It’s kind of a really big deal that Legoshi is a virgin during the story of Beastars. It frequently comes up in conversation with his peers as evidence of Legoshi’s strangeness. Other characters like to tease him about it, and most importantly of all, his virginity is also core to his relationship with Haru.
After Legoshi rescues Haru from being eaten by the Shishigumi, the two of them form a bond which looks a lot like love: they’re attracted to each other; they think of each other when they’re apart; they lose interest in everyone else in their world. But every time Legoshi finds himself leaning in to share a moment of physical intimacy with Haru, he always pulls away at the last moment before giving into this impulse. And then he emotionally withdraws from Haru in a way that confuses and hurts her. Legoshi’s virginity is thus like an obstacle that holds their relationship in stasis – or to be more precise, it’s rather a certain fear of sexuality that prevents him from getting too close to the rabbit whom he loves.
If we want to make sense of Legoshi’s avoidant behavior with Haru, I think we should first consider the connection between sexuality and appetite in the animal psychology of Beastars. The two are very closely linked together.
We can see this link most clearly at the strip club in the carnivore black market. We learn that herbivore dancers in the club, like Cosmo the deer, always perform inside of a cage that separates them from the audience. The cage is for Cosmo’s protection, because male carnivores lose their self-control in a very specific way whenever they’re aroused by their natural prey. The feeling inflames an overwhelming hunting instinct from within their species nature. The spectacle of an attractive female herbivore, in other words, fills the male carnivore with an impulse to devour that very same female. Sexuality and hunting instinct thus coexist and commingle in a primal layer of the carnivore psyche, presumably because they both trigger a primal impulse for possession and control.
I think that this psychological association between sexuality and appetite in the carnivore mind has everything to do with Legoshi’s virginity as well. Legoshi’s personality is organized around shame and hatred of his own carnivore nature, or more specifically, of his appetite for flesh. But because appetite is so intimately linked to sexuality, and because it shapes the way that sexuality expresses itself in him, he also cannot live with his own sexuality. It awakens the carnivore inside of him, and that makes him feel afraid.
This is likewise the reason why Legoshi is ton between attachment and avoidance with Haru. He wants to be near her, but then when he gets too close he pulls away.
At the end of Season 1, Legoshi told Haru that he isn’t quite ready to be with her, even though she is ready to be with him. He asked Haru to wait for him because he has to grow stronger first. Legoshi did not fully explain to Haru what he meant by that at the time, because he didn’t fully understand it himself. But the strength he was looking for was the power to master those primal appetites that instinctually present Haru to him as prey whenever he feels attracted to her. He wants to silence them, but even more importantly than that, he also wants to destroy his fear of them, which continues to fill him with dread even when they lie dormant. For a carnivore’s primal instinct has a way of surfacing in the moment when they let down their guard and forget their nature.
