BBC1 - Stacey Dooley Investigates "Young sex for Sale in Japan"

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

I'm 37 and I certainly wouldn't. I go ten years either way max.

there are plenty of gorgeous women 48 and over you are denying yourself. Ask Wayne Rooney!

 

[abu13]

It made very uncomfortable watching, mainly because i was sat there with a stalk on :)

 

[I'm With Stupid]

The age of consent in Japan is 13, it's a cultural thing.

No it's not. That's the national age of consent. Each area has their own laws, which make it effectively much higher. Tokyo's age of consent is 18. I'm not aware of anywhere in Japan where you could legally have sex with a 13 year old.

 

[tshirtman]

No it's not. That's the national age of consent. Each area has their own laws, which make it effectively much higher. Tokyo's age of consent is 18. I'm not aware of anywhere in Japan where you could legally have sex with a 13 year old.

I said the age of consent in Japan is 13, and you said, no it's not that's the national age of consent ??? I'm glad you cleared that up.

If you want to be pedantic, I didn't say the age in Tokyo did I.

 

[vonkeynotvenky]

The national age of consent law actually allows each prefecture of Japan to determine their own age of consent, but they are not allowed to set it lower than 13. ... However, each prefecture in Japan has independently implemented a law that forbids sex with children under the age of 18.

 

[talkativesprout]

disappointed in myself, for hoping this thread was something else

 

[I'm With Stupid]

I said the age of consent in Japan is 13, and you said, no it's not that's the national age of consent ??? I'm glad you cleared that up.

If you want to be pedantic, I didn't say the age in Tokyo did I.

No, but you were obviously implying that it's legal to have sex with a 13 year old in Japan, which is simply not the case. Let's use an analogy. If the federal age of consent in America was 13, but every individual state had an age of consent that was somewhere between 16 and 18, would it be accurate to say "Look at these perverts. The age of consent is only 13." No, because there wouldn't be a single state in America where you could legally have sex with a 13 year old. And that's exactly the case in Japan.

There are obviously some cultural problems in Japan, like any country, but I don't think they're unique in fetishizing young girls. Look at any Western porn site. The most popular section is almost always 'teen' (yes, I know eight-teen, nine-teen), and situations involving girls who would typically be underage (schoolgirls, babysitters, etc) are commonplace. Where there is a cultural issue in Japan (if you want to call it that) is that they see these things as purely fantasy, and so make less of a connection between this kind of material and actual abuse occurring (rightly or wrongly). So for example, you can buy actual child porn in Japan, as long as it's animated, and from what I've heard, most people will accept that because it's just a fantasy. Weird to us maybe, but until you can demonstrate that it actually results in more Japanese kids being abused than British kids, it's hard to claim that we're right and they're wrong.

 

[che_don_john]

Walking through Akihabara you'll see images of 'school girls' everywhere, and often maids, too. There are a lot of girls dressed up in little outfits standing outside the shops and arcades, often in cosplay.

In most cases it's not sexual/sexualised. It seems weird and hard for us westerners to understand that a girl dressed scantily as a maid or as a school girl with knee-high stockings isn't meant to be sexual, but most Japanese view it is kawaii, a type of 'cuteness', which is enjoyed by men and women alike. You can even pay some of these girls to hug you - again, not meant to be sexual, but comforting. It's a weird concept and quite an unconformable one for westerners at times, but that's just how it is there. I've never suffered a culture shock quite like that which I experienced in Tokyo, it was overwhelming at times.

However, there are certainly cases where it goes a bit darker; the signs which point you down towards shops and establishments in basements and side streets are usually a good clue. It's becoming more prevalent, too, especially with the increased immigration to places like Tokyo (lots more dirty western men, and more Filipino/Thai/Indonesian girls going there to work and being treated like shit by the Japanese).

I usually can't stand Stacey Dooley - how she ever got this gig is beyond me - but I might have a watch of this later, sounds interesting.