The issue of child pornography in Japan
The Economist has raised an important problem in Japanese society that hasn't been discussed much on the forum yet.
Child pornography in Japan : Outraged innocence - A belated attempt to curb a pernicious form of child pornography
The article explains that child porn is common in Japan in the form of manga and anime, but this could soon be outlawed in Tokyo (and only there).
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Economist
The Tokyo municipal government plans to vote on March 30th to amend an ordinance against child pornography to include “non-existent minors”. Much Japanese porn comes in forms that escape rules covering photos and videos: manga; anime (cartoons); and video-games. Existing bans are meant to protect the child victims. “Virtual” porn―where there is no harm to a real person―is illegal in some countries to protect public morals and ensure a safe environment for children. Last month an American court sentenced a man to six months in prison for possession of Japanese manga child pornography.
What the article doesn't say is that adult porn stars are often chosen to (or made to) look much younger than their age, so as to look somewhere between 12 and 16 years old. There is abundant use of school uniforms in Japanese porn. But (young) teenage porn is not something specific to Japan. The difference with the West may just be that Japanese girls look younger at the same age, and the Japanese cult of cutism further reinforces the apparent youthfulness of girls. Baby talk is almost always seen as sexy by Japanese men.
As a reminder, the legal age of sexual consent in Japan is 13 years old - one of the lowest in the developed world. This is of greater concern to me than the legality of drawings.
