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 is currently perhaps the most restrictive amongst the
developed nations.
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 Tokugawa 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 (which they clearly are), it's unlikely that we're
going to be enjoying legally produced and sanctioned Japanese adult
video without mosaic censorship.
