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The Sex-Obsessed Cyberpunk Dystopia of Shimoneta


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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 5888
PostPosted: Wed Oct 28, 2015 10:26 pm Reply with quote
Agent355 wrote:
If you disagree with the regulation of things governments generally regulate like tobacco, alcohol, marijuana where it's legal, gambling, driving, etc, than of course you'd be against any pornography regulation, but pornography used to be regulated in the same way and still is in some respects-minors still can't just go alone to see a movie rated NC-17, let alone X. The only thing that made it arbitrary is the internet. Used to be clear cut that you couldn't buy Penthouse or similar magazines if you were under 18. I don't think that was such a bad thing, or that it infringed on rights or freedom of speech.


Restricting access to porn or in India's case attempting to (and backfiring laughably) ban access to it over the internet is essentially infringing on one's right to privacy. If anyone here desires to live in a society where the populace is sexually repressed there are a few places still on the map. But the rest of us would rather live in a society that doesn't make or enforce laws that restrict access to sexual content when there is simply no reason to do so and benefits not a single soul.


Last edited by BadNewsBlues on Wed Oct 28, 2015 10:28 pm; edited 1 time in total
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HaruhiToy



Joined: 15 Apr 2008
Posts: 4118
PostPosted: Wed Oct 28, 2015 10:27 pm Reply with quote
RestLessone wrote:
Asexuality is the absence of sexual attraction toward people. Some asexuals have no sex drive, true, but many have a moderate or very high drive. It just lacks a direction.

Asexual means no sexual feelings period. Not for humans, animals, or doorknobs. If someone has a high sex drive by definition they are not asexual.
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RestLessone



Joined: 02 Aug 2009
Posts: 1426
Location: New York
PostPosted: Wed Oct 28, 2015 10:36 pm Reply with quote
HaruhiToy wrote:
RestLessone wrote:
Asexuality is the absence of sexual attraction toward people. Some asexuals have no sex drive, true, but many have a moderate or very high drive. It just lacks a direction.

Asexual means no sexual feelings period. Not for humans, animals, or doorknobs. If someone has a high sex drive by definition they are not asexual.

Sex drive (need for stimulation) and sexual attraction (direction) are differentiated. From the article itself:
"With regard to sexual activity in particular, the need or desire for masturbation is commonly referred to as sex drive by asexuals and they disassociate it from sexual attraction and being sexual; asexuals who masturbate generally consider it to be a normal product of the human body and not a sign of latent sexuality, and may not even find it pleasurable."

Or you can check out AVEN's own FAQ on the subject. I mean, I am asexual and have spent a great deal of time looking through ace resources and literature.
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yaki-udon



Joined: 05 May 2015
Posts: 83
PostPosted: Wed Oct 28, 2015 11:50 pm Reply with quote
I used to listen to a talk show called Rush Limbaugh on AFN Tokyo. He always reminded me of Ishihara. I didn't agree with him on most issues, but the theme song My City Was Gone is still one of my favorite songs.

I think Shimoneta would have worked way better as a short (5-7minutes per episode). I dropped it around episode 5.
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Hiroki not Takuya



Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 2501
PostPosted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 1:08 am Reply with quote
Actar wrote:
Regarding the show, I found it to be highly enjoyable. ... Half the fun is waiting for a second season, I guess. (Anime exclamation)

The character that makes the show for me? Anna.

P.S. Binkan-chan is the true best character of the show!
Can you spot her in every episode?
Yes!!! She got so wound-up over so little, it was great. spoiler[A little surprised she joined the Decency Squad though]To be fair, I liked that the show created a bunch of stand-out funny characters and gave a good amount of time to each. Yes, Agent355 there were logic holes, but one that I got a kick out of was Prefect Tsukimigusa's logic in trying to get rid of toilet paper, ping-pong balls, etc. because they could be used for lewdness. And the bizarre exchange between he/she and Hyouka over the "educational" yaoi was exceptional. I too hope for a second season and a Funi dub...spoiler[Cock-a-doodle pussy!!! Got ya]
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valoon



Joined: 01 Apr 2015
Posts: 172
PostPosted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 8:07 am Reply with quote
Great article! However, the show is not flawless I must say.
It may be in contrary to the premise, but I think the SOX Members should be more open to this topic and not freak out and beat the main character when they see him having a boner like it's seen in the opening, since that destroys the whole show for me. We could also see it in the last few episodes...
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kameoosama



Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 48
PostPosted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 10:02 am Reply with quote
WashuTakahashi wrote:
12skippy21 wrote:
On the subject I actually agree with blocking porn by default on computers as it does not show genuine sex. Too much of it is OTT, certainly funny but not titallating (mostly it is written for men rather than women, not all men are into bukkake) and as adults entering a password is hardly the end of the world.


OOORRRR you could be a smart adult and block/password protect those sites if you have children you don't want to see it instead of inconveniencing everyone else.


The real problem here is that third-party programs to block objectional material are kind of terrible. They have poor compatibility, can't keep up with the massive number of new porn sites that pop up every day, often will block non-pornographic sites that offend the creators of the software politically (like planned parenthood is a common target, or LGBTQ resources for teens,) can sometimes break in such a way that it keeps that machine from getting on the internet at all, it just keeps going on.
What really needs to happen is to require people who deal in adult materials to either stay in a certain TLD or require them to put a meta-tag in their pages so browser developers can make it easy to effectively block all this stuff without stupid blacklist software or trying to force it off the internet entirely.
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Hiroki not Takuya



Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 2501
PostPosted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 10:39 am Reply with quote
Good luck with the TLD idea. While .xxx, .sex, etc. are already available, pornography is a business and said merchants will likely get lawyers to keep on the .com domain since they get the most exposure there and have been on it since the internet's inception. The same goes for meta-tags, they simply don't want to have thier exposure limited. The sad fact is that groups supporting "internet freedom" have placed pornographers along with gambling interests and others above US or even international law. The genie is out of the bottle, so I think individual blocking software (maybe a service?) is the only effective way to keep pornography away from kids. Cue Avenue Q song...

Last edited by Hiroki not Takuya on Thu Oct 29, 2015 11:09 am; edited 1 time in total
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kameoosama



Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 48
PostPosted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 11:06 am Reply with quote
Hiroki not Takuya wrote:
Good luck with the TLD idea. While .xxx, .sex, etc. are already available, pornography is a business and said merchants will likely get lawyers to keep on the .com domain since they get the most exposure there and have been on it since the internet's inception. The same goes for meta-tags, they simply don't want to have thier exposure limited. Cue Avenue Q song...


Yep. Just because something should happen or makes the most sense doesn't mean it'll happen. I mean, even before you get to the monetarists poking their nose in, for such a measure to work you basically need a UN accord where each country agrees to have similar legislation. Which, given the way the UN works, would probably happen like 3 years after the heat-death of the universe.

Still, I'm very pro-porn and I think giving parents and people who don't want to see porn right now an easy way to filter it out would benefit the porn industry in the long run so I'd love to see something like that.
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Scamp



Joined: 30 Mar 2008
Posts: 97
PostPosted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 2:57 pm Reply with quote
Hi! I wrote this piece. Hope people liked it. Bit of a weird show to come to such a defiant defense for but hey I felt it deserved it.

teferi wrote:
GoldenPincers wrote:
Nice thread. I hadn't thought about it that far, but it's pretty true with how the society of show is dystopia. There are some exaggerations, sure, but it works because it's a comedy, and it works pretty damn well. I had a lot of laughs.

Quote:
And it's being adapted by J.C. Staff, arguably the leader in rubbish light novel adaptations, with almighty gems such as Aria the Scarlet Ammo.

That is so not true. J.C. Staff IS one the better studios for adapting LNs; Hidan no Aria wasn't even a bad adaptation, I've read the novel and the anime follows well. But alright; whatever floats your boat.


Kind of confusing since arguably the first rubbish LN adaptation they've done in a while was Shimoneta. Whatever message they were trying to get across was just obscured by a bunch of penis jokes. It was fun for what it was but trying to imply it's making some sort of deep social commentary is stretching things. It was more like they used their social commentary as an excuse to be as crude as possible as opposed to using that crudeness to drive a message.


Maybe I'm being a bit harsh on current JC Staff. Although I'll stand by saying Aria was absolute garbage and at the time it came out it was a perfect symbol of why that LN material was bad. Flat-chested girl falls on main character's face from the sky in opening minutes, followed by a string of horrible animation and bad jokes. But granted that was a few years ago now and JC Staff have quietly upped their game since then.

On topic, I would say Shimoneta was the opposite to what you're suggesting. They used their LN-style setting to inject social commentary into a genre that would be severely harmed by the introduction of more laws like the Youth Ordinance Bill. Call it stealth messaging to an audience that such laws would seriously affect (although it's hardly very stealthy about it). I can see where you're coming from though, and this is particularly clear in the two awful filler episodes, which are exactly what you describe. That's why I suggest skipping them entirely.
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Fronzel



Joined: 11 Sep 2003
Posts: 1906
PostPosted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 6:30 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
For those of us living in our liberal progressive walled communities, a scene in which a school is driven mad by video footage of flies having sex is ridiculous.

You're wrong about this; lots of schools these days are filled with people who are driven mad by seeing or hearing things they don't like and don't understand. These people tend to demand censorship rather than fight it, though.
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 6:42 pm Reply with quote
In the past couples had lots of kids because:
1) they needed the extra hands to work on farms and the new fledgling factories. and:
2) a family of 10 would most likely lose half or more of their brood to desease, or accident before their 5th. birthday.
There already is a "regulated "internet on this planet. and it lives in China.

Here's a true story about a man and woman who lived in the West Country of England. That's an area between Bath, Summerset, and Cornwall. They were married shortly after the end of WW1 and managed to somehow avoid the Spanish Flu pandemic. They were Methodists. A few years had pasted after their wedding and they still had no children. So on the advice of a friend the man convinced his wife to go see the GP (General Practitioner, or Doctor) together. Whilst there and after the usual examinations the doctor asked them how often they had intercourse. The two looked at the doctor confused and asked "what was intercourse?" They actually did not know that they had to phyically perform copulation in order to produce a child. They actually thought God would somehow make her pregnant through simple prayer, because that was what they were tought by their chaple minister. No one would dare speak about how someone received a baby, and no one even dreamed of sex education in schools, in the entire community. The doctor gave them a government approved guide pamphlet about how to become parents with step by step instructions. They went on to have two daughters. At the time of this couple's interview for this documentary about the history of Sex In Britain they were celebrating their 80th. wedding anniversary both nearly 100 years old.
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HaruhiToy



Joined: 15 Apr 2008
Posts: 4118
PostPosted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 9:18 pm Reply with quote
Mohawk52 wrote:
They actually did not know that they had to phyically perform copulation in order to produce a child.

This story was more common than you might think for Victorian England. I recall from Patrick O'Brian's Gene Aubrey novels that his wife, Sophie, had only learned about how babies were made from "rude personal experience." (As a sailor from childhood Aubrey was actually quite experienced.) You can find many more literary depictions of this situation.
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Whis-pur



Joined: 26 Jul 2015
Posts: 130
PostPosted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 9:31 pm Reply with quote
How is this cyberpunk? Dystopian I can see, futuristic, sci-fi, and what nots I can also see, but cyberpunk? Please help...
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mangamuscle



Joined: 23 Apr 2006
Posts: 2658
Location: Mexico
PostPosted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 9:49 pm Reply with quote
@Mohawk52

You seem to forget that not everybody owned a nice piece of land to cultivate and before there was an industrial revolution in need of cheap labor, families still had 10+ children for a very simple reason, social security (in the number of children). You might say that japan has a nice modern pension system for the elderly provided by the goverment, but that will not last, I dare to say that the day cancer is cured for good (hopefully in the next five years or less) will be the straw the broke the camels back of said system for the japanese elderly. So even if they manage to rediscover the simple systems of birth control that humanity had passed for generations by mouth, there would still be a long term incentive to keep pumping those spermatozoa Anime hyper

Whis-pur wrote:
How is this cyberpunk? Dystopian I can see, futuristic, sci-fi, and what nots I can also see, but cyberpunk? Please help...


They might not look like much, but the holo-monitors and the computers they are connected to inside wristbands (that probably use the heat of the body to function) are still far away from nowadays technology. The other element to define it as cyberpunk (as for the wikipedia) is "a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order." and I think Shimoneta fits the bill.
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