Toyota, Honda, Hitachi and Mitsubishi are the big boys of Japan. But there is a big shadow that looms over the companies that pretty much run Japan’s economy…the sex industry.
Not only do you have one of the largest porn producing countries in the world, you also have one of the most lucrative prostitution trades in the world. Has a sex engulfed society opened up to these taboo subjects? With sex being so ingrained into society, one would hope that sexual education in schools as well as from parents, have jumped the “taboo subject” hurdle. How can we break down some of these questions by analyzing the simple act of a kiss or comparing ideal first-time sexual experiences? For those of us who are living in Japan or those who have experienced the blatant incongruence of Japanese society, we know it’s important to take nothing at face value.
To say the least, there is no shortage of sex in Japan. Japan makes an estimated 2.5 trillion yen a year (23.9 Billion U.S.) from the sex industry alone. According to http://familysafemedia.com, Japan is ranked third (19.8 Billion) in the world behind China (27.40 Billion) and South Korea (25.73 Billion) for pornography revenue a year. The average person may be surprised, but for somebody living in Japan, I’m shocked that Japan isn’t #1 on that list. A trip to Kabukicho or Akihabara may give you a weeks worth of T&A. You can’t walk ten steps without finding a poster or a video store just waving you in to get your daily carnal fix. I once jokingly commented to a friend, “Hey, I bet they got an entire buidling dedicated to porn.” They did. In Akihabara there is a 6-story building strictly dedicated to porn, every single floor.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no problems with porn whatsoever. The big problem here is that the Japanese public and more importantly the younger generation, are digesting a skewed version of sexuality. With the ever popular Anime(cartoon) porn booming, a healthy sexual curiosity is now flooded with fantasy produced cartoon shagging. There is of course your run-of-the-mill production, but to “protect” people, the government has blurred the private parts of porn as well as cartoon porn…yes, that will save the people from “dirtyness.”
When you get excited watching cartoon characters digitally service each other, I’ll go on a limb and say that it’s not very healthy. Actually it’s wrong on so many levels. What does porn do for the curious teenager? Of course it satisfies a sexual appetite, but whether you realize it or not, it’s actually giving us a virtual tour of how things may be when we start becoming active. In the states I’ve had a few women tell me that porn is giving men the wrong idea of assuming that every woman has super-model looks, perfect DD’s, and a never-ending sex drive. Those “wrong ideas” pale in comparison to what worries me about Japans porn industry.
With sex being such a mainstay in society, there is one question that has always bugged me: WHAT IS WITH THE BLURRING?
If you’ve ever “come across”(I use this term loosely) any Japanese pictures or movies, you instantly notice the big blur below the waist. It might look something like this:

Dude, if you squint you can barely make out th....
Here is a definite mixed message to the public: Our laws regarding prostitution are lax, but don’t you dare be able to see a penis or vagina.
When people are restricted, human nature comes crashing in. When I was a kid, my parents never let me watch rated R movies. I went out of my way to go to a friends house to watch a rated R movie with two seconds of boob, you know, standard procedure. What Japan is doing to it’s youth is very similar, except that kids aren’t just going and looking for un-blurred porn, they are engaging in the real thing to see what’s really going on down there. Now we have a young, curious, horny and uneducated kid taking matters into his own hands. A potent recipe for life ruining.
It’s up to school and parental guidance to keep that curiosity safe and healthy.
I believe all education starts with the parents. I, like anybody else had my “birds and the bees” talk with my dad a few times. To be honest I didn’t really want to talk to him about anything related to sex and there was a part of me that let the info slide through one ear and out the other. Having said that, I couldn’t help but ingest some of his wisdom and during life, those little pockets of information start seeping out and begin helping you on forming opinions and more importantly, making life decisions. This is what the Japanese youth lack–A forced, candid talk about “doing it.” Without the awkward talks with Dad, I may have looked at having sex without protection as a convenient course of action, you never know.
What Japanese parents need to realize is that in a country that openly sells porn video games like ~Gang-Rape~, they need to inform their offspring of what is healthy and what isn’t. If they let their children find out for themselves, or worse, let other uninformed friends dictate how they go about their sex lives, we may be looking at an entire race of sexually ignorant people…or ~Gang-Rape~ masters.

Unfortunately we aren’t far off in that assumption, the rate of STD growth and non-condom usage in Japan is staggering.
http://news.livedoor.com/ states that Japan is 3rd (42%) behind Denmark(36%) and Sweden(36%) for the least condom usage. This is bad enough as it is, but consider this, Japan makes roughly 20-30% of all condoms circulating the globe! Do people just not know that? Or is it that 42% of Japanese people take their condom-making gift for granted? Understand that Japan is a very conformist society as well as one that is run by peer pressure. In this sense, non-condom usage is kind of like cigarette smoking. I can confirm this lack of condom usage. Most of the guys around me don’t use condoms. Usually that comment is followed by a “I really should though…” or “I just keep forgetting”, you know, something that shows that he at least KNOWS what he should be doing. Unfortunately, with people around me at least, the comment is followed by shrugging or laughter. Do they know what is at stake? Or is the nonchalance a convenient and “cool” way of not acknowledging responsibility? The basic reasons for non-usage is usually along these lines:
1. It’s a pain in the ass – That is the common complaint, but it wouldn’t be such a problem if women would just say no until the guy puts one on. A sex drive has to be strong enough to go through the few seconds it takes to wrap it up. Men need to be responsible, so do Women.
2. It’s expensive – This is true, a box of solid rubbers could cost up to 2,000 yen (20 bucks).
3. The general public still thinks the “pull-out method” is a solid form of contraception.
Notice I saved the scariest fact for last—most people still believe that “pulling out” is safe. This goes a lot deeper than just plain optimism, many truly believe that as long as they haven’t gotten anybody pregnant yet, that it’s all good. This just comes to show how lackadaisical the sexual education system is.
So if parents aren’t the ones to drop life knowledge on their kids, then surely sex education in schools will guide them to a healthy and knowledgeable sex life….right?
On average, a Japanese youngster goes through 5 years of sexual education until they reach high school. I say “education” but what it really is, is squeamish adults just “getting it out of the way.” Rarely does the teacher actually take part in discussions, much less give practical advice. My friend Shino told me, “Looking back, there’s nothing sadder than a teacher blushing when saying “penis.”
Most of the educating is in regards to menstrual cycles and pregnancy, rather than STD’s and contraception. As important as bodily functions are, those are strictly medical explanations that don’t require candid details. STD’s on the other hand need blunt commentary for maximum effect, injecting fear and worry into an adolescent mind is an effective way to keep them from bad decisions. The squeamish adult is something that has furthered Japan’s embarrassing fall to sexual miseducation.
Consider the statistics above as well as the general miseducation of sex in Japan. Like I said earlier, adolescent minds have become skewed because of things like anime porn and blurred body parts. Kids now have less examples of healthy, much less real images regarding sex. Not only sex, but kissing as well.
What sparked the idea to actually write this piece was when a few friends and I were discussing how a large percentage of Japanese men and women are terrible kissers. Whether it was reflecting on personal experience or having seen people in action, the sentiment was pretty unanimous.
Living here for 5 years now and watching countless hours of Japanese TV, movies and “drama,” I’ve realized that in none of those three types of media, are there realistic sex scenes much less kiss scenes.
We’ve all gotten our first imaginary taste of kissing from something like the old James Bond movies. It was kind of over the top, but it was the raw passion, the spontaneity and the naughtiness that made us blush when we were in the same room as our parents.
Japanese kids have essentially 2 models for kissing instruction:
Example 1- The TV/movie kiss: Imagine this scene. The girl is standing in front of her house, the guy says something like, “I can’t live another day without you” and as she is feeling the shock of being told something so deep, he dives in eyes closed, hands grabbing her around the elbows as he tilts his head a little bit before he connects with her lips. She stands stunned, unable to move, eyes wide open. That’s it. She doesn’t even KISS HIM BACK. It’s not always this squeaky clean. I assume that drama makers and TV producers want to give the audience a sense of innocent love. I understand that based on the story, that invoking innocence is a good change of pace to rabid face-smashing but I mean come on! Show me some passion! But the problem is that it’s hard to come across a movie/drama that will show what sex and kissing should be about, total raw passion. Japan is putting “the kiss” on a pedestal.
Example 2 – The porn kiss: No passion, no shyness or innocence, just straight up tongue fighting. No lips, just all tongue.
It’s not hard to see why people suck at kissing does it? They don’t even suck.
Most westerners have grown up with an ideal time and place for their first sexual experience. The candle lit room, the fireplace, whispering in the ear. One of my ex-girlfriends was obsessed with the sex scene in “Love and Basketball”, where they showed the guy actually putting on a condom. Scenes like that give people a “real” sense of sexual procedure.
Never in Japan have I seen a scene even remotely resembling the one I saw in “Love and Basketball.” I can’t say there are none whatsoever, there must be. But even if there was, it wasn’t mainstream enough to burn some sense into our confused youth.
Rather than the western idea of “My first will be with somebody that I trust and love”, many Japanese middle-schoolers and high schoolers feel societal pressure to just get it over with. Girls and Boys feel pressure to score if their friends or other classmates already have. That is a strong aspect of Japanese Society, do whatever everybody else does.
But here’s something wierd. Until the day they die, many of those girls will attest to being pure and untouched, because that is what they think guys want.
In no way am I saying that my opinions reflect 100% of the people in Japan. There are always exceptions to the basic norms of society. Nor am I saying that ALL westerners are great kissers or believe that first-time sex is sacred. I am just comparing basic sentiments of east and west.
Thinking about why people aren’t skilled kissers made me think about how not only is the Japanese public misinformed and slightly brainwashed, but also that they have a skewed sense of anything related to sex. When a teenager doesn’t have any previous knowledge of what may happen when things get hot and heavy, then the only thing they can rely on is porn and personal experience. This leads to pregnancy or the ever popular Dekchyatta Kekkonn(Oops! I’m Pregnant Marriage) and worst of all STD’s. A combination of a lacking sexual education system, squeamish parents, unrealistic examples of sex and the most confusing of all, blurring, have made Japan a blind sex addict with an identity crisis. Shy and innocent or ~Gang Rape~?
Copyright © Ry Sullivan 2009
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