Japanese pornography

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Japanese pornography has some unique features that set it apart from pornography in other cultures, particularly Western pornography. However, due to its wide range of topics and media, it is quite often translated and exported to Western cultures. Japanese erotica have a reputation in the West for being sado-masochistic and youth-centered due to cultural differences and various taboos .

history

Until the Meiji restoration

According to the researchers, the concept of "pornography" emerged in the Edo period when all forms of folk culture flourished. All forms of pornography flourished, with the exception of figurines and statues. This often resulted in works of artistic value. These often came from highly learned nobles and were often viewed as works of art. Both Japanese mythology and Shinto make few statements about sexuality . A sexual act is and was an act of happiness without guilt or sin.

Until the Kamakura period in the 12th century, a man would go to a woman's house to be prayed inside, and many poems before that time were love poems. With careful sentence structure and word use, an apparently innocent poem could also be read as a passionate love poem. Few talented in poetry would often ask a friend to write for them, and this sometimes caused embarrassing situations when two people friends of the same writer gave the same poem to the same woman.

Instead, the common people met at a matsuri or other festival. It is no accident that most of the matsuri were held at night. The people had little, if any, need for pornographic material.

In the Kamakura period of focusing on meditation made Zen - Buddhism the Samurai less open to obvious sexuality and focused more on formalities.

Marriage customs changed to include marriage and the woman joining the man's family, so that there was less need for passionate verse. Few erotic or pornographic works from the Kamakura and Muromachi periods are known. Even less is known from the Sengoku period .

In the Edo period, pornography flourished because of a unique characteristic of the city of Edo . Well over 60% of the city's population was male, and these men came from all over Japan to work here for years. They were previously married or later returned to their hometowns to get married. On their return they had learned valuable skills such as reading, writing and handicrafts. The surplus of young men called for resources to meet their sexual needs. State-controlled prostitution, as z. For example , practicing in Yoshiwara , a famous red light district, was one answer and pornography was another.

19th century pornographic print.

There was a lot of pornographic material. Shunga or pornographic woodblock prints were available with all imaginable motifs. They were often bound in a book with sentences describing the situation and often a brief description of an action. At the end of the Edo period, when foreigners became more widely known and seen more often, even sexual acts with male foreigners were sold. Actual use of the shunga was not that easy. Less straightforward books with kimonos covering most of the body were used for sex education, while more straightforward books were perhaps used for masturbation and others were shared with a lover. In many places, shunga were given to women by the bride's parents for use in marriage. In 1788, the Shunga book Haikai Yobukodori had a single illustration on each page with a lengthy description. These shunga were also borrowed from libraries. In 1808 there were 656 shops specializing in shunga in Edo and 300 in Osaka . That is, there was about one shop for every 1500 inhabitants in Edo. Much "softer" material was also available. There were also block prints by celebrities such as B. Kabuki actors and geishas fully clad in kimono .

After the Meiji Restoration until World War II

After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the publication of pornographic material declined under pressure from the government. Even in the 20th century, the government feared that a sexually open culture like that in Japan might be viewed as backward by European countries. Shunga were no longer produced and the existing ones were sold abroad as "erotic art" at bargain prices. Pornographic novels continued to be produced underground because the language barrier prevented them from becoming widely known abroad. Pornographic works of art also continued to be produced, but enjoyed little public recognition.

In the late Taisho period and early Shōwa period , influenced by “decadent” works of art from Europe, an artistic movement called Ero Guro Nansensu , literally: “erotic-grotesque nonsense”, emerged. These words were used because they conveyed novelty and modernity. Until the 1950s, pornography was still very limited. Openly sexual representations were allowed in novels and manga , but strict controls existed for the areas of image materials and films. During the Second World War , pornographic material was generally banned.

After the Second World War

Influenced by magazines like Playboy , pornographic magazines were produced soon after the war ended. These magazines quickly covered all genres and brought out both pornographic novels and pictures. However, Playboy itself did not have any success in Japan. His articles dealt with the American lifestyle, the women were mainly non-Asian, the interviews contained were previously largely unknown as a means of expression in Japan, fashion and sport were American. Instead, Playboy sparked the formation of a new fetish and genre known as Yomono (literally, "Western things"). In the early years of the 21st century, Playboy revamped its articles and style for the Japanese edition. After that, only Japanese authors were allowed to write exclusively about Japan and most of the original content was dropped.

In the early 1960s, several film studios such as Pinku eiga and Roman Porno (literally: romantic porn) began shooting specifically for porn cinemas. Due to the censorship laws, which forbade the showing of genitals, but otherwise allowed everything else, these films quickly diversified to cover as many genres as possible. The spectrum ranged from rape to bondage . From the 1960s to the late 1980s, ambiguous censorship laws resulted in hundreds of lawsuits dealing with adult and pornography. At midnight, most TV channels were broadcasting mostly softcore porn until their ratings dropped because of the competing (hardcore) porn movies.

The proliferation of pornographic videos in the 1980s ultimately destroyed the market for pornographic cinema. Video stores offered pornography at a price far below that of the cinemas.

Because Japanese families mostly owned at least two TVs and VCRs at the time, more videos were sold. It is claimed that VHS ultimately prevailed over the Betamax format on the market because numerous porn films were published in VHS format. Few videos were sold on laserdisc , CD and later DVD were used to distribute pornography.

In 1983 the Nintendo Famicom came out, some pornographic games followed. However, Nintendo wanted these devices to be family oriented and pornographic games were banned from the market. Computer games without this content restriction (apart from the censorship laws) became popular as a way of distributing pornographic content. Early CDs and DVDs were viewed on personal computers . Because few Japanese saw a reason to play games on a PC instead of the usual video game consoles, computer games were sometimes seen as a synonym for eroge .

In the late 1980s, the market for dōjinshi published by manga amateurs , comics that deal with the adventures of well-known manga or anime characters , expanded. It is estimated that around half of this market is made up of pornography. Copyright issues plague the market, but when the dojinshi market was also a common stepping stone to a professional career with a magazine, yaoi (a particular homosexual-themed type of dojinshi) began in that market. In the mid-1990s, the dojinshi market also began producing and selling pornographic games itself.

In the 1980s, magazines geared towards a male audience began to offer more explicitly sexual content. This did not result in any significant social problems; magazines aimed at a female audience already existed, the content of which in some respects was considerably clearer.

Movements and censorship

Japanese pornography has diversified to suit a daunting number of categories and needs. Some of the topics were so strange that outsiders could hardly tell the differences. This diversity arose for three main reasons: entertainment by developing means of expression, filling market niches, and circumventing censorship laws. Religious conservatism or feminism were not a major factor in relation to pornography in Japan.

Bukkake , in which many men ejaculate on the face of a single woman, is an example of a coincidence of all three of the above reasons: an exaggeration of the idea and an alternative to showing actual intercourse where the genitals would have been obscured under censorship laws have to. It is marketed with minor variations in every conceivable situation, with costumed or naked individual men of different ages or with over a hundred men.

Anti-pornography movements

Criticism of pornography in Japan comes mainly from the Parent Teacher Association (PTA). She believes that easy access to pornographic material leads children to immoral behavior and minors to sex. Proponents of pornographic censorship are calling for the laws to be adapted to the strictest in America and Europe so that Japan will no longer be viewed as abnormal among civilized nations.

Scientific studies in the past came to the conclusion that Japan, compared to other countries with more restrictive laws, has the lowest crime rate in the area of ​​sexual violence of all industrialized nations. Although 69% of the high school students surveyed stated that they had been immorally touched in the subway ( Chikan ), despite the frequent rape pornography , the number of rape is one of the lowest in the world at 1.85 per 100,000 inhabitants (as of 2002; for comparison : Germany: 10.44, USA: 32.99.) According to a study by the Justice Ministry Research Group from the year 2000, it must be assumed that only 11% of all sexual offenses were reported, but such unreported figures also exist in all other countries.

Censorship laws

The religious and social taboo against nudity was historically weaker in Japan than in the West: "pillow books" describing sexual acts in detail were often sold in the Edo period . Even after the Meiji Restoration , women and men often worked naked and bathed in public. While nudity was often a taboo in Western society, this idea did not emerge in Japan until the Meiji period with the westernization of the country, and the depth of its roots in society can be questioned.

Extreme forms of public nudity, such as showing the genital area, are however punished (except in sexually shared baths, where discretion is expected). The Japanese attitude towards nudity in the media is more liberal than in the US, but nonetheless conservative in relation to Western Europe.

In Japan, it is illegal to depict the human vulva or penis in an explicit manner in a commercial display. This law dates back to the Meiji period and has never been changed. Publications depicting the penis or vagina must be shrink-wrapped and sold to adults only. However, it is not uncommon for magazines to feature naked women whose genitals have been airbrushed black. Pornographic videos often show explicit sex acts in which the genitals are obscured with a mosaic. Until 1991, the entire pubic region including pubic hair was considered obscene and was not allowed to be published. Recently there has been diversification in the censorship market as several companies now offer censorship as a service. However, the government's censorship department is seen as the stricter, although personal taste generally plays an important role. The stricter censors tend to use a "big black line" rather than a mosaic to make the genitals unrecognizable.

However, censorship still has a large number of adherents in society as a whole, and it has also become a kind of “cultural tradition”. One example is that - although no longer illegal - many porn films still censor the depiction of pubic hair, and it is usually not even drawn in hentai art and movies. This has led some Westerners to view Japanese pornography as slightly pedophile, and to view many of the women portrayed as younger than what the media provider really intended.

It is also illegal to bring pornographic material into Japan, and customs officers are known for checking videotapes in international mail and hand luggage. Extreme cases, such as multiple offenders or attempts at commercial importation, could be punished with fines, but mostly the contraband is confiscated . The application of this law has not changed in recent years, but more perpetrators have been caught as controls tightened to combat drug trafficking and terrorism.

There is also a thriving genre of underground pornography (called urabon ) in Japan that ignores these censorship laws. It has become particularly prevalent on the Internet as there are no mechanisms to prevent its transmission to the outside world by Japanese nationals. Japan recently announced crackdown on child pornography, particularly photos and videos depicting sexual acts between minors and adults. Even this was more of a pressure from the US in an attempt to prevent child pornography from spreading on the web.

Religion and pornography

In Japan, religions are not an important factor in regulating pornography or defining what is considered immoral. Instead, this is determined by the general consensus. The reason for this lies in the complete separation of religion and state even before the spread of pornography.

In the Edo period, the Tokugawa shogunate restricted religious activities to the organization of ceremonies, such as funerals and weddings, because in the Sengoku period religions such as Buddhism and Christianity served as ideological backing for rebellions. The shogunate recognized the danger of religious fanaticism and prevented the participation of religious leaders in politics.

This is also another reason why many Buddhist or Christian ethical and moral approaches are completely absent or misinterpreted in Japan. Unlike in other Asian countries, sexual shame is perceived as more "disturbing" in Japan. Among other things, Japanese business people take it for granted that a business partner, guest or colleague is given sexual activities with prostitutes as "one night's pleasure".

Culture

The expression of sexuality is more widely accepted in the conventional media in Japan.

In many cases, performing arts that are acceptable to a Japanese audience are unacceptable in other countries. Coarseness is quite common, and even in mediums intended for children there are expressions that in most other cultures would not even be acceptable to a general audience without first showing a warning. In an early episode of Dragon Ball , Muten-Rōshi is shown Bulma's bare chest in an attempt to find an invisible opponent. This causes a profuse nosebleed (in the language of the Japanese comic strip, expression of severe sexual arousal), which soaks the invisible man.

Japanese erotica share many motifs similar to their western counterparts, such as straight and homosexual intercourse, group sex, and bondage . Similar to western erotica, the Japanese version can also depict various sexual fetishes such as: B. foot fetishism , or refer to certain forms of clothing, such as uniforms (e.g. burusera (from Sērāfuku and Burumā )) or costumes of anime , manga or video game characters.

The fisher woman's dream

Many genres of Japanese eroticism emerged because of censorship regulations. An example of this are so-called tentacle rape, animated depictions of rape fantasies that deal with a human woman and a science fiction- like creature that emerged from the Edo period.
A well-known historical example of this is the colored woodcut The Fisherman's Wife, which shows a woman in a sexual act with a giant squid. The modern motif emerged in the 1980s as an alternative to depicting the penis.

In general, the Japanese tend to view Western pornographic materials as primitive, inauthentic, and involuntarily hilarious.

Media of Pornography

Dōjinshi and parodies

Dōjinshi are manga imitations, often of a pornographic nature, of popular anime, games or manga.

Legally, they are a violation of copyright law and can be prosecuted if the rights holder so requests. In most cases, however, the owners officially ignore their existence. While this attitude contradicts the concept of copyright law, it opens up an easy way to measure the size of the potential customer base. The number of dōjinshi published is representative of the number of consumers who would also buy the original title. Rise and fall shows the rise and fall of customer interest.

In addition, many mangaka began their careers themselves in the dōjinshi scene and were later recruited by the publishers, so that persecution would damage the mainstream market as a whole more.

It is not uncommon for dōjinshi to render all kinds of paraphilias .

Movies

Pornographic films, called Adult Videos or AV for short in Japan , cover a wide range of topics. The actresses are also known as AV Idols . Some of the best known are Maria Ozawa , Hitomi Tanaka , Sola Aoi , Tina Yuzuki / Rio or Rie Sakura . Long-time actresses earn the equivalent of around 6,000 euros a month and mostly also play smaller roles in Japanese series or films. The only restrictions are the Japanese censorship regulations. The films are primarily aimed at a male audience. This has led to several myths that have become more widespread, such as: For example, that women who appear in AV are forced to do so by the yakuza because of outstanding debts, or that Japanese women appear in these films because they are masochistic .

Many videos have an ambiguous title that allows the interpretation that the performers are minors or that it is an authentic record of a crime. However, none of the films certified by Eirin , a self-regulatory organization of the production companies, break any law.

A common trick is to replace part of the title with a letter or use phonetically similar neologisms . So z. B. a video "19 year old girls sex party" can be sold under a title like "1X year old girls sex party". The word Joshikosei ( 女子 高 生 ), literally female high school student , cannot be used as it would suggest seventeen-year-olds or younger who are not allowed to appear in pornographic videos. A neologism, joseikosei ( 女生 校 生 ), which can mean female student , is the substitute in many titles in order to be able to distribute the product without conflict with the censors.

Japanese AV serve a wide range of different fetishes. There are films that focus on school uniforms, uniforms in general, female office workers or cosplay . Other specific topics are rape simulations ( レイプ , Reipu ), virgins or at least actresses who bleed from the vagina, intravaginal ejaculation ( 中出し , Nakadashi ) Bukkake , nudity in the public ( 露出 , roshutsu ) Soap Lands and BDSM , especially bondage as Shibari but also sodomy .

Internet

In the early days of the Internet, the existence of pornographic material often resulted in heated discussions between those who generally did not want such anonymously accessible material and those who believed in the self-determination of the individual. This problem was finally solved by adding warnings and introducing a password as access protection.

Fanfictions are very often found on websites and are not limited to fictional characters, but also use real people, although such characters are difficult to understand for someone who does not watch Japanese television programs. In addition to conventions (like Comiket ), dōjinshi writers also use the Internet to market their products by offering previews of new work, plus a secret address where buyers can find additional works and screenshots of their games.

They also recruit new writers and artists online. Several sex-only search engines exist to limit search results to the sites you are really looking for and to exclude commercial sites that use all possible search terms. Many of dojinshi’s works are the subject of websites that collect them and make them available to others.

Many websites offer changing greeting cards, often pornographic content from linked sites and friends of that site. A typical Christmas picture shows e.g. B. a stripping female Santa Claus. The twelve signs of the zodiac of Chinese astrology show challenging and entertaining examples of kemonomimi .

Magazines

Japanese porn magazines

Magazines, along with videos, are popular media for pornographic material.

Many non-pornographic magazines also show glamor photos, and as long as the women depicted are at least dressed in a bathing suit, the magazines are not considered pornographic. Several non-pornographic magazines also include photos of naked women as part of their articles. As long as they have an artistic quality, they are not considered pornography. A female and male doll can only be partially clothed or even shown naked, as long as this is viewed as a work of art and no explicit sexual act is shown.

Texts in which representatives of both sexes talk about their sexuality are popular in men's and porn magazines, but these are often made up stories by professional writers. Other popular topics in such magazines are erotic manga and short stories, reviews of porn videos, and reports on sex services.

Magazines for women are mostly similar to those for men. With the exception of a few glamor photos of normally dressed men, they do not have any pornographic material. Because of this lack of images, women's magazines are not considered pornographic and are not subject to age restrictions.

Manga and Anime

See also: Hentai , Yaoi , Shōnen Ai , Yuri

Manga with pornographic content are aimed at both male and female audiences. Male and female mangaka write pornographic works.

The difference between pornographic and non-pornographic manga can be determined using the age limit. Moreover, pornographic manga are often sealed and are only offered for sale in adult departments or shops.

The general attitude is similar to that of literature. If a sex scene shows relevance to the progression of the storyline and is not just an attempt to depict sex for its own sake, then it is not considered pornography. This would be inconceivable in most other cultures and violate many censorship regulations and laws there.

Even manga that aren't aimed at an adult audience may have a page or two of glamor photo-like images. In these nude or semi-nude representations, hands or objects cover breasts and genitals. These " service scenes" are often part of a comical sequence of images and a male actor is usually slapped at the end of this sequence.

Erotic animation, known in the West as hentai and in Japan as 'adult anime', is a popular but small genre in Japan and generally follows the same animation style as other Japanese cartoons . Many of these anime are based on games, manga, or stories.

Video and computer games

See main article: Erogē

Adult games are a very popular genre for Japanese computer games, accounting for around 25% of all game titles released annually. Outside of Japan, they are fairly unknown due to some cultural and translation issues. The illegally copied pictures contained can often be seen on websites as "adult anime pictures". Companies such as JAST USA (including Peach Princess and G-Collections) and Mangagamer mainly port Ren'ai simulations and Ren'ai Adventure into English for the growing foreign market.

Influences on other cultures

Asia

Illegal copies of Japanese pornography are often sold in Asia. This has both economic and technical reasons. Even a poorly equipped Japanese film studio uses equipment comparable to a rich studio in most Asian countries, and the products are of a correspondingly high quality. They are well filmed and have good scripts, since most Japanese studios are not geared towards short-term profit, but are founded with the purpose of producing films or television programs in the future.

These copyright violations have created a solid base of customers in Asia, as well as the United States and Europe, who purchase legal copies. In order to save the money on translating the conversations that often precede sex, it has become a habit to cut videos that are nothing but sex scenes.

In countries in which violence in porn is heavily censored, illegal edits of Japanese videos with simulated rape scenes are circulating. The result is that in these countries, Japanese pornography has become synonymous with sexual violence, with video users believing that such fantasies are disproportionately high in Japan.

Western states

Animated "hentai" pornography, especially of the more extreme kind, is portrayed by many North Americans and Europeans as one of Japan's most important cultural exports. Hardcore pornography is the most popular, and Japanese pornography is widely viewed as violent and extreme. On the other hand, softcore pornography and books about specific idols have their own following. The market for Japanese pornography in the west is currently still growing.

Major publishers

  • Akane Shinsha ( 茜 新社 )
  • Bauhaus ( バ ウ ハ ウ ス )
  • Core Magazine ( コ ア マ ガ ジ ン )
  • Eichi Shuppan ( 英 知 出版 ; Eichi Publishing)
  • France Shoin ( フ ラ ン ス 書院 )
  • Futabasha ( 双 葉 社 )
  • Hit Shuppansha ( ヒ ッ ト 出版社 ; Hit Publishing)
  • Issuisha ( 一 水 社 ; Issuisya)
  • JC Shuppan ( ジ ェ ー シ ー 出版 )
  • Kaimeikan ( 海鳴 館 )
  • Kasakura Shuppansha ( 笠 倉 出版社 ; Kasakura Publishing)
  • Kōsai Shobō ( 光彩 書房 )
  • Shōbunkan ( 松 文 館 )
  • Studio Pot ( ス タ ジ オ ・ ポ ッ ト )
  • Taiyō Shuppan ( 大 陽 出版 )
  • Tōkyō Sanseisha ( 東京 三世 社 ; Tokyo Sanseisya)
  • Tsukasa Shobō ( 司 書房 )
  • Wailea Shuppan ( ワ イ レ ア 出版 ; Wailea Publishing)
  • Wani Magazine-sha ( ワ ニ マ ガ ジ ン 社 ; Wanimagazine)

Japanese pornography genres

swell

  1. Cf. Milton Diamond and Ayako Uchiyama in "Pornography, Rape and Sex Crimes in Japan" (International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 22 (1): 1–22. 1999) online under "Pornography, Rape and Sex Crimes in Japan" ( Memento from June 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive ):

    Our findings regarding sex crimes, murder and assault are in keeping with what is also known about general crime rates in Japan regarding burglary, theft and such. Japan has the lowest number of reported rape cases and the highest percentage of arrests and convictions in reported cases of any developed nation. Indeed, Japan is known as one of the safest developed countries for women in the world (Clifford, 1980). (...) ...: Despite the absence of evidence, the myth persists that an abundance of sexually explicit material invariably leads to an abundance of sexual activity and eventually rape (eg, Liebert, Neale, & Davison, 1973). Indeed, the data we report and review suggest the opposite. Christensen (1990) argues that to prove that available pornography leads to sex crimes one must at least find a positive temporal correlation between the two. The absence of any positive correlation in our findings, and from results elsewhere, between an increase in available pornography and the incidence of rape or other sex crime, is prima facie evidence that no link exists. But objectivity requires that an additional question be asked: "Does pornography use and availability prevent or reduce sex crime?" Both questions lead to hypotheses that have, over prolonged periods, been tested in Denmark, Sweden, West Germany and now in Japan. Indeed, it appears from our data from Japan, as it was evident to Kutchinsky (1994), from research in Europe, that a large increase in available sexually explicit materials, over many years, has not been correlated with an increase in rape or other sexual crimes. Instead, in Japan a marked decrease in sexual crimes has occurred.

  2. ^ Nicholas D. Kristof : A Plain School Uniform as the Latest Aphrodisiac. In: The New York Times. April 2, 1997, accessed January 5, 2009 .
  3. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime : Eighth United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, covering the period 2001 - 2002 (PDF; 1.4 MB)
  4. Japan's rape victims are finally learning to speak ( memento of the original from September 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (en] @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.japantoday.com
  5. ^ Salil K. Mehra: Copyright and Comics in Japan: Does Law Explain Why All the Cartoons My Kid Watches Are Japanese Imports? In: Rutgers Law Review . Vol. 55, 2002, doi : 10.2139 / ssrn.347620 ( PDF ).

literature

  • Peter Constantine: Japan's Sex Trade: A Journey Through Japan's Erotic Subcultures. , Tokyo, Yen Books 2004, ISBN 4-900737-00-3 .
  • Thomas Weisser, Yuko Mihara Weisser: Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films. , Vital Books 1998, ISBN 1-889288-52-7 .