Japan Enters The War on Porn
The age of adulthood has been lowered from 20 to 18 in Japan. An amendment has been introduced to protect young women who may enter the often exploitable porn industry.
In a historic move, Japan has lowered the age of adulthood from twenty years old to eighteen. I remember being a teenager and being denied a cell phone plan because I was a few months shy of twenty. It sucked. However, working in the sex industry, outside of explicit porn, was completely fine. Some legislators in Japan worry that lowering the age of adulthood could make younger women vulnerable to being recruited by pornography. Therefore they’ve introduced an amendment that would allow young women a one-year grace period to have their images de-distributed(erased?) by porn publishers. Some in the Japanese Adult Video industry are worried that this may be a step into a wider area of censorship. It may seem like the works of conspiracy theories however there is a larger, wider, concerted effort to censor pornography across the world.
The adult industry in Japan makes hundreds of billions of US dollars a year. Porn is one of Japan’s most profitable exports. The country dominates the trade and only comes second in revenue to the US. Pretty much all of Japan’s East Asian neighbors have either outlawed the production of pornography or the consumption of it together. Therefore they’ve cornered the market in Asia, a continent with a ton of consumers.
The country has a long artistic legacy which includes erotic pieces of literature and visual art. Whether it's accurate or not, the nature of porn tends to give us a look into a culture outside of our own. There are some similarities–for some reason in the mid-2010s everyone wanted to fuck their step-sister (in the West and in Japan). However certain genres of porn like train groping and uniforms like nurse/school girl have such a hold on the Japanese imagination. Due to obscenity laws, Japan censors all penetration and namely genitalia. There’s a spring phallus festival that celebrates fertility all over Japan. No vulvas allowed though.
Some have theorized that the reason the industry is still so prevalent is its willingness to cater (and create) a large variety of alternative fetishes. Outside of these obscenity laws, the Japanese porn industry is pretty…liberal. The country only banned the production of child abuse videos and images in the year 1999–this was nearly two decades after the US and many other Western nations. Possession was only banned in 2014 after a staunch fight with the United Nations. Penalties are still very lax compared with many other similarly developed nations. A quasi-legal industry dubbed “Junior Idols”, which features underaged girls in clothed yet provocative situations has only been banned from production in 2015 yet as of 2016 I very clearly saw these DVDs being sold in Tokyo video shops. I’m also pretty sure possession of these DVDs is very much legal and thriving.
An LDP Lawmaker who was just caught drinking with an 18-year-old.
To make matters worse, Japan also has a problem with teenage girls and sex work. From the 1990s there’s been something of a moral panic that is sadly shrouded in some truth. The age of consent in Japan is officially 13, yet most prefectures set their own age at 18 to combat this issue. Lawmakers continually play whack-a-mole by introducing new restrictions with business owners finding loopholes around them. The most recent wave of fear surrounded the so-called JK Business, in which High school girls were charging for strolls with older men and from there were vulnerable to exploitation. These mostly female lawmakers have very good reason to be concerned that the lowering age of adulthood would leave young women in a further vulnerable situation. Papa-katsu or sugar dating is pretty much normalized in places like Tokyo at this point. Due to how discrete it is, people who engage in it can typically move on after it happens. But hardcore pornography is a bit more insidious. A regretful decision at 19 can follow you for the rest of your life.
Those in favor of the legislation that would allow teens to scrub their images of porn have been supported by testimonies of various women. Many shared their stories of being forced or coerced into Japan’s pornography industry. Due to the ongoing issue of this exploitation, the new legislation seems quite reasonable. The woman legislator who proposed this idea was laughed at in Japan’s almost all male-diet (parliament). Not a great look.
While I see the need for this legislation I also tend to think critically about the way that porn has been attacked in the past few years. Groups like Exodus Cry in America have used young girls as trojan horses to police the entire porn industry. They’re also being heavily funded by Evangelical Christian groups. The same groups support anti-abortion legislation and conversion therapy. Strange, right?
I’m a realist. Porn should be critiqued and it still remains a form of artistic expression. Unless there is no coercion(which of course includes underaged), I’m unsure of how it should be policed. I get that some of the themes in pornography can make people uncomfortable, but plenty of porn is liberating for some people as well. Instead of viewing it as good or bad, liberating or exploitative how about we just see it as a vehicle for artistic and erotic expression?
I’m someone who loves sexual energy but mainstream big-budget porn just isn’t really my thing. I still think the push to restrict it as much as possible is ridiculous. In places like the UK, bondage porn was only allowed from 2019. In the recent past, there was also a push to outlaw face-sitting pornography. Because apparently people could suffocate and die??? Of course, this was met with a face-sitting protest demonstration.
Let’s be real it’s no secret that porn can be exploitative with many producers targeting the poor or vulnerable who have a lack of home support. The(shitty) documentary Hot Girls Wanted comes to mind when considering this. I still really hate how the issue gets pinned to pornography but rather the society that doesn’t allow young people a wide range of options for gainful employment. In Japan, this case is especially true for young women. Why is it that these anti-porn crusaders like Exodus Cry never consider advocating for changes to the foster care system? Or a livable minimum wage? Or works training programs for young folks?
The conversation in Japan is obviously quite nuanced. As I stated before, the exploitation of teen girls is a very real issue that mostly impacts working-class Japanese women. The hyper-sexualization of young East Asian women is also something that has a global impact. I definitely see the need for this amendment. I would love to see a Japanese sex workers’ advocacy group like SWASH Osaka speak out on this.* Yet - I recognize that there is a global push against pornography that has somewhat insidious intentions and is being backed by...questionable groups. I plan to write in the future about the general war on porn and its impacts on the people who earn their money from pornography. Let me know what you think :)
* As I edited this I realized that SWASH Osaka has released something regarding this. It’s in Japanese so I may interpret it and write my thoughts later this week.
Foreigners looking at Japanese pornography are only looking at illegally uploaded material.
Do you think the Chinese and Koreans who like to watch Japanese pornography are paying for it?
If it were profitable, the Japanese porn industry would not be so poverty stricken.
I love porn.