girl: The person from the management company is coming.
Guy: You still have twenty minutes. (she stops struggling) Having second thoughts?
Girl: (denying) No I didn’t. (thinking) Why does he torment me so much?
Guy: Stand up.
Girl: (still thinking) Seriously you’re the one that wants to get busted.
Guy: (pushing her against the window)
Girl: (thinking) You pervert.

I get the point. For some couple, it’s thrilling to have sex when there’s danger of being exposed. This danger adds to their sense of urgency and naughtiness. Whatever. I’m not into exhibitionism so this wouldn’t float my boat. And I’m neither the police who’d bust them for lewd conduct in public nor a ten-year-old child who’d be emotionally scarred for life for catching them in the act.

What I don’t appreciate from this dorama however is that its targeted audience, i.e., young female viewers, wouldn’t understand why this scene triggered discomfort (at worst) and ambiguity (at best). That’s because most of them wouldn’t get the sexual sadism imbedded in this scene.

Guy: I stopped because the floor is hard.
Girl: Oh, so you stopped…(pouting) All right.
Guy: You seem disappointed. You’re a little pervy.
Girl: (fake protesting) No, what? Don’t be silly. This is so embarrassing.
Guy: (whispering in her ear) If you want to, I can.
Girl: (thinking) I never said I wanted to…

Doorbell rang.

Guy: Too bad.
Girl: (pouting and thinking) My husband is such a meanie. And so kind…and good-looking.
Guy: Let’s continue this later.
Girl: (thinking) …and pervy.
Guy: (walking away nonchalantly)
Girl: But I still don’t know anything about him.

Again, I get the point here. He wanted to leave her sexually frustrated as payback for her stubbornness earlier. Whatever. Some people might find these games sexy, but I don’t. The girl was right that he’s being sadistic.

What I found seedy about this whole interlude was her parting comment. “I still don’t know anything about him.”

She was about to share her body with this guy in a most intimate act, and yet, she admitted to not knowing him intimately enough.

If this was my daughter, I’d say that the female character here isn’t sexually liberated, but emotionally stunted. Despite “hooking up” with her husband several times, there was nothing liberating about their relationship. She was still racked with self-doubt, insecurity and loneliness.

To me, the superficiality of their connection is the reason for their misunderstandings. If they had acquainted themselves with each other’s ways and communicated their thoughts and feelings more often, then most of their conflicts would have been averted. I agree with @GrowingBeautifully that the treatment and presentation of sex in the drama undermine the romance. If I were the writer, the positive message of the drama would have been that marital conflicts are resolved by loving communication. Instead, the message that came across was that marital conflicts are a great precursor to make-up sex.