Re: Possible Japanese Censorship Law
I wrote too much while replying to tj han’s comments on my previous post about this issue, so I decided to make another one.
Once again, I would like to stress that I am not a lolicon. I am disgusted by loliporn. I am losing a lot of credentials as an anti-loli activist on the rizon IRC network by arguing this case, but it’s a matter of principle at stake here.
In his last comment, he compared my argument that thoughts should not be made criminal to the education system, so I shall continue from there.
Regarding Education
Education is a different thing. If this ban was about limiting the access of pornographic material to children, then I’m all for it. I do agree that children without proper supervision can be influenced by media. That is part of education.
It can be seen this way. Children lack the maturity to determine what is ultimately good and bad for themselves and thus cannot be held responsible for their actions. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the adults to guide them and a failure to do so is a failure on grown-ups’ part. This is education.
On the other hand, a grown-up is fully responsible for his/her own actions. The government is not be responsible for and should not interfere with the actions of an adult citizen, unless such actions bring about harm to other individuals and requires the intervention of the legal system to resolve.
The Arguments
Basically the argument for banning lolicon art are as follow:
- Loliporn could possibly/probably cause people (who did not have such intentions previously) to commit crimes.
- Even if it doesn’t, it’s a bad influence for society.
- No harm will come from banning it.
- It is abnormal.
- It goes against nature.
What I am saying is:
- I don’t think so.
- The majority has no right to enforce its definition of whether a concept or an idea is good or bad on the minority as long as the idea itself causes no harm to others. Being offended is not the same as being harmed. A lot of people are offended by homosexuality, but that does not provide enough justification for a ban on it.
- Art, freedom of expression, individual rights.
- People are different. Any minority group is, by definition, abnormal.
- By most definition, homosexuality goes against human nature.
I suppose my argument is largely based on my belief, taken from personal observations, that loliporn does not breed paedophiles. I firmly believe that such a drastic ban should only be considered if a direct link between the two can be proven.
Prejudice
It’s tragic for freedom of expression when concepts can be censored for being speculated to cause harm, despite a lack of evidence needed to prove a cause-and-effect relationship.
If this isn’t an obvious case of prejudgement, I don’t know what is. And if you are going to prejudge ideas to be harmful, why stop here? Why does regular porn escape the fury of prejudice? I can similarly speculate that porn is turning millions of adult males into serial rapists who objectify women.
I think it is emotional and irrational for people to react differently to loliporn. It is completely understandable to react strongly against real child porn because children were harmed in the making of it. Children are harmed by the actual act itself. In the case of loliporn and regular porn however, no one is harmed by the act itself. The only harm is their supposed negative influences on the actions of their viewers. Yet the dangers of loliporn is but a perceived one that has never been proven, exactly as in the case of regular porn.
Pulling statistics out of my ass, I’d say that 90% of adult males on the internet surf porn. That’s surely creating a lot of rapists if I may apply the exact same arguments against loliporn. Yet the very same people who surf adult porn somehow get to sling mud at lolicons from a moral high ground. Assuming that porn does turn people into rapists, are those people trying to tell me that regular rapists are better than paedophilic rapists?
Stop Prejudging!
Admit it, people are reacting so harshly against loliporn simply because it is different from their own preferences. They are sickened by the idea that some people are turned on by drawings of underage sex, meanwhile they masturbate to pictures of women in submissive poses, because that is somehow more socially acceptable. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you, I am disgusted by loliporn too. However, it is the right of the people to be different from what we believe to be “natural” and “right”, as long as such difference is not criminal in itself.
The only argument against loliporn that remains is that being turned on by drawings of young girls is “abnormal”. Then again, so is homosexuality.
Real child porn is bad. But if you want to argue that loliporn consisting of lifeless drawings is worse than regular porn consisting of willing pornstars, then you are a hypocrite.
Disclaimer
I will change my stance the day someone proves to me that loliporn turns people into child molesters. However, I do not believe that such a case can be established without similarly proving that regular porn turns people into rapists. It will be interesting to see how people react differently to the two even when such evidence is present. Sweet, sweet hypocrisy.
May 23rd, 2006 at 8:20 pm
well-put indeed.
my personal thoughts are: that loli-art should be view with the same mindset as when one looks at the statue of David and that speculative activities ought to be kept restricted to the floor area of the stock exchange.
just my two cents worth.
May 23rd, 2006 at 9:47 pm
Hard to put a long thing in a tiny box. So I’ll keep this comment shorter. :)
The funny thing is, I am actually not in support of the ban. But it was just the way you and the commentors above me phrased their discontent that riled me. In particular, people like ANONymous who just jump on the bandwagon and sound every bit the underaged person who would be most affected by censorship. Their argument was along the lines of “Loliporn satisfies people’s fantasies so they wont have to release their pent-up sexual tensions by raping the kids.”
Tonbo: The subject here is loliporn,not loliart. It’s a bit different from the statue of David, unless of course your version of David is him in his youth sucking big middle aged man’s cock.
Anyway, back to DM’s post. You will surely ace your GP at this rate. However, I do not agree that the government should not be responsible for adults. If there’s a social problem, who solves it? You expect all the problematic adults to suddenly band together and turn over a new leaf? No it’s not possible. The government has the duty to prevent social problems from getting out of hand and censorship is one of the ways they can do it and this is by targetting the growing population.
I suppose you hate the Singapore government since they do such bans regularly. For them, it’s “Ban first and see if there are good effects. If yes, continue ban. If no, continue anyway because the people are used to it.” And guess what, crime is low, the streets are safe. So bans do have an effect, contrary to what previous commentors have said.
In a democratic society anyway, the majority DO have the right to make the minority their slaves.
I just take a very realistic view point on this whole argument. Idealism sounds good on paper doesn’t it? I wonder why people are arresting innocent adults for smoking pot, taking heroin? After all, they don’t harm anyone but themselves. Higher crime rates resulting from drug use is a main drive in the outlaw of such narcotics. Similarly, the rising incidence of lolicrime in Japan is driving the seeking of a solution. Sure, the root of the problem may not be loliporn, but is it a coincidence that the rise of its popularity matches the rising lolicrime rates? As you said, since it cannot be ascertained, there goes the saying, literally translated, “Rather kill wrong than miss kill.”
Who’ll miss loliporn? Artists and lolicons. Who’ll miss regular porn? 90% of males. Who decides what’s right? The majority of course. It may not be “morally right” to smash small opposition into oblivion but is anything “morally right” in this world?
I understand your POV but it’s just weak in the face of effective governing. If I was a lawmaker faced with the choice of POSSIBLY reducing lolicrime and SURELY incurring the wrath of advocates of free expression, lolicons and artists, it’s pretty obvious what choice I’ll make. What makes this choice even easier is that it’s not a major economic force like regular porn, ciggies, video games etc.
Finally, I applaud the effort you took to write about this. But I look down on the goons who blindly follow you and are so quick to raise stupid examples like “bus driver rape covered woman” which merely highlight the fact that we need these type of people locked up to prevent them from spreading their genes of ignorance.
It has been tough arguing against something I believe in but I did it for the fun of it and to diss the abovementioned goons.
May 23rd, 2006 at 10:23 pm
You’ve also left out the fact that part of the problem with a law like this is that lolis don’t even really look like actual people, so how exactly are you supposed to attach an age to them, and thus how are you supposed to be banning them? I’m also reminded of something like Dokuro-chan where Dokuro’s sister shows up and everyone is like “Ooh, Dokuro’s big sister is so hot? How old are you?” and she’s like “I just turned 8″.
However, I’m also wondering if the whole loli aesthetic thing is manufactured, rather than “people just have different kinks from other people”. I remember reading how the recent (in like the last 10 years or so) sexualization of children in the US was basically manufactured in order to create desires in the population that can only be sated through buying things, whether it’s buying 10 year olds booty shorts, teenagers buying sexually explicit rap albums, or adults buying “teen” porn like Barely Legal.
May 23rd, 2006 at 11:19 pm
Am I disgusted by loli? Not a lot, unless it’s babies or it looks like babies they’re fucking. Otherwise, I’m cool with it.
Though, this is from a country who can’t really be bothered with enforcing their censorship rule…much. I won’t be too surprised if it actually gets enforced. Comiket will get hit pretty bad, and so would all the other Japanese conventions. I don’t know if they actually want to destroy the otaku or not, but well, to me, it’s just art. I mean, collectors pay millions for a painting of a naked lady and no one screams pervert. Unless we are living in a hypocritical world…
May 23rd, 2006 at 11:27 pm
Naked woman and naked pre-pubescent girl getting screwed by giant adult cocks and tentacles. Spot the difference.
May 23rd, 2006 at 11:33 pm
The people against this censorship law… I wonder what they would feel if Da Capo II got dropped by the banstick.
May 23rd, 2006 at 11:34 pm
I’ll admt the latter is more disgusting, but…
Since when did we involve Cthulu into all this? And where are the drunken sailors ready to counter this threat?
May 23rd, 2006 at 11:53 pm
Well, we have to look at the root of the problem.
It’s like this. Japan has the lowest population growth in the world (we’re only slightly higher, but that’d besides the point.). And why? Because you to- Errr…Because Japan has some pretty screwed up work ethics. The education system only serves to groom officeworkers, and those who finally get a degree get to slave in a cubicle. The rest fall into the cracks, becoming otaku, bad girls, what have you. And because of this, most Japanese men rarely get close to females and will never know how it is to truly love a female. Of course, the female is to blame too, for setting too high demands on the male. Since they can’t level the playing field(the females in Japan prefer the foreigners, LOL), they resort to going for other, younger fish. Otaku too, fall into the same trap, not just because they rarely meet females, but also, they feel thay can’t compete in the same playing field, unless it’s a female otaku we’re talking about. The Japanese doujinmakers, porn directors, and people related in the business of making child/loliporn capitalize on this. And that’s how Japan got to this stage.
I might add that this is one of the reasons why I’m liable to actually travel to Japan and knock some heads about, but that’s beside the point. Until you treat the root of the problem, you cannot solve it. Laws like this only serves to either curb the problem for the short-term, or to further aggravate the problem by driving the problem underground.
May 23rd, 2006 at 11:55 pm
I wonder if I’ll be able to keep it short what I’m about to write *g*
Aside from the points DarkMirage has pointed out and the fact that I pretty much despise all censorship, there is something I’d like to point out: Lolicon is art. You know, pictures. Getting aroused by pictures of little girls does not mean you get aroused by seeing real girls. The same works for yuri and yaoi. I like yuri a lot while I find lesbians kissing in real world not half as sexy as drawn, maybe because I think french kisses can’t look sexy in general. I dislike yaoi but from a lot of girls I know who love yaoi and think it’s hot, but are /really/ disgusted by real men having sex. (Who knows why…) Another example: I heard a friend of mine saying “In manga, guys look so damn hot in black, skinny shirts, while in real world, they never look good.” This is the huge difference between the attractivity of pictures and real people.
Most of you have assumed that every lolicon (or most of them) has a tendency to want to rape little girls deep in their minds. However, I believe there are a lot of people reading loli hentai but would not and never enjoy sex with real little girls, because they’d find it disgusting.
Personally, I find 95% of the lolicon out there disgusting… but it can look very well done. Same goes for fashion and books, by the way.
May 24th, 2006 at 12:13 am
Hmmm, I guess I do defer from you in terms of my belief about censorship then, tj han.
I think that Singapore is a safe place because of our harsh laws and tough punishments and I fully support measures like capital punishment. But censorship does not help. Even if it did help at one point in the past, it’s not going to in the future. The internet changes everything.
Either you let information flow through the means you control, or it is going to flow through the internet anyway. If you forcely cut yourself off from the global information network, it will only serve to weaken Singapore’s competitiveness in the long run. Just look at what isolation did to N. Korea.
Let’s not even talk about Singapore. Pornography of all form is technically outlawed anyway. Not that the law has been any help.
Anyway, that was slightly out of the point. My point is that harsh punishments for crimes is one thing, but censoring information and ideas because they might supposedly possibly theoractically maybe lead to crimes being committed is another thing.
Where do you draw the line before we get to 1984?
A firm legal system with harsh punishments works. I agree. But censorship contributes little to it.
You can stop reading here now. Everything below is unrelated to loliporn and the discussion at hand.
On a unrelated note, it is also my personal belief that a system like Singapore’s can only achieve stability in very rare cases. The most important factor for success is the small size of the country. I don’t believe that it will work for any other country. But when it does manage to achieve stability, it is certainly a better system than most Western liberal nations.
The good thing about Western democracy is not that it is effective or efficient, but that it gives people the illusion that they have power and as such prevent discontent from building up to the point of social unrest. Thus, they are relateively stable.
A totalitarian government is obviously more efficient, but any failures will be blamed sorely upon the government and any discontent focused at it. Thus there’s a good chance that a revolution will come eventually. Or if the government brutally suppresses the people, the country’s economy is going to ruins eventually. Thus, they are unstable imo.
Singapore, on the other hand, is tiny. There just isn’t any room to form any armed insurgency. Arms control can be easily achieved in such a tiny area. The government, unlike most totalitarian government, did not commit the fatal mistake of greed and corruption and instead makes the country prosperous thanks to the efficiency of governance in such a system. Thus there is little discontent (at least none serious enough) amongst the citizens (rich compared to many other countries) and at the same time little means of rebeling against the government. And in such a system, you can have an effective and harsh legal system without the political backlash from the people. Once you show that this legal system is effective, they will even be supportive of it. However, in a democracy, you probably don’t get a chance to try out any harsh punishments in the first place…
But it’s just not going to work for any other countries. It also depends heavily on the governing body. Whereas the stupidity of the masses stay pretty much constant for a democracy’s lifetime, any system of governance that is centered around a few ruling elites can lead to disastrous consequences if anyone unworthy of ruling gains power. The Singaporean education system is supposed to solve this, but I’m not sure if the current stability will last beyond the current generation of Lee…
GAH. I should go to sleep and stop ranting. Just ignore me. I’m lacking sleep.
May 24th, 2006 at 12:18 am
On yeah one more thing…
tj han,
Just to rephrase my opinions on censorship… perhaps it won’t be right to say that I am completely against censorship, but I am against censorship of ideas that are not proven harmful.
Whereas you are saying that as long as there’s a chance for harm, an idea can be censored to prevent possible harm.
I guess that’s our main difference.
But I do have to point out that laws should be based on the principal of innocent until proven guilty. I rather let murderers escape justice due to lack of evidence than to risk convicting innocent people. I’m not sure if this comparison is completely valid, but I lack the concentration to consider it any further.
May 24th, 2006 at 1:46 am
This is good GP practice eh? To keep myself concise, i tried not to bring in too many issues, such as the accessiblity of internet. You’ve gone too far into Spore governmental issues which I cannot counter through a comment box at 2 am.
Actually, I realised that we shouldn’t even be talking about censorship, because the original issue was an outright ban. Sorry for the mistake. This discussion has spiralled totally out of direction.
If it’s an outright ban on source material production, no matter how good the delivery system is, the accessiblity of said material will surely decrease and even if they go underground, there will no longer be professional standard art. And then the main aim of eradicating loliconism would be successful.
So it will work, if the lawmakers do their job.
Damn I really wanted the trollish guys who commented on the bus rape to respond too.
And finally, I would like to lol at DmChrso’s Japan. It’s quite the common urban problem, with rising costs, high stress levels etc resulting in low birthrates. Nothing special about Japan. In fact I would like to point out that I myself do not want any kids. Unless they look like Chika-chan.
May 24th, 2006 at 4:37 am
As tj han, there are many countries with lower birth rates than even Japan. This is especially a problem in Europe. In Sweden the spend a lot of money on family programs, but the birthrate is still horrible. I am not sure it correlates with living costs though, poor countries have the most kids after all.
As countries gets richer, perceptions change, and priorities shift. This is mostly to blame for fallen birthrates, not just swinger girls, lolimoe culture, pedophiles, and otakus. Otakus are but a small portion of that changing attitude.
May 24th, 2006 at 7:20 am
Ban, censorship, whatever.
Lolicon is still being targeted for being perceived as dangerous, whether it actually is or isn’t. Such prejudice in law-making should not be an acceptable.
If a particular race or religion is found to cause a significant percentage of crimes in a country, is the government going to enforce discriminatory laws just in case? Of course not.
Of course not. The fact that crimes are committed by members of a particular demography does not make the the rest of them criminals.
Most terrorists in the modern world are Muslims. Arguably you can say that without Islam, there can be no Islamic fundalmentalists. But you can’t just ban the whole group to be safe than sorry. Acts of terrorism deserve punishments, but not the fact that one is Muslim. The law should only target criminal acts.
May 24th, 2006 at 7:48 am
“Lolicon is still being targeted for being perceived as dangerous, whether it actually is or isn’t. Such prejudice in law-making should not be an acceptable.”
Your sentence here just succinctly summarises all that huge Diebuster Spacealien sized text above.
For your next para, Hitler and Falungong come to mind but that’s another story.
May 24th, 2006 at 8:35 am
I am against the banning of it because it does not harm anyone. Might someone who watches this go out and act it out? Maybe, but the same could be said for things like cop killing games and action movies. Will people go out and act that out? Maybe, but that doesn’t mean it should be banned. Most people can, in fact, watch something and not act out on that desire.
May 24th, 2006 at 9:39 am
Well said. I’ve always view lolicon the same as gay and lesbian – sexuality that does not conform to societal expectation and meets the irks of society because of deviation to the norm. Yea there’s child rapist that view lolicon material, I’m sure. But how does they reflect the whole group? That, IMO, is a bunch of horseshit. Few bad apples should not be representational of the entire group. If we’re to judge the whole by the few extreme ones, then we’ll have some pretty stupid comparsion, as you mentioned – Video game kills people, and retarded shits like that.
May 24th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
Whatever I think, I’m going to agree with DarkMirage. And instead of banning, I think a age restriction would be good.
May 24th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
Except that loliporn, and porn in general, already has a age restriction on them.
Anyway, yeah I suck at expressing my thoughts without digressing and over expanding every point…
gah.
May 24th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
to much to read so to cut it short… There’s a religious-type-fanatical zealot around.
June 10th, 2006 at 2:11 am
I guess this is how a non-standardised issue(sexual preferences) fits into an imperfect society(current laws, democracy, blah blah) mascarading as an idealist society.
Wish everyone would just initiate Human Instrumentality Project and commit seppuku.
September 12th, 2006 at 1:43 am
im asgisent the anti loliporn haters you may be disgusted but alot other like it
lolicon or and any other henati is more like a term of art its animated drawn in mywhere i think your going agaisent art work
September 14th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
well
i dont really care about loliporn in any great fashion
when i was first introduced to it i felt quite offended; but after growing to know a few people who were entranced by it, and loli in general i came to the conclusion that they were at worst emotionally retarted… but then again here we are disgussing something totally dumb on the internet ~_~
but the important issue here is censorship in any form.
that i am definately and catagorically against!
November 15th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
At first I’m not against loli art, but that concept comprehend a huge amount of expressions that goes from merely drawing children in anime/manga/game to hardcore porn that displays children being molested and tortured by adults, sick material created by sick people. This material is freely sold in japanese stores and abundant in the Web. These are the ones that is righ to restrain, but the law, when it comes, will take down all the manifestations without discerning, even the innocent ones. This will be a great blow in the freedom of expression of many people who was not creating child porn. All forthcoming repression we will thank to companies that do not orientate some self censorship to authors who cross the line by creating hardcore material.
November 17th, 2006 at 1:32 am
If no one objects, I will throw in my two cents. Society has, and always will, restrict people’s freedom. To say otherwise is rather foolish, for humans to coexist it must be that some actions are restricted. This will depend on what a particular society deems are undesirable. Thus, if a society decides that rape is undesirable it will bane all material which condones rape. Because, it is reasonable to assume that material which condones rape, regardless of medium, will increase the likelihood rape occurring. It is reasonable to assume that the same would hold true regarding sex with persons under the age of 18. So, it seems perfectly reasonable that a society which does not encourage sex between minors and adults would bane lolicon material. That is simply my personal opinion.
December 8th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
I agree with everything you said,basically everything you said is similar to my opinions.Except I like loli,than again I sorts of of H not just loli.True you may not like loli,but I respect you for not judging people for liking what they like.I have seen loli and have never been attracted to children,that is just disgusting.A lot of you people anger me,but whatever this is only my opinion though.
June 7th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
I think that ppl that hate anime porn are stupid! it is harmless unless u r talking about hentai rape, tentical sex, and children rape which i hate and it is disturbing and should be baned.Hentai porn is for ppl that have an alot of imagination which anime, and hentai supplies. I dont care if ppl hate hentai, but dont be callin it abnormal because u have no right to dis something that u have no clue about. Simple put. My opinion is that no one has the right to judge a nother person cuz of their interests.
July 29th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
If you are not be able to be tolerant, it’s normal that you aren’t tolerated.
If you atempt at our liberties, we atempt at your liberties!!
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January 13th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
I’d just like to toss out some info regarding this argument to DarkMirage. I came upon this little debate and realized something had to be said about the freedom of minorities in Singapore in general: They do not exist. How in the hell do you expect an art form you love to be protected when if I was to step foot in Singapore I’d be arrested for being a homosexual?
No. You fail. Singapore is not a free country it is in a horrible, horrible state and doesn’t deserve to even be considered humane in the lowest form. Every governmental leader in Singapore hates me for what I am, naturally, and that is disgusting. Also this author’s logic that homosexuality is unnatural is incorrect and blatantly homophobic.
You people can all rot, you bunch of hateful bigots. If you want to protect your precious lolicon then first get rid of section 377A and prove your nation really is worthy of being called civilized. Because I don’t see it.