wait, so she’s “the little man in the boat”? I’m so confused…
But yeah, if your society is threatened by a “pussy boat” or a file of a 3d scan of some lady’s “manko”, then it’s time to re-evaluate your society.
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Agreed.
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Is it that people don’t realize that the picture of St. Guadalupe is a vulva or is it that they are too scared to say anything. Or is it some reason I didn’t even consider.
Mutsuhito was responding to trade pressures from the west and was looking to westernize Japan and shape it in to a modern trading partner. Thus, westernized indecency laws were introduced despite the long standing guarantees of no censorship enjoyed by the Japanese people. Much has been written on the westernization of Japan during that period.
But more specifically, I’m referring to Article 175 of the Criminal Code of Japan or more specifically Waisetsu Butsu Hanpu To aka Distribution of Obscene Objects. In post war occupied Japan, the translation and distribution of Lady Chatterley’s Lover was the impetus for the current interpretation of that long standing and rarely used law which during occupation became the extreme censorship we see today. Total censorship first began on November 16, 1945 when the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers ordered the prohibition of 236 films for obscenity.
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‘Obscenity’ illegal in Japan. Porn search that contains the word ‘japanese’ makes even the most jaded American gasp a little. Got it.
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[quote=“Israel_B, post:20, topic:77868”] I
see what you tried to do here referencing fertility festivals but the facts according to my lawyer friends are that were a male artist to distribute realistic images of his penis he’d end up against these same laws.
[/quote]
Can your lawyer friends cite any cases of this happening to a male artist, cases that are on all fours? Or is it a hypothetical presumption of legal fairness?
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See also my comments in the other thread on this same topic http://bbs.boingboing.net/t/what-is-obscenity-the-story-of-a-good-for-nothing-artist-and-her-pussy/
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Not sure if these count as being 'on all fours’
As mentioned by other posters (and myself, the last time this court case came up on BB), it’s not as simple as penis=good, vulva=bad. Leaving the festivals dedicated to the public display of vallic imagery aside, if that were the case, wouldn’t the censorship in Japanese porn be a lot more one sided?
The issue is the distribution of imagery of genitalia, not vulvas exclusively. The sheer amount of othering in this thread (and the associated reporting) is pretty shocking. America has some of the most fucked up, regressive sex laws and some of the weirdest attitudes to sex in the world but somehow it’s the Japanese that have issues?
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Thats just business as usual with many (possibly most) westerners though
The definition of obscenity is culturally relative. The taboos on displaying genitalia or the likeness of genitalia derive neither from the Emperor not the adopttion of Western mores, but rather from proscriptions in Shinto, Japan’s predominant religion.
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japan only banned the possession of child pornography in 2014 and still specifically included an exception for cartoons and comics but a pussyboat is obscene
[quote=“Cynical, post:29, topic:77868”]
America has some of the most fucked up, regressive sex laws and some of the weirdest attitudes to sex in the world [/quote]
I don’t recall where anyone here said that my country doesn’t.
Believe me, many of us all too aware of just how much fuckery is going down in our own backyard, on so many different levels; and many of us are trying our damnedest to do something about it.
Not all of us, mind you; because no matter where you may live there will always be ignorant, lazy, selfish twats who are only too willing to be a part of the problems, plural.
That said;
Personally, I tend to voice my disdain about anything that I think is unjust or inhumane, no matter where its happening.
That’s the “beauty” of the internet age, and the world getting smaller; it lets us know that everywhere else in the world humanity can be just as fucked up as the worst of us are, here at home.
“Othering” aside:
IMO, we’re all equally assholes, innately; but some of us can and do actively choose to not be dicks.
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I think it’s perfectly fair to get angry about this (the law is stupid) but it always strikes me as odd how 99% of the coverage of this case in the Western media takes the line “zomg, Japan is terrified of vaginas but they have cock festivals!” when that’s demonstrably untrue.
The othering I was referring to manifests itself as seeing Japan as somehow “backwards” for having anti-obscenity laws and in creating the false narrative that this law is used exclusively to marginalise women. Contained within that is an inherent sentiment of Western superiority which is misguided to say the least; Japanese society in general is much less squeamish about a great many things than Anglo/US culture, thanks in no small part to the absence of Puritanism from its history.
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I don’t disagree, but the danger, IMHO, is when people (Westerners especially) tend to interpret other cultures through our own prejudices. Which is to say that I agree this conviction is unjust, but also that many Americans who read about it will assume Westerner reasons for the law’s existence.
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99%.
Really?
You don’t find that estimate just a tad bit high, maybe even a little hyperbolic?
Personally, I’ve never thought of Japan as backwards at all; not when the country is so cutting edge in areas like technology and fashion.
Instead, I think many of them are damn strange, just going by some of the trends, anime and game shows I’ve seen, but that’s just me.
Getting back to your point:
Now that isn’t something that I was trying to imply with my commentary; I think it’s an idiotic and needlessly repressive law, period; no matter whether its a peen or vag that’s being vilified.
[quote=“Cynical, post:34, topic:77868”]
Contained within that is an inherent sentiment of Western superiority [/quote]
Again, that’s kind of a big over-generalization; because again not all of us choose to be small-minded self absorbed dicks.
(Just the loudest ones, usually.)
[quote=“GulliverFoyle, post:35, topic:77868, full:true”]
I don’t disagree, but the danger, IMHO, is when people (Westerners especially) tend to interpret other cultures through our own prejudices.[/quote]
Fair point; everyone’s own personal bias does color their perceptions, and some to a more severe degree than others.
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I’m not sure 99% is actually hyperbole at all, to be honest. In all of the English-language media coverage of this I’ve seen that goes so far as to offer an opinion, there has been some variation on @frauenfelder’s above quote.
If I recall correctly, the artist made a wider point about how it was crazy to enshrine genitalia to the extent that Japanese culture does and yet have these laws on the books, brought up the penis matsuri as a famous example and the coverage in the western media misinterpreted that to mean “cocks good, vulvas bad,” which then snowballed into an ongoing media discourse about how these laws are inherently misogynistic.
I think the reason that it irritates me to the extent it does is that this sort of othering narrative happens far too often to be entirely accidental. People like to think of Japan and China as uniquely bizarre places where the culture is inexplicably odd (and in this specific case, stories about gender equality generate clicks), so why not take the angle that’s most likely to generate traffic? Never mind the fact that it’s not the truth, research is hard and their writing is all funny-looking.
See also: every “you won’t believe this crazy new trend in China” story that turns out to have been one surrealist artist’s photoblog…
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Some people.
Seriously, with the lack of clarifying adjectives to signify that you’re not trying to be equally over-generalizing… I can’t.
Bottom line; pretty much anyone who isn’t male, straight, Xtian and in a certain tax bracket gets ‘othered’ in the US, on a regular basis.
That doesn’t make it “okay” when it happens to anyone, anywhere.
I’m done now, my show is finished loading.
You have a nice night.
This is horribly pedantic but I’d stand by the lack of clarifying adjectives in that sentence. People, generally, tend to other those who aren’t like them. Some people (I’d even go so far as to say ‘a lot of people’) don’t, or at least actively try not to, but I would say the majority of people do it all the time without giving it a second thought.
There’s a reason the Daily Mail is the most-read English-language ‘news’ source on the web, and it’s not for its in-depth discussions on the role of imperialist privilege in western cultural narratives…
Have a great evening too!
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I understand the cultural relativity aspect. But the mental dexterity to comprehend ‘illegal because looks like vagina’ while ‘totally legal to film and sell real-live-female presented as an underage schoolgirl being pelted with the real-live-ejaculate of many dozen men’ escapes me.
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