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INTEREST: U.S. State Department Includes Japan's 'Unfettered' Access to Animated Porn in Human Right


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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 6:30 am Reply with quote
bs3311 wrote:
@zrnzle500

thanks for not blowing my statements out of proportion.

zrnzle500 wrote:


Some would take issue with your dismissal of LGBT as not a legitimate issue,


Its more of a questionable issue. For a country that follows the left, they haven't gone as far as LGBT extremes. And yes there can be issues with that, but I see some people blow them out of proportion. Plus there is little nuance in said cases compared to the prison or minority reports. Its just, "Oh, this and that occurred. NGO is answering stuff. NEXT". Though people can look at the government and assume it relates to the people. But majority of japanese folk approve of same sex marriage. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-29/majority-of-japanese-support-same-sex-marriage-poll-shows

And the feminism line is a very dangerous tightrope to wiggle around with. 1, just because there are not enough women or transgendered people in the work force or in high elected positions does not mean the work force or political groups are anti women or LBGT. You don't hire someone depending on their genitalia. That is regressive thinking. You hire them for the quality of work they do. More grounded reasons could be the employers not able to handle women on pregnancy care for work, or early retirement with the first one being mentioned as a case in the report. Plus not any lgbt/feminism issue. But I can see in a business perspective on companies not having a minimum number employees with disabilities or even some women if I read correctly. 1st point I already mentioned for women but disabled also requires investment and services that are expensive just for a few people, that It would be best to just pay the fine and not have to put in so much work on a few employees in a system that sounds less about equality and more legit sexist or discriminatory by writing in your check list on how many people of a specific sex, disability or skin tone you need to not pay a fine or get benefits.

So yeah, its a questionable issue imo. Not denying that its a reasonable issue, but want to cool down the flames and have a calm mind.

Quote:
Even the relevant section isn't all about child porn. Most deals with exploitation of actual minor children not fictional child porn.


Yes, but they seemed legit depending on my own observation as I mentioned about everything besides a few LGBT and the child pornography material needing to be taken attention. Plus its real people.


Thank you for clarifying your position. It certainly did seem like you were dismissing LGBT issues as illegitimate by saying everything else was legitimate. As to majority of my post, it seemed you were describing the report as raising legitimate issues but mostly moralistic BS focusing on child porn.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14773
PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 7:16 am Reply with quote
octopodpie wrote:

Readers also appear to be focusing on the "sexually explicit cartoons, comics, and video games" part and not the beginning of the sentence which is "unfettered availability."

While the State Department's wording might imply a moral judgment about the content, the report's actual problem is that they believe there are no legal restrictions in place to access said content; i.e. minors can view/read/play it.


Some Japanese are already taking the initiative to their own hands:

Sakai city launches initiative to cover up adult magazines at convenience stores


Nice Tea wrote:

My reaction as a french guy to this article about U.S pointing out depiction of abuse of children in japanese "medias/fiction" ?

Clean your own ass before worrying about someone else's ass.


So, does that mean a country should take care of its own racism problem before worrying about another country's racism problem? If so, Apartheid would still be existing to this day.

People could multitask and do both.


Stuart Smith wrote:

There's been no proof of a correlation between the two. In fact, there's evidence to suggest the opposite given Japan has a much lower problem with child molestation than countries that do have a much stricter law on depicting sexualization in media. All we can say is despite being the only nation that really puts out loli/shota hentai, they're one of the lowest when it comes to actual children being exploited.


As a Japanese bud is wont to say: that's because what's illegal there is legal here (in Japan)! Laughing

Seriously, for some things that are considered abuse in other countries, Japan may consider to be acceptable, ergo not an exploitation.

Take domestic abuse for instance - some domestic abuse in other countries can be considered merely a "family matter" in Japan, and thus social workers and the police are sometimes limited about what they can do since they are hamstrung by the laws.

In enjo kosai (compensated dating) in particular, for the longest time until the laws were tightened not too long ago, the establishments can be violating the law and thus illegal, but the johns themselves are not and thus not considered illegal and not arrested.


leafy sea dragon wrote:

And you show a bunch of 50-somethings a Hatsune Miku music video, and all that'll happen is them being confused as to why that skirt is so short.


Fine Bros: "Elders React to Vocaloids!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHhluDhVtjU

Let's just say, "tart" was used. Laughing
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Holo Wolfgod



Joined: 09 Jan 2015
Posts: 90
PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 8:39 am Reply with quote
it's not America without fundy loons spouting stuff like this...
aren't moral guardians fun?
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zensunni



Joined: 05 Mar 2010
Posts: 1294
PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 9:26 am Reply with quote
mgosdin wrote:
<sigh> Pot, Kettle, here we go again. <sigh>

Mark Gosdin

Well, yeah... I don't know the statistics of actual child abuse in Japan, but I used to assist a researcher studying child abuse here in the US and we're definitely the pot in that equation. At a party once, after a few beers, she made the statement that, statistically speaking, the US doesn't seem to care about the abuse (sexual or otherwise) of women or children, based on the percentage of reported cases that see convictions or even arrests.

Not that it makes Japan's issues any better. However, similar to the way violence in video games is frequently harped on by people trying to appear to care about crime, hentai and other forms of "pretend porn" will always draw the attention of those who wish to give the appearance of caring while not doing anything to solve real problems.

As an analogy, compare this to the way politicians criticize the space program's funding. It is one of those high profile, do-nothing, go-to targets. People THINK the space program gets a huge amount of money, and taken out of context, it does. However, when you look at it as a percentage of the overall US budget, it is beyond tiny. Less than one-half of one percent. But it is high profile and when people hear that their congressman wants to cut NASA's budget they think he/she is fiscally responsible and that is a plus for his/her reelection campaign, when in reality it would do nothing in terms of actually balancing the budget or decreasing the deficit. (Not to mention potential damage to the advances in technology that the space program brings along with it.) Criticizing non-live-action media depictions of children is a similar do-nothing target. It does nothing to decrease actual child pornography or child abuse. It only makes it look like you care.

Things like this always remind me of a comment posted by an Australian back in the late nineties in the comment section of an article about the Monica Lewinsky scandal with President Clinton. To paraphrase: "Thank GOD we got the criminals and not the puritans!"
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encrypted12345



Joined: 25 Jan 2012
Posts: 718
PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 10:27 am Reply with quote
Japan has issues (like the mentioned enjo kosai, train molestations, an abnormally high suicide rate, and maybe racism) but cartoon porn isn't one of them.

Even if it were a violation, it certainly isn't a human rights one.
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 02 May 2011
Posts: 2946
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 11:17 am Reply with quote
Agent355 wrote:
I read the whole thread, and no one answered whether the State Department issues a human right report of the United States.


Based on the links I provided on the first page of this thread and in the article, it doesn't appear that the U.S. is in the drop-down menu. So at this point, I'd surmise that U.S. Department does not write a report evaluating the U.S.

http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/humanrightsreport/#wrapper

China has since issued a rebuttal citing U.S. gun violence:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/14/china-us-gun-violence-critical-human-rights-report
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Kikaioh



Joined: 01 Jun 2009
Posts: 1205
Location: Antarctica
PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 1:12 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
Fictional or not, the large amount of sexually suggestive material involving tweens and teenagers means anime and manga will never again be mainstream in the United States. I daresay that modern anime and manga is downright embarrassing and I have to be careful to show people what they're like.


Back in the 90's, the mainstream complaint about anime seemed to be that it was either "too violent", or featured too much "adult content". Nowadays though, it seems to have trended a lot more specifically towards "underage girls", and I can understand how fans might be embarrassed by that, considering how many shows seem to fetishize young and even childish-looking girls these days (it's saturated the industry to the point that some people don't even realize it's happening, if some of my past conversations on the forum are any indication).
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casualfan



Joined: 24 Jul 2012
Posts: 333
PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 1:19 pm Reply with quote
This kind of report just makes me laugh. Nothing but waste of taxpayer's money. It won't accomplish anything other than makes other nations despising US even more. At the end of the day fix your problems first before complaining about anybody else's then there will be a chance of others would actually listen. Basic logic 101 there.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14773
PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 2:45 pm Reply with quote
casualfan wrote:

At the end of the day fix your problems first before complaining about anybody else's then there will be a chance of others would actually listen.


There would be NO chance since there would be NO way any country to fix completely any problem.

I already put forth the issue of Apartheid. If countries waited to fix their racism problems first, then Apartheid would exist to this day and Nelson Mandela would had died in prison. Apartheid ended in large part because countries who have racism problems themselves nevertheless banded together to boycott and put pressure on South Africa to change its ways if it doesn't want to be isolated in the world.

The real world doesn't work that way. Pragmatism over theoretical.
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Agent355



Joined: 12 Dec 2008
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Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready...
PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 3:51 pm Reply with quote
I found this article on Cracked of all places, but it's very interesting and is relevant to this discussion. Five Ways We Misunderstand Pedophilia (and make it worse)

Here are some of the relevant bits:

Quote:
2
There Are Supposedly Victimless Forms of Child Pornography ... But the Law Has No Idea How to Deal With Them

So what about when someone draws or digitally renders child pornography? That's ... still pretty fucked up, if you ask us. But should it be illegal? "Well," you might say, "That all comes down to whether or not it results in kids getting hurt -- for instance, does it encourage pedophiles to go after real kids, when they tire of the porn?"

Good question! That's precisely the kind of data the world would love to have, if only anyone was able to collect it. There is some evidence from the Czech Republic that an increased availability of child pornography leads to a drop in actual child abuse. But that's far from settled. As a result, so is the law -- the USA made "simulated" child porn illegal back in 1996, but the Supreme Court struck down that law in 2002. Then a new law was passed in 2008, then part of it was struck down, and now exists in a nebulous legal gray area in which it depends on the laws of your particular state.

Even the two experts we talked to disagreed. David Prescott, the therapist, did not recommend porn for abstaining pedophiles:

"The most important thing ... reasonable people can disagree, my thinking is, 'I'm sorry, that's too close' -- it's a little like saying, 'I'm going to use a drug that'll kill me in ten years, rather than in five years.' 'I am suffering from a terrible situation, and to stop myself is to stay as far away as possible. I cannot look at any images of children being abused. I need to understand ... I'm always going to feel a tingle of arousal at children.' It's not fair, but life is unfair to lots of people."

Meanwhile, Dr. Cantor says:
"... the science is pretty neutral. We're never going to have a scientific answer to an ethical question. Both hypotheses are reasonable. I have to take my scientific hat off for a second -- I'm an old fashioned, 'first do no harm' kinda guy. I don't like banning things if I have no evidence that it causes harm."

Our pedophile sources reported varying ways of dealing with their urges without possessing hard drives full of pornography. The question, "What do you think of child porn?" itself was fairly frightening to them:

Y: "I find a lot of fictional stories online that are very good. That's a very dangerous question to ask, to be honest ..."

E: "... from what I gather, a fair number of our 400-plus pedophiles in the support group have struggled with CP going cold turkey, but drawn back again, relapsing."

"CP," by the way, was their preferred way of referencing child pornography without (presumably) alerting the NSA
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Ambimunch



Joined: 30 Aug 2012
Posts: 2012
PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 4:56 pm Reply with quote
Is it that time of the year again? Time for me to use my annual phrase: fudge off USA!
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SilverTalon01



Joined: 02 Apr 2012
Posts: 2403
PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 5:33 pm Reply with quote
Agent355 wrote:
I found this article on Cracked of all places, but it's very interesting and is relevant to this discussion. Five Ways We Misunderstand Pedophilia (and make it worse)


Actually that was interesting. Personally, I found #3 to be the most interesting.

Quote:
Dr. James Cantor is one of -- if not the -- world's leading scientists on a wildly under-studied subject: the brains of pedophiles:

Yeah, about those MRI experiments -- he and his team have successfully identified physical differences in the brain matter of pedophiles, and demonstrated that being into kids isn't a choice, or necessarily the result of abuse.


So basically, science has proven that it is just a sexual orientation people are born with (like any other sexual orientation). Following that, and we should absolutely still take all measures to protect children, shouldn't we tone down how much we demonize someone for being born with a sexual orientation? And if it is something a person is born with, sexual conversion doesn't sound plausible so wouldn't it be better to just allow them to talk openly with therapists to try to get help not acting on it? Seems like some of those mandatory reporting of people therapists don't consider a threat (mentioned in point #1 in the link) would get in the way of that.
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 5:46 pm Reply with quote
Hence: The US government should distribute child pornography in the form of manga as medication for pedophiles. Since these people don't choose to be into kids, then drawn/fictional kids are the way they can get off without harming anybody else. Hence, a society where pedophile manga is allowed is strictly better than one where it is not.

In the West pedophiles are chemically castrated under the law. Too bad for then, its a punishment for being born that way?

Japanese culture is more advanced than Western culture in many ways. One of these superior elements is the development of pedophile porn without actually harming any children. The US government shouldn't try to prosecute cultures that are different but learn from then, specially in this case when the cultural difference when a foreign cultural element is superior and should be mimicked instead of demonized.
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SilverTalon01



Joined: 02 Apr 2012
Posts: 2403
PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 5:54 pm Reply with quote
Jose Cruz wrote:
Hence, a society where pedophile manga is allowed is strictly better than one where it is not.


I'd say that is a very questionable assertion because that implies there is no superior solution. On the other hand, unless a drawing is done as a likeness of a real person (ANN had an article about a case in Japan where that was the case), I don't really see how any real people would actually be harmed.
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Adamanto



Joined: 07 Aug 2011
Posts: 146
PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 6:57 pm Reply with quote
animefanworried wrote:

I could also mention that in a lot of countries (Like Japan), the extreme violence of American media (Video games, TV, movies...) is considered "embarrassing" as well and reflective of a culture of violence. I don't see Americans in a hurry to "rectify" that.


This is a pretty notable point. The relative attitudes towards sex and violence common in America is treated as a complete laughingstock in most western countries. Yet when did you ever see any official American reports like this addressing the very real problems with this attitude and calling for its change?

This isn't like racism or police brutality: America has problems with both, but both the public in general and the government thinks these issues are terrible and agrees the problem is there.
The American attitude towards sex in media, however, is considered perfectly fine and unproblematic by both, even though most other western countries see it as both infantile and outright damaging to children. A country that holds such widely-agreed-to-be-awful attitudes towards depiction of nudity in pop culture is so so so hilariously unfit to comment on other countries attitudes towards the same.
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