[Big Sexy]

Why is Japanese adult video censored?

This is probably the most perplexing question about AV and the most frustrating since it's hard to pin down exactly what the roots of censorship of erotic materials in Japan are. There are many parts of the world which exercise much greater control on the display of adult media (India, the Middle East and Mainland China).

Japan's present day stance against the display of nudity (particularly genitalia) seems to be in stark contrast to it's artistic tradition. Whereas India had its Kama Sutra, Japan has it erotic shunga or woodblock prints which graphically displayed intercourse with the participants contorted into virtually spine-bending positions. Indeed both the ancient Japanese literary and dramatic arts were no strangers to exploring the sexual realms both in traditional and perverse forms.

One might expect that a country so steeped in religious tradition as Japan to have a moral issue with sexual promiscuity. However, the Buddhist and Shinto faiths lack the exhortations against lust and adultery that are so common in Christianity. In fact, fertility and sex are more apt to be thought of as natural and even celebrated rather than denounced as is so often the case in the puritanical West. Take for example the annual Jibeta festival which is a Shinto celebration of fertility in which statues and carved wooden representations (some of them huge) of both the male and female genitals play a prominent and public role.

It's also interesting to note that the sight of women's breasts are not considered to be a big deal as in the United States. The Japanese response is much like that of Europeans. Bare-chested women are a common sight on television as well as general audience newspapers and magazines. Even comic books and animation produced for a teenage or younger audience is apt to have the occasional depiction of a half-naked woman.

Despite all this, the image of male and female sexual organs are restricted in modern day Japan. Note that I used the phrase "modern day" because it was the process of modernization of the Japanese culture which brought about the issue of censorship. You see, back at the tail end of the +++ugawa era in the mid-1800s, Japan was suddenly forced out of isolation by the influx of trade with American and European nations.

From the perspective of a Western visitor, Japanese culture must have seemed not only primitive but also barbaric. Public baths and brothels were commonplace, as were the aforementioned erotic art and fertility imagery in religious shrines. Japan's political leaders must have felt a great deal of shame over this because around 1900 they began banning materials "injurious to public morals." In 1907 there came Article 175 of the Criminal Code which basically made those restrictions into law. In 1918 came a law that specifically dealt with censorship of the genital region in public media. The language of the law is actually quite vague stating, "... the pubic area need not be hidden but there should be no anatomical details to draw the viewer's attention."

In the aftermath of World War II, occupation forces drew up a new constitution for Japan and it included an article which would seem to negate previous attempts at banning free speech. Article 21 reads in part, "No censorship shall be maintained, nor shall the secrecy of any means of communication be violated." Unfortunately, with the end of the occupation in 1952 came the re-enforcement of those old obscenity laws and they have been in use ever since.

There is evidence that a reinterpretation of these laws by liberal government officials has meant a less stringent enforcement of censorship regulations in the past decade. Unfortunately, until the Japanese government chooses to officially retract those 80 year old anti-obscenity laws or the legal system deems the restrictions unconstitutional, it's unlikely that we're going to be enjoying legally produced and sanctioned Japanese adult video without mosaic censorship.