Yes, the problem of sex trafficking is real, but we need to use sound data to focus on the actual problem. Info graphic memes are not a reliable source of sound data.
I donât care about the specific numbers; even one is unacceptable to me.
Especially when there are certain streets that my kid isnât allowed to even venture near, because they are well known âstrollsâ, and people have repeatedly been caught trying to solicit adolescent girls before.
Unfortunately, those false stats are used to justify continued legal persecution of sex workers who are in the profession voluntarily. And those people do exist.
Iâve never been a customer (the concept of doing so completely squicks me out), but Iâve been friends with many people (male and female) who make their living in sex work.
There are problems on the voluntary side of the industry as well, to be sure. But prohibition makes their situation worse, not better.
Hey, youâre preaching to the choir, there; I believe prostitution shouldnât be criminalized at all, it should be legal between consenting adults.
Yes Boing Boing makes it clear that they consider this rape despite the original article attempting to avoid using the term.
You cannot condemn rape and then condone it for the rapists. Rape of anyone is a terrible crime. That said I think rapists get off much too leniently. If they canât be executed the very least is that they should be required to pay the victim significant compensation to the point of financial ruin and the rapist should never be allowed to hold any position of authority ever again.
That freaking explains why 90% of the women in Japanese adult videos are crying all time.
It makes me sick.
And it makes even more sick that the responsibles are being detained on grounds of âsending workers into assignments that violate public moralsâ, thatâs fucking âserial rapingâ in my handbook.
A major crime happens and is uncovered, and you guys are complaining about how people in that country talk about it? Seriously?
The original language? æ„æŹèȘă§ăăïŒ There was no original language in the boingboing article.
Do you have any idea whether the word that was translated as âcoercingâ has the same connotations in the original Japanese? Maybe that was the most appropriate way to say it under the circumstances. Or maybe not. To be able to tell those nuances, youâd probably need to study the Japanese language for 6+ years and spend significant time immersed in the culture.
On the subject of apologies:
I hope everyone is aware that the Japanese and US attitudes to apologies are not the same. Iâm not sure that the idea that an insufficient apology is worse than no apology at all is part of Japanese culture. But this is basically what the BB article seems to complaining about instead of the actual crime.
[Citation needed]. The bosses were arrested. What else did you expect police to do? Maybe they were not dragged to a public appearance in prison clothes and handcuffs, and they were apparently not shot to death by police, even though they probably werenât white. So I can see how it can seems âincredibly light-handedâ when youâre used to other incidents reported here on BB, but I still believe that âSir, you are under arrest. Would you please come with usâ is the appropriate way for police to deal with any criminal who is not actively resisting arrest.
Ouch. VERY different kind of coercion, very inappropriate comparison.
It may be in your handbook, but itâs probably not the same in a Japanese law book. I assume that the crime of [Japanese word usually translated as rape] is defined in Japanese law as involving physical force or violence. Somehow I donât see why we should complain about Japanese police not overstating their legal case against these criminals.
Zathrasâs Corollary to Godwinâs Law:
In any internet discussion about a crime related to sexuality, the crime will sooner or later be referred to as rape.
Zathrasâs Corollary to Godwinâs Law:
In any internet discussion about a crime related to sexuality, the crime will sooner or later be referred to as rape.
So youâre claiming what happened in this case wasnât rape?
It would seem that the law would be getting stretched problematically if the charge was that the president of the company (one being reported as being prosecuted here) was the one committing the said rape.
A figurative argument doesnât usually do well in court, so better to pin him with something that might stick?
Thereâs not a lot more detail in the article to be going on though⊠They have been pretty lax at providing citations.
This article seems be be a bit closer to the source of the story, and more thorough:
http://www.tokyoreporter.com/2016/06/12/japan-porn-company-busted-for-forcing-women-to-perform-as-actresses/
and links to what seems to be a Japanese source here:
http://www.sankei.com/affairs/news/160612/afr1606120006-n1.html
Like everyone else here, I havenât read Japanese law and Iâm therefore using definitions from outside Japan. In my case, Iâm again using my own Austrian frame of reference. So yes, Iâm claiming itâs not rape.
The paragraph that is actually titled rape in Austrian law involves violence or threat of violence by the rapist. Other crimes against sexual integrity have different names. The crime that happened here seems to match a paragraph whose title Iâd translate as âpimpingâ.
I donât see the point in labeling a wide range of different crimes with the same label; and I actually do object to complaining about a different culture because they distinguish things that you are combining under a single term.
âDoes this act meet the legal definition required for a rape conviction in the country in which it occured?â
âDoes this act constitute rape in the ethical responsibility sense?â
Those are two distinct questions. @zathras and @dman appear to addressing the first of those; @anon15383236 appears to be addressing the second.
Yes, itâs likely that Japanese law would not find these people guilty of rape. Ethically, however, every single bastard at that company who freely consented to be a part of what was going on is a goddamned fucking rapist.
Okay, before we debate what is or is not being said:
This is all I could find for direct (translated) quotes of the apology:
âWe deeply reflect upon not doing anything to address the problems on our own. We are very sorry,â and that they will âencourage producers to take action to quickly improve the situation and restore the soundness of the entire industry.â
The stories say there was a statement issued, so there is assuredly more to the statement than that.
Before we start debating what is or is not being said in the apology, can we please find a source that has the full statement? Iâve looked, and I canât find it.
@zathras: One common definition of rape is simply ânon-consensual sex.â It may not be the legal definition of rape, but most people donât care what the legal definition is outside of a legal argument. Also, I donât think it matters what Austrian law says, since Austrian law is not written in English, so I doubt that the word in the legal texts is actually the English word ârape.â
Given Japanese cultureâs penchant for verbal understatement, whenever you see something like this referred to in innocuous terminology, it is always much much worse.
Its as insincere there as it is here. Typical way to address a situation while deliberately doing nothing about it. The only difference being there is usually some obligation over there for the half-assed psuedo-apology. The reactions to them arenât any different. But its at least expected.
Yeah, but mansplainers just gotta mansplain instead about semantics.
Iâm okay with the suorce, if you donât think that correspondents employed by the LA Times donât have the chops or that such a publication just canât relate to us in english what was written in japanese thatâs your perogative. Youâd be a bit off IMO.
Do I have any idea? If you think that using threats of financial harm, or the threats of blackmail via a models parents isnât coercive, and that employing such to cause a person to engage in sex acts consensually but against their will isnât rape, or behaviour complicit with rape or sexual assault, then we differ on that point.
Is a gun or knife or threat of immediate physical harm to coerce a sex act required for your mind to conjure the word rape?
If the persons consents against their will, is it no longer such because of that coerced consent?
If the person doing the coercing isnât actually the person penetrating or engaging in sex acts with the victim complicit with the act or is it strictly blackmail or contract violations they commit? Just a bit of blackmail or a white collar crime because of that seperation?
So even though I donât speak the language, between the translators that do and the ability to engage in abstract thought, I think I can establish what is meant by coercion and the context it is used in. Thanks for your help though, we must agree to disagree that these executives were not involved in any rapes and were only involved in blackmail and coercion that caused women to have sex or perform sex acts against their will.
On the subject of apologies, what you are unsure of is that.
I read the original and it too is light on details. This being Japan and Sankei being a tabloid all is normal here.
Funny thing about ethics is just how universal they arenât.
I happen to be at a gathering of Japanese adults and asked some people about this very thing. All the women and all the men except one said that no rape had occurred in this case and that though criminal guilt on the part of the production company is 100% assumed, if there is any ethical responsibility to be taken the police are doing the only thing they can in the circumstances.
Which was actually part of my point. The Japanese donât speak English either, so the whole slant of the BB article that complains about the wording of the apology and how âcoercionâ is used as a euphemism for ârapeâ does not matter either.
Riiight. I was complaining about what I saw about a very âWesternâ view of things being applied to Japan without respect for cultural differences. Apparently, their word choice was not up to modern American standards.
Excuse me, that is not mansplaining. But thanks for anglosplaining to me how English-language rules of proper victim-respecting word choice are in fact universal values that should be enforced on the Japanese as well.
They donât have the supernatural chops to find a translation that is so spot-on that you can criticise the fine points of word choice even though there is no one-to-one correspondence of words.
I think I speak English quite well for someone who does not live in an English-speaking country, but still I completely overlooked the apparent fact that the everyday definition of ârapeâ had slightly expanded compard to the German word âVergewaltigungâ. And still, if translating between English and German, I would have no choice but to translate the words as if they were equivalent.
In German, Iâd still consider it a tasteless exaggeration to refer to this particular crime as a âVergewaltigungâ, as it would belittle the suffering of victims of actual âVergewaltigungâ. It would feel like criticizing the use of capital punishment by referring to all death rows in America as âextermination campsâ - which is why I chose to talk about a corollary to Godwinâs Law.
But, given that ârapeâ already includes all âcrimes related to sexualityâ for a significant number of English speakers, my attempted Corollary to Godwinâs Law has become a meaningless tautologĂœ, so I officially withdraw it.
I was operating from a tighter definition of the word ârapeâ. My impression of the common definition of the English word has since been adjusted. Never have I said that threats of financial harm are not coercive, or that these acts should be condoned.
With that help, you can know what facts the Japanese were referring to. You have only a small chance at guessing the nuances sufficiently well so that you can criticize their word choice, as was done in the BB introduction to the article and in a lot of the discussion below it. And then you still need to assume that your ethics that you learned from your own culture are sufficiently universal and that itâs ethically OK for you to judge the Japanese by them.
