(Stop the giggling at the back of the class there boys, its annoying.)

I've recently been re-viewing the *masses* of Internet Erotica I've downloaded over the last few months since getting my spanky new pc and broadband connection.  This and a long held concern prompt me to query my previously held position on a topic.

You see, theres a few moves in the pipeline to make the simulation of certain acts, and the distribution of all sorts of naughtiness - illegal.  Big bada boom illegal.  And part of me goes

"Muppets you're pushing it further underground - At least on the net you can track and catch the really perverted buggers more quickly and easily than before"

And another Part goes

"But Rich, more of your mates and more worryingly your younger mates are getting into some very freaky hentai stuff that makes your hair stand on end and walk away muttering "Shock Tactics - lead to suggestability"....So maybe the proliferation of Porn on the internet is a bad thing?" 

One of my aquaintances bunged me a cd of anime porn..  Frankly - It's animated but it still worried the fuck out of me.

...Obviously - Fantasy Roleplay things where everyones consenting and its a fetish thing - Thats fine.  Its not up to me to judge whether you like to dress up as a monkey.

And similarly - Actual real filming of illegal or unethical and immoral sexual acts is just as obviously wrong - And distributing and watching it is ghoulish at best and voyeuristically depraved at worst.

(A donkey can not give informed consent people.)

So for years, I've had some nice iron gridlock moral lines.  Informed consent, and everyone having fun.  Then ... Along comes Hentai....

Now in Hentai, these rules are getting thrown out - Rather than things being a matter of fantasy in the mind of the participants, its real for them as they are characters in a story where this is actually happening.  Now this is creepy even for it to happen in literature, some of the themes in hentai go to some very very dark places indeed. 

I used to defend the idea of fantasy/hentai erotica as a broad topic.

I figured that it was one of the places in porn where there was little chance of the female participants being exploited to the extent that they are getting a rough deal in gonzo porn over in the states.  But from conversations with my friends and seeing some of the stuff they happily frot over.  Im begining to get worried if it isnt actually worse.  That we're not programming the next generation of sex maniacs to think some very bad thoughts indeed.

Demons and tentacle nookey is one thing.  With Impossible breasts and Teenager Beast Ladies running around with rape fantasies.

  Its a fantasy erotic story with "fantastic" elements that can't possibly be mis-interpreted by the conscious mind.  Several of my girl-friends have enjoyed similar material.  And one of my best friends favourite movies is legend of the overfiend. 

Serial Incest with a family and their pets is another matter entirely.  It could desensitise and encourage people to some really screwed up behaviours. 

Maybe Im being prudish - what do you reckon?

But if you really *want* to bug Me and are still trying because I didnt put the damm contact field in properly....

Thegamefinisher@yahoo.co.uk

Japan, one of the worlds politest and most inhibited societies also has perhaps the most liberal range of pornographic materials available. From vending machines selling school girls knickers (used or not) to a weekly comic entitled 'Rape man'.

Allegedly it also has extremely low criminal sexual offense rates.

So on what basis do you believe that exposure to pornography might create more or worse sex maniacs than already exist. Indeed it might be arguable that allowing access to extreme pornography actually provides an outlet for these urges and reduces the likelyhood of them being carried out in RL Tm.

Where the yakuza run the brothels, theres an epidemic of middle-class suicide, and the number of "disappearances" on the part of vice girls is beyond count.  Where every spring theres a bunch of riots in which young men beat the shit out of each other hoping to get picked and recruited by one clan or another of the family.

Have you been to Nagoya?  Its great - Like Birmingham but with Yakuza.  For the record I aint either.  But a good friend went and lived there for a year and a half and did not even think about having sex with any of his students, he knew exactly what was good for him.  He didn't want to end up married or in a ditch.

Just because a crime isn't being reported doesnt mean that it doesnt happen.

Theres a *huge* stigma attached to being a rape victim, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and postulate that just like dear ol victorian England - The statistics dont represent the truth. 

There's also a degree of cultural difference between Japan and the U.k that goes beyond the scope of what we could put down here.  Suffice it to say, that its not such a rosy picture as you might imagine. 

Anyway, we're not talking about the "love hotels," or how or what the japanese army did in korea during Ww2 and still hasnt admitted.  We won't even go near the Samurai erotic rape poetry.

....We're talking about Johnny English, 4 Gcse's and a healthy diet of blue peter... then this latter day nerd gets a broadband connection and goes all Kawai Hentai on your ass.  He's been brought and socialised to the modern industrialised west version of sexuality.  The one where its ok to simulate oral sex with a flake but you can't show erect nipples before 9pm.

I'm just saying that beyond the obvious culture shock.  That you might start getting some very odd ideas indeed.  Theres a point about fantasy.  Its not real.  The point about our mediated experience of life in the west is that if aint on telly - It aint real.

But if you really *want* to bug Me and are still trying because I didnt put the damm contact field in properly....

Thegamefinisher@yahoo.co.uk

Right.... so lets see...based on the fact you don't believe any of the reports to be accurate...I'll try again.

OK... the situation in Japan is not demonstrably worse than it is in the UK. However they have more  variety and considerably more access to hardcore porn. Thus Porn makes no difference. Still.

Or are you saying that the criminality associated with sexuality in Japan is worse, despite the fact this is an unprovable assertion.

In fact why do you believe it to have any effect on the 'sexual maniac' likelyhood at all regardless of country? Theres no information to support such a statement especially as you believe that an absence of reports doesn't prove a thing (you are quite right) indeed you have no ability to state that it wasn't exactly the same before wide scale pornography existed at all.

The current laws on pornography make it so that quite a lot is allowed but also that there are strict guidelines as to how you have to label it. To get to any porn, even on the internet, you usually have to pass through a lot of disclaimers saying 'this is porn, if you view it and your country does not allow you to then you are doing something illegal and we take no responsibility for that because we warned you'. It is not that easy to get hold of any without a credit card or some other form of age verification. There are some reasonably good netnanny style software packages out there. Bascially, there is a lot to stop minors from looking at the stuff but anyone who is allowed can easily see it. It is also difficult to view anything serious by accident.

The general way it is therefore set up is so that those who want to can view it, those who don't don't have to. Personally, I like that set up.

I would not say that Japan's pornography is the cause of the Yazuza or any of the crime. They are involved in it because it is a convenient way to make money but they have been around a long time before pornogrtaphy existed. Organised crime and pornography always go together but mainly because the latter is illegal. People will always want it and so long as someone does there will be someone to supply it. Frankly, to my mind, making things like this more legal is the best way to stop the organised crime invovlement. As soon as it is no longer profitable (because it is easier to get hold of from legal sources) they will stop dealing it. Same with drugs but that is not this discussion...

As for children. Personally, with regards to sex, I beleive that as soon as someone is old enough to be curious and to ask the right questions they deserve to be given the right answers. Though I can see your point about some of the more extreme sexual practises on the net. At this point its a case of make sure you have the ability to block webpages on your home PC in a way which the clever little bastards can't get around using the advanced computer hacking skills they seem to teach at school today

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The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God...

Ruins of Empire

1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester

But anyhoo, Japan aint Britain.  We may have a similar background in political feudalism but we have a completely different philosophy with regards to personal freedoms and social responsibility these days.

Lets look at pyschological studies done in this country and done on our own population. 

Heck lets not bother, lets just read the daily mail.

Every day people read the hate rags, and get all angsted up about whatevers in the paper.  Media does that .. It mediates information.  Porn is erotic information, it conveys ideas about sexuality and erotic behaviour.

The page 3 model in the Sun is just such a lovely object..

"Phwoor! Look at her!  Shes all in pig tails!  Gor!  I reckon she'd love *it* dontcha?"

"Lets whistle at this passing Bird with the big Tits!  *Phweet!*  "Betcha Love it dont yer!"

(Joy!  Sexual harassment in the street! What fun!  Shall we all sing a song about how She Was Asking For It?)

Now translate that across to "Immoral Sisters,"  Where schoolgirls get raped by a cruel teacher and his diabolic secretary and *secretly* enjoy it.  They then have sex with each other, their mother and the Teachers son.  They use toys, they masturbate at school.

Now lets send a party of teenage girls past those same brickies late at night?  What?  You dont want to?  But goodness, its only porn...  Dont you trust the common spirit of humanity?

....Im just saying that while some people arent impressionable, easy led and programmable, a lot are....

Anyway, Im just shooting the breeze here.  And getting your opinion not looking to change it, just challenge it a little.  I figure human sexuality and sexual politics to be a damm sight more interesting than charity auctions.

*Edit*

I would also like to point out, for the record.  I'm quite happy in stating Im a complete pervert.  Only in a neo-classical informed consent kind of way.  But a rubber mac wearing dirty old man none the less.

But if you really *want* to bug Me and are still trying because I didnt put the damm contact field in properly....

Thegamefinisher@yahoo.co.uk

See the illegal traffic in foreign girls for sex in the UK. I don't understand your point im afraid.

Ah well.

You may want to ask yourself how many illegal immigrants from third world countries are, even now, working as prostitutes in London and how many of them are on drugs forcibly and are beaten or even casually killed if they don't do as they are told. This is because prostitution is currently illegal. Even the sex workers who are not working for some criminal gang or other are at risk of death from one of these gangs for infringing on thier patch or at a more indirect risk from STDs because they do not go to a doctor to get treatment or advice because they fear arrest.

The point being, the same goes for pornography. Making something illegal does not make it disappear. If anything it makes it worse because it removes the regulation. Without regulation we are merely brushing it under the carpet and hoping that it does not come out during dinner and embaress us in front of aunt Mabel. The problem is still there, it has not gone, and chances are it will start to smell at some point.