Re censorship etc.

[John Dougill]

>From a more personal angle, I simply don't think that any culture in
which used high-school girls' panties are sold at stores, where SM and
rape fantasy is a major part of the porn industry, where chikan is a
genre in itself, where tosatsu (hidden camera shots of women undressing
which are being sold in video stores) is running rampant, etc., is free
of sexual hang-ups....

I don't understand the logic of this.  It appears that the writer is the
one who feels uncomfortable.  Surely then it is the writer who has the
hang-ups...If homosexuality makes you feel uncomfortable, who has the
hang-ups - you or the homosexual?

If the assertion of the writer is against sexual harassment, then I do not
have any argument.  But as I understood it, we were discussing sexuality in
fantasy i.e. on film and in manga.    The suggestion that a country has
more sexual hang-ups because of its rich fantasy life as compared to a
culture (America, say) where statistics for real life violence and sexual
violence are immeasurably higher seems altogether peculiar, not to say
perverse.   I may be wrong, but I have the feeling that the Japanese are
being criticised here because their fantasies are different - and as
Orientalists we all know that the Other is always worse.  Personally
speaking, I have found Japanese attitudes to be refreshingly honest
compared with the hypocrisy that reigns in the West.  The Christian and
puritan legacies are still all too evident in the readiness of some to
condemn what they neither like nor understand.
Let me endorse here Eija's comments....

"Doesn't this show that Japanese people are actually healthier in their
relation to sexuality than Americans?"

Best wishes at this seasonal time of year, and thanks for a thoughtful
discussion.

John Dougill
Kyoto