LDP (Japan), under ECPAT Guidance, Proposes Lolicon Ban Again

The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP), Japan's strongest right-wing political party, has once again again introduced legislation to criminalize the possession of “child pornography” And once again it is trying to sweep manga, anime and other fictional representations into the category of prohibited material, reports Sankaku Complex.

Last December, the LDP, with support from Shin Komeito, the authoritarian rightist party, and the DPJ, the ruling centre-left party, DPJ, was successful in passing a law within   Tokyo metropolis prohibiting the sale to minors of any cartoons which “improperly glorifies or promotes illegal sexual activity.” According to Sankaku Complex, the definition has been narrowed for the time being to apply to “works depicting women enjoying being raped or incest as being fun,” but it is widely expected throughout the industry that it will eventually include all sexual activity of cartoon characters described as being under the age of 18.

Although the “Tokyo ban,” as the law came to be known, did not actually prevent anything from being published, the effect of the law is the same. By forcing mainstream, non-adult manga into adult sections, the Tokyo ban essentially kills the market for that material. This is because the mainstream titles are aimed at adolescents as well as young adults, the shops are unlikely to stock manga that isn't completely hardcore in their adult sections and many stores simply don't have an adult section. Publishers were well aware of the effect the law would have and didn't wait until July (2011), the effective date of the law, to act. As the Sankaku Complex has reported, some publishers cancelled publication plans for material they feared might be segregated under the ban or instructed their artists not to depict any cartoon character as being less than 18 years of age or engaged in rape or incest.  (See Sankaku Complex reports for December 13, 2010, and April 22, May 17, and July 1, 2011.)

To be sure, the Tokyo ban left the “lolicon” genre, aimed at adults, completely unmolested. Lolicon works are already segregated into adults-only areas. Lolicon is the target of the new proposal. The road will not be easy for the LDP, however. Prior to the passage of the Tokyo ban last December, the DPJ consistently blocked attempts to criminalize the possession of child pornography (defined as pornographic images of  children, not pornographic fantasies in cartoons and drawings) as contrary to civil liberties and resisted including cartoons under the definition of child pornography. It may be for this reason that the DPJ rejected a previous version of the Tokyo ban which targeted “virtual” sexual conduct with minors, but ended up accepting the potentially much broader phrase, “promoting illegal or immoral sexual activity,” that is in the bill as passed.

If that was the DPJ's motive, then the party has properly analyzed the methods of the propagandists who cry “virtual child pornography” when they see fictional creations, knowing that people will only hear the "child pornography” part and accept virtually any restriction on it. (Think of how often Western propagandists claim that "virtual child pornography” looks just like the real thing and may even BE the real thing.) Undoubtedly they are aware that the LDP has taken up the agenda of ECPAT, a moral crusading organization which embodies the worst tendencies of the religious right and social purity feminists to manipulate governments into censoring what they don't like. ECPAT's propaganda about Japan states that

Japanese law on child pornography is not in line with international legal standards. The most serious problem is that Japanese law fails to punish virtual child pornography and the simple possession of child pornography (possession without intention to distribute).

(Source: ECPAT, “Global monitoring. status of action against commercial sexual exploitation of children,” 2d edition, 2011, p. 26/Japan)

However, the first part of of ECPAT's claim – that Japan's failure to ban “virtual child pornography” flouts international standards – is a pure lie. ECPAT says that such a ban is required by the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (“OPSC”), signed (according to ECPAT) by 143 countries. (The OPSC is part of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (“CRC”), but since it is “optional” it needs to be signed separately. According to ECPAT, 193 countries have ratified the CRC.) The OPSC, however, contains only this definition of child pornography in Article 2(c):

Child pornography means any representation, by whatever means, of a child engaged in real or simulated explicit sexual activities or any representation of the sexual parts of a child for primarily sexual purposes.

Nothing there suggests that cartoons qualify, since a cartoon character is not a child. ECPAT, however, makes no such distinction, but refers to cartoons (manga, anime and games) as “child abuse materials” and “child sex abuse materials” and “virtual child pornography” – a perfect slide to mislead people into believing that children are being harmed. ECPAT claims that it is “a key player in addressing child sex abuse materials,” i.e., attempts to ban manga, and the LDP is their tool. (ECPAT also lies in their Annual Report for 2010 about what it is advocating in Japan, claiming that it is only pushing for the OPSC definition.)

What ECPAT and other moral crusaders refuse to accept is that there is no reason to ban cartoons of any kind. (Of course they refuse to accept it: moral crusading and policing are big business. If you were going to earn money that way, you would want to make the scope of the targeted materials as broad as possible.) Creating child pornography is banned everywhere because (ostensibly) it involves the sexual misuse of minors. (Let's stop calling 17-year-olds “children,” shall we?) The arguments used by the cartoon censors are threefold: (1) that the material could be used to seduce children, (2) that the material causes people to go out and have sex with children, and (3) (the most bizarre claim of all) that by violating cartoon figures, the material violates the human rights of children. For the first claim there is no evidence at all and, in any event, alcohol, adult pornography and money will always provide far greater incentives to minors to engage in illicit sex. As for reason number two, there is no known causal link between looking at cartoons and having sex with minors. For that matter, there isn't even a causal link between looking at child pornography and having sex with minors. The third claim is based on an intentional misconstruction of human rights – one that puts thought control above the human rights of people to create and enjoy artistic expression of whatever they see fit without any concrete harm to others. Why thought control? The cartoon of a fictional child being raped is alleged to be an affront to “all children,” violating the “right” of the child not to be thought about as a sexual object. Or maybe it's that those who embrace the “human rights” argument know from reading Pinnocchio that cartoon figures and the like can come to life, and so violating a cartoon child who possesses that latent possibility violates its rights as a future living being. Of course all these reasons are just excuses, attempts to hide the real motive for banning cartoon child sex: the “ICK” factor. Cartoons of underage characters having sex or being raped and abused? Ick. Let's ban it.

In the meantime, lolicon grows and grows (although not like Pinnocchio's nose, based on lies). It grows because there are hundreds of artists who find expression in lolicon fantasies and an uncountable number of people who enjoy those artists' creations, legions of otaku who keep those fantasies to themselves. Indeed, one might well argue that the depictions in lolicon are so outlandish, unrealistic, outrageous or a combination thereof, that there is really very little similarity to real life. In lolicon, art doesn't imitate life, nor does life imitate art.

A note on the artwork: from the top, the artists are Fractal Underground Studio, Slip Bounds, Hikari Hayashibara (Momonga Club) and Sakuyoshi Makoto. The first 2 were found on PIXIV; the Hayashibara is from a compilation of her work published in Japan in 2008 and now sold as a download; and the Makoto is from a color graphics (CG) set available for purchase online. All artists portray hard core sex, none of which is portrayed here. These images are legal under U.S. law because they don't fit the definition of "sexual conduct" in Miller v. California (the case that defines what "obscenity" is).