Earlier in april a petition from 11 groups consisting of christian(Christian Women’s Style Association), communist civic groups(Pappus) and feminist ones such as Colabo popped up with ECPAT leading the charge asking to regulate loli and similar materials as the UN views it.
This went under the radar until Masako Okawara introduced the petition to the house of representatives much later, some might not be aware but a big scandal blew up recently surrounding CDP and them throwing a rather powerful lawmaker(Hiranao Honda) out of the party due to some comments where he raised concerns regarding raising age of consent from 14 to 16.
So some people were contemplating this being a reaction to this, as the CDP have now pledged to raise the age of consent to 16 no matter what if they win the upcoming elections. I just wanted to give a headsup that regulating loli stuff is still very current there even if they have super popular politicians like Taro Yamada in a powerful position actively defending loli and other stuff.
Though! good news is the petition was introduced at the worse time and it went poof.
Wait so a politician was outed by a conservative Christian prude group, that also wanted to ban loli, because he wanted to raise the age of consent in a specific area to 16?
He was outed by his own party(CDP is the centre left opposition), they just threw the guy to the wolves really. It was the gender equality commission and lobbying from civic groups like Flower demo that decided his fate. It’s a big issue in communities surrounding loli art in japan right now, due to issues regarding raising the AOC could possibly restrict loli art as well.
The conservative group had no hand in him being booted, just the petition which was picked up by a CDP lawmaker after the shitstorm above occured. Though, I just learnt this same lawmaker introduced a similar thing to house of representatives to regulate loli last year…So this lawmaker seems to just have a hate boner for loli.
I mean… I see no issues with raising the age of consent to 16 or 18 if it’s not already within that range already… but I don’t see how this has anything to do with loli hentai.
Why would loli be a big deal in Japan, anyway? It’s gotta be an extremely vocal minority using specific media outlets to make it seem as though more people agree with them than they really do, sort of like what Prohibitionists in the United States did to make it seem like banning alcohol and liquor was the right option.
I’ve spoken to many Japanese people on the issue of loli, from average people, to media-consumers, to those who dabble in pornography, and even opposites, including family-oriented persons, who seem to agree that censoring art where no real victim is implicated is an ineffective way of going about ‘protecting children’.
It seems to me that those with a hate-boner for fiction still want to make it legal for adults to have sex with minors… (which it isn’t) so we know for a fact that the child-protection angle is a dead one for these prudes if his positioning on the matter is anything to go on. I’m not a fan of picking apart someone’s words out of context to make it easier to misrepresent their positions, but these seem fairly clear on where his true intentions lie.
If you can go into further detail about the overall political climate in Japan and how it relates to loli/shota pornography, that would be most appreciated. Japan is one of the safest countries in the world for men, women, and children to exist in, with very minimal risk compared to other first-world countries. A lot of people attack Japan’s statistics on the issue, but I think that there’s a great deal of bias they’re overlooking, considering how low Japanese crime rates are overall.
It’s hard to to say, external pressure is a big one. most of it points to the UN, their constant lobbying back in 2008-2010 is the reason why japan strengthened their anti-cp laws. Also just the conservative nature of japan and more recently feminist groups like Colabo(had a hand in attacking uzaki-chan blooddrive and an advertising campaign using anime women with stockings) who have far to much influence over the opposition parties that were generally very strong on freedom of expression have cracked hard.
On one side you have LDP and amongst this group is Sanae Takaichi(She is running for prime minister this year) side that is very pro regulation and wants to regulate loli art. LDP tokyo governor tried to ban loli art in 2010 with the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance revision, but he was crushed and the bill that came out of it was weak and supported by every party besides 2. But in the same party you also have Taro Yamado(@yamadataro43) that now backhands any attempt at any form of regulation, he has also formed or I believe joined a massive anti regulation anime group lead by Ken Akamatsu.
Communist party you have the likes of Saori Ikeuchi that wants to regulate loli and porn as overseas does due to thinking porn sitting outdoors for all to see raises sex crimes. One thing regarding the JPC is they are typically viewed good on freedom of expression(not wartime expression) until they see it in a manner where it’s being used to exploit people for $$$ but that is a broad view.
CDP is probably less worse than LDP, but it’s new and it’s already popping up a lot of anti-loli stuff when the debate surrounding this stuff has been quiet for awhile now. I suppose they have a lot more of that Justin Trudeau type feminist influence instead of LDP’s conservative stuff.
I’ll try and dig up why raising the age of consent is bad for loli, I did stumble upon a good article and countless loli artists raising awareness for it.
I don’t see how that matters, though, considering it’s fictional to begin with. That would be like banning anything depicting rough sex because sexual assault is outlawed. The whole reason why loli art is even legal in Japan in the first place is because fictional characters are not real person, and since fictional characters aren’t real persons, neither are their ages.
There isn’t a valid argument one could bring to the table for why that’s even relevant.
I doubt it’s ‘countless loli artists’ since I don’t see how such a thing would even matter to begin with.
It’s bad because the law pushed forward isnt just “raise age of consent to 16” it’s far broader than that. It would criminalize things such as teens kissing at school and much more. Thats why theirs a serious debate around this and loli has been dragged into the debate already.
The ordinance bill mentioned above that passed with revisions gives the tokyo government the right to censor anything “The definition of harmful material is expanded to include “any manga, animation, or pictures (but not including real life pictures or footage) that features either sexual or pseudo sexual acts that would be illegal in real life, or sexual or pseudo sexual acts between close relatives whose marriage would be illegal, where such depictions and/or presentations unjustifiably glorify or exaggerate the activity.””
" The Metropolitan government is authorised to “encourage the establishment of an environment where child pornography could be eliminated and prevent its creation.” The bill specifically mentions “any sexually arousing posing on the behalf of children under the age of 13 wholly or partially naked, or wearing swimwear or only underwear, published in books or featured in film,” although as with its other provisions this only applies to drawings and animation, not to photography or film of real children."
You raising the age of consent means a much broader range of stuff fall under this to be banned. Also I am completely supportive with raising the AOC, but debate and discussion needs to be had instead of lawmakers getting banned for raising concerns.
I mean… of course, a heavy-handed approach to this would definitely be bad. In the US, conservatives in Texas banned the teaching of sexual education in public schools that wasn’t abstinence-only, and as a result they saw teen pregnancy, STD transmission, and teenage abortion rates skyrocket. And rather than take a look at the root cause of why teens were trying to use grocery bags as condoms, they blamed the media and sexual content (music videos, internet pornography, etc) for these things.
Oh wow… yeah in the United States, we have a word for that. it’s called ‘overbroad’ and ‘unjustified’. I highly doubt such provisions would withstand scrutiny from Japan’s freedom of expression camp. Including provisions like that in legislation targeting AoC seems more like a political move, rather than a healthy or well-thought-out means to protect youth.
They’re exploiting the taboo and moral panic as a means to discredit those who would question a bill aimed at protecting the rights of children.
Why not just present the same bill with less restrictive language so that it doesn’t criminalize teenage love, while omitting all the crap about fiction? Surely loli and other contents might be controversial, but the fact that Japan has openly and brazenly defied and challenged the UN’s decision to lump in fictional content with actual abuse material, in addition to moralizing fantasy material as an excuse to censor free expression. We have allies.
It’s the law they intent to lump in that is the issue, not the issue itself. I do agree that the AoC in Japan needs to be raised to be in-line with modern standards, but literally none of that has anything to do with pornography and sexual expression that does not involve actual minors.
I wish Japan luck, and now I see why the Japanese people are so skeptical of Westerners and their prudish nature about sex. When you place topics like this on so high of a pedestal, it becomes a political tool that will undoubtedly be misused, but this only furthers the need for better arguments from those who intend to preserve their right to free expression. There really is no reason to include those provisions about fictional media in a law focused on raising the AoC among actual persons. Fiction isn’t reality.
I might look further into these groups you mentioned. They appear sloppy and their arguments are not very sound. I actually intend to emigrate to Japan sometime in the near-late future, I want to make sure that myself and others like me, who both understand and respect Japan’s culture, can live in peace without negatively affecting their culture.
You’re not wrong, they kicked and screamed and what they got was this revised bill that wasnt just a blanket ban of everything that involved rape/incest/loli. Thankfully the bill hasnt been used since 2014 to ban an incest doujin, but it can always prop it’s head up given the wrong type of governor takes over.
In any case, I feel like I learned a lot from this thread. It’s interesting how far Japan has come with regard to the rights of children and sex abuse, and also reassuring to know that the broader Japanese public isn’t going to allow that genuine interest to be misused as vehicle to censor offensive and contentious, albeit harmless sexual expression.
I wish them luck and all the best. I feel as though censoring speech would only cause sex crimes to increase.
if you’re interested in japanese censorship https://twitter.com/AFEEjp is good to follow, new booming free expression org with a lot of lawmakers from a bunch of parties left and right and mangaka. They seem focused on the weird stuff CDP is doing right now regarding depictions of women being abused online and loli