Timothy Baril

There’s no play on words in the title. Japanese porn is simply awful.

Don’t get me wrong, the actresses are often very beautiful, and I’m glad it’s there, because it serves a purpose. Anything to help people get a little more sexual is great, because really, in practicality, they’re repressed here. Self repressed.

But why is the quality of the Japanese pornographic medium worth talking about?

To understand, you must place the work in perspective, like anything else in life. For example, the other day I was in a bookstore in Osaka, and I picked up an American magazine called LowRider. It features American style Asian girls and tricked out cars. On the cover were a couple of models. I turned to a friend and showed her the magazine. I asked her, “What do you notice about the models here that is different than Japanese idols?”

To me, the answer was obvious. The American models were obviously hitting the gym 3-6 times a week, so their bodies where toned, and defined, a hint of musculature under the skin. They sported surgically enhanced breasts that gave them sexually mouth watering proportions. And when they looked at the camera, it was with confidence.

The American girls looked strong and confident, like professional athletes. Their bodies were a combined product of relentless diet and exercise, and unnatural methods which made them physical specimens far above the norm. At least as far as appearances go, but that’s all that really matters because it is a visual medium. These women are the personification of fantasies. But the American version is one that is very aggressive in appearance. This woman is a tiger. To be with her, you’ve got to be a lion, which means she’s unattainable for most guys. The American model challenges male viewers. When you take a look at Japanese models, the visual persona is strikingly different.

When we’re dealing with fantasies, these women are indicative of deep rooted attitudes, desires and behaviors in the society they cater to. So what does it say about a society when you examine the style of their sexuality present in various media, from ads to TV to magazines to pornography?

Japanese women are by nature already very slim. Often too much so. Their regular diet and hours every day spent walking instead of in cars makes it so. So trips to the gym every day aren’t really needed to battle a body into great shape. If you search around only a little bit, it’s easy to find very beautiful women with very beautiful bodies strolling around the big cities. What’s telling is that these women are used directly in porn, without adding gym induced musculature to their bodies.

It would seem that the Japanese man doesn’t want his fantasy women to be physically strong and athletic. This is a naturally aggressive state. It speaks of capability, of a strong mind. This state of physicality required dedication and hard work, and speaks of results.

Japanese men are not physically large. They’re often as slim and bony as Japanese women. They’re also certainly not physically aggressive. So it would be instinctively threatening if a women had a more athletic physique than a man. Embarrassing. Hence, not attractive to most. The same as athletes generally not attracted to obese people, very short men to tall women, etc.

One of the most significant aspects of the culture of Japan, is the constant pressure to limit aggression, to isolate oneself from the crowd around you. There is a complex hierarchy of status and power everywhere you go, where someone is always being subservient to someone else. Walk into a restaurant and the servers grovel and scrape and call you lord this or that. Show up at work the next day and you’re doing the same to your boss.

Everyone except the absolute cream of society is always groveling to someone, and the affect of that on your character is surely to wear it down, and often to weaken or break you. I think the ridiculously large suicide rate in Japan is a result of this behaviour.

So when it comes to fantasy, Japanese men don’t want women who are strong, aggressive, powerful. They want women they themselves can dominate. And that’s the attitude that one finds so prevalent in their pornography. Male dominance.

This isn’t the typical S&M type stuff you see in the West. If you look closely at S&M, it’s actually very controlled. It’s all orchestrated and actually quite safe. To engage in it properly, you have to have a real level of openness and trust with the people involved. In Japanese porn, the male domination leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

It’s not about just control in Japanese porn, but primal domination. Rape fantasies are by far the most common scenes acted out.

Male actors are not the huge, muscles rippling kind you see in American porn. That would intimidate the male viewers as much as strong women. Japanese male porn stars are built like regular guys. The girls are beautiful examples of girls with regular bodies. But, and not just in rape fantasy settings, the women are very subservient, quiet, and used. Used.

Sex is not a two way street in Japan. It’s about men finding gratification. That’s all. The porn reflects daily life.

I hate the porn here.

Another Note:
At a party at my place, two Japanese girls picked up a Playboy and began to scan images of the girls within. Massive breasts, air brushed bodies, I thought I knew for sure what these super slim, small breasted girls were going to point out. I was wrong. One of the girls tilted her head to the side and mumbled with a puzzled expression:
“They’re smiling?”

Please, someone change the way women are portrayed and used in sexual media in Japan. It’s just not right. At least not in this kind of volume. Or monopoly of the market.