headbang8: In Japan, commuting salarymen read
hentai openly on trains and in waiting rooms. A Japanese teen boy might well carry a
hentai manga in his schoolbag, and get no more disapproval from his parents than a western boy might get for having a skater magazine or
Baywatch fanzine.
Living here, I try to keep an open mind. And avoid value judgements that reflect a cultural bias.
But to me, one would have to be a pretty sick puppy to like some of the
hentai that's sold openly.
Erotica in Japan shows an abusive immaturity (especially toward women) that, with the best will in the world, I can't stomach.
So much of it clearly would be violent and exploitative if it were performed or photographed live.
But part of the attraction, apparently, is that the use of drawings make it seem child-like, innocent and harmless!
If I were a young woman coming of age in Japan, I wonder how I would react? A British writer (whose name I wish I could remember) called it the "violent sexualisation of...youth".
One way they cope is that young women fantasize about
gay men. A common type of erotic fiction for young women is a gay love story between two beautiful, sensitive young men, who have the kind of partnership with each other that young women would like with their own beaus. Many young women make up little stories in their heads about pop-idols they fancy, and pair them off with each other.
Here's an irony: almost all of the
hentai you find so appealing in the west can't be sold in Japan. It's illegal to publish an image of genitalia--a reform, I believe, that MacArthur introduced after the war. He was apalled at mixed public baths (
sento), and felt that any country which treated nudity in such a cavalier fashion could never take its place amongst civilised nations. So every image--even a
drawn one--needs to black out the nether regions. Or more common, in this electronic age, to mosaic it.
Old habits die hard, though. Even today, amongst the older generations, nudity isn't such a big deal; one can see an occasional elderly couple strolling with open
yukata (bathrobes) home from the
sento
OK, OK...I know that some would consider what I do in bed as a gay man pretty sick.
And, yes, just because somebody gets his or her rocks off in unusual ways is no cause to dismiss it as immmoral or unhealthy.
Take just one bit of evidence of japanese sexual silliness:
http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/ha/dins/index.english.html
Tasteless, yes, but relatively harmless.
(How do I know about this website in the first place? Don't ask!)
I can't help but think that many
hentai reflect a level of sexual immaturity, at least here in Japan. (see
http://au.news.yahoo.com/040503/2/otr9.html) One which certainly does no favours for women, in the bedroom at home, or in society at large.
Doubtless_Mouse, I'd be interested to hear your take on this subject. I believe you've mentioned that you're raising a daughter here in Japan, no?
And to my fellow LPSGers who like
hentai, I don't dispute your right to see it. Please, enjoy! Just giving you my opinion from the
hentai heartland.
hb8
