Disturbing Childlike RealDoll

[southernyankee]

If I'm not mistaken it is legal in some areas of Japan for a 13 yr old to have sex. Why would the law need to keep the age so low?  Who pushed for this?

[shermanvolvo]

If I'm not mistaken it is legal in some areas of Japan for a 13 yr old to have sex. Why would the law need to keep the age so low?  Who pushed for this?

I have no idea if this is correct, but various websites (I did a quick google) seem to say that the age of consent varies from jurisdiction from 13 - 18 y.o. So 13 y.o. is the national age of consent, but municipalities (etc) have additional laws which may raise the age of consent for that area.

[thebewilderness]

There may not be a national age of consent. I don't think there is one in the US. It's different ages in different states, some as young as thirteen.
The ones who decide these things are the menzz, of course, and the religious leaders.

[shermanvolvo]

BTW, the national age of consent in Canada was raised to 16 from 14 this past month (with allowance for peer sexual activity). My understanding is that no one under 12 is considered able to consent to any sort of sexual activity with anyone.

[Radfemhedonist]

I think that there should be allowances for peer sexual activity for those aged from 12-13 to 18 (little unsure about the exact minimum), but having the age of consent at thirteen ie not persecuting a 20 year old for sleeping with a thirteen year old, is not OK.

[wiggles]

jesus fucking christ. I would love to hack this website, post a fake P.O. box and hand over names and addresses to the police.

I don't think the police would be able to do anything.

I doubt the police would do anything (not that they couldn't) because my bet is that many of these many of the "buyers" of these dolls are also in possession of child pornography and perform other violence against children.

They could cite cause for suspicion.

[ironmaiden]

Japan, in particular, seems to have an obsession with sexualizing young girls.

All patriarchal societies do.

No argument there, but I notice a particularly blatant trend in Japanese culture.

[slythwolf]

The trend I've noticed in Japanese culture, where I've noticed one, has been about sexualizing 15-year-old high school girls. That same trend exists to at least the same degree in American culture, where as an added bonus we get push-up bras for 8-year-olds.

[Inverarity]

Japanese media (manga and anime are the most visible to the West, but there's a lot of similar stuff going on with their pop starlets, and also in the sex/trafficking industry, which is huge business for Japanese organized crime, which is a huge financier for Japanese right-wingers) is very into sexualizing little girls, to a degree that isn't seen so blatantly here except perhaps in those appalling "child beauty pageants."

Though it's telling that hentai, while produced en masse in Japan, is awfully popular here.

[Shukriyya]

Japan is going to ban possession of child pornography. They made the production and distribution illegal a few years ago, and now they are going to make possession illegal, too. I think it's a step in the right direction. 

Two news articles about this:
h ttp://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7010288336
h ttp://uk.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUKT20430220080311?sp=true

The second article mentions that the Japan branch of UNICEF promotes that child pornography should also be banned in anime, manga and computer games. If you want to know how fans of the lolicon genre react to this, you can read the comments to this article: h ttp://comipress.com/article/2006/11/17/1027 I've only read the first few - it isn't pretty.

[Radfemhedonist]

I always get a bit twitchy about censoring drawings, I'm glad they are going to ban live action child porn, but while I don't like lolicon the idea of censoring a drawing makes me very worried.

[Morgoth]

Radfemhedonist, can you elaborate on why its being a drawing specifically disturbs you? Presumably because no real children are involved? Well, that is definitely relevant, and it does make 'lolicon'* (ie paedophillic Japanese comics and animations) a lot less inherently abusive than videoed child abuse, but I still think there's a good case for censoring it. I can certainly think of some scenarios depicted in drawings and animations that definitely shouldn't be legal to distribute or own. Surely the same goes for the written word.

If it depicts children in sexual scenarios I think it counts as child pornography. Perhaps a lesser fine or sentence would be in order for possessing or distributing 'drawn' child pornography, but I don't think it should be let off the hook entirely.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but doesn't Japan in fact have very selective censorship of its own 'drawings', censoring the showing of penis, and possibly also pubic hair, including in pornography? And this in fact creates its own huge set of problems and has contributed, for example, the development of 'hentai' with tentacles as penis stand-ins. I can also see that slightly encouraging the depiction of younger looking characters.

* of course as well as lolicon there is also the rarer shotacon, sexualising young boys.