SEX IN DEPTH Japan's Lolita merchants feel the heat
By William Sparrow
Japan was slow in updating its child pornography laws to bring them into line
with those of the West. It was only in 1999 and 2003 that Japan caught up, with
the passage of new laws that made it illegal to produce, distribute, sell,
possess or trade in child pornography. Before 1999, it was only illegal to
produce it.
Yet enforcement of the new laws has been lax, although that may have changed in
the past month.
Fans and producers of a lucrative fad called "lolicon" got a wake-up call with
the arrest of a publisher last month. "Lolicon" is a
slang portmanteau of the phrase "Lolita complex", or "Lolita icon". The
industry produces photo books and magazines with teenage and preteen models
sometimes as young as eight years old. The format is usually "near nudity" or
"implied nudity", but a recent photo set featuring a 14-year-old girl went too
far.
"The girl's swimsuit was deliberately made to be see-through. It was so
tight-fitting you could make out the shape of her genitalia and she'd been
posed in such risque positions that the Metropolitan Police Department decided
to arrest the maker for breaking the law banning child pornography, even though
the girl hadn't actually exposed her bust or between her legs," a reporter told
Weekly Playboy.
The arrest was the first of it kind in Japan, in which the child pornography
laws were used in a case where the model was not actually nude.
In a similar case in Hong Kong last year, a magazine was ultimately cleared of
a charge of child pornography after it featured a 14-year-old model in a
semi-transparent white dress soaked in water. Although cleared on the charge,
the editor was admonished for his lack of judgment.
The new case in Japan is proving similar in many ways. If convicted, the
producer could face a maximum of three years in jail and fine of 100,000 yen.
The lolicon industry, up until this arrest, had been quite lucrative for the
Japanese publishing community. The Japan Times reported that "over three
million of the photo books were sold in 2006-2007".
"Ever since the arrest, makers of products featuring teens in erotic poses have
been in a state of panic. If material is judged to be overly obscene, people
can be arrested for breaking the Child Pornography Law, even if the model is
dressed in a swimsuit," an employee of a medium-sized DVD manufacturer
producing material featuring models under 15 years old told Weekly Playboy.
"DVD shops and wholesalers are now on their guard and have stopped taking
materials featuring models under 15, even if the product looks like being a
surefire seller."
It remains unclear why just the under-15 section of the industry, sometimes
referred to as U15, is being affected as the child prostitution and pornography
laws, clearly define "child" as a person under the age of 18. Yet the industry
continues to use girls aged 16 and 17.
The manga (Japanese for "print cartoons and comics") industry also remains
unaffected by the new crackdown. Pornographic drawings and cartoons that depict
children remain legal - and lucrative.
Figures for the total value of the Japanese child pornography industry are hard
to come by, but annual sales of manga alone in 2000 amounted to over 600
billion yen (US$5.5 billion), nearly one quarter of the total sales of all
published material. It is estimated that 30-40% of manga contains sexual themes
or content, much of it representing schoolgirls of elementary or junior high
school age in themes including rape, sado-masochism and bondage. About half of
the 2,000 pornographic animation titles distributed in Japan every year,
including films and video games, feature schoolgirl characters.
Lolicon manga are usually short stories, published in media specializing in the
genre and bought predominantly by white-collar men in their 20s and 30s. A
common focus of these stories is taboo relationships, such as between a teacher
and student or brother and sister. Sexual experimentation between children is
another popular theme.
Last October, the Japanese government issued the results of its Special Opinion
Poll on Harmful Materials, in which 86.5% of respondents said that manga and
art should be subject to regulation for child pornography, while 90.9% said
that "harmful materials" on the Internet should be regulated. The current child
pornography laws in Japan do not regulate manga and art that depict children
who are not real, or "virtual child pornography".
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