Hacker News Reader

Comment by Iv | Hacker News Reader

People tend to generalize Akihabara to the rest of dull, boring Japan.

There is one (or two?) underwear vendor machine... in a sex shop. Someone was comparing this myth to the idea that in the US you can have your car washed with stripper boobs, which I am sure you can... somewhere...

The loli genre is frowned upon, but there is a slightly different view of pedophilia here: instead of being seen as psychopaths like in the west, they see them more as immature men-child stuck on highschool fantasies. And let's be frank: Japan is far behind when it comes to fight the rape culture.

'They' in your last sentence is a subset of the otaku culture, what you would now call incels in the west. It is creepy as hell, but it is a fringe minority.

View on HN

> Japan is far behind when it comes to fight the rape culture.

By which metric? According to the first statistic I found online, it's far below most western countries in rates of rape (of course, statistics might be reflective of underreporting instead of actual occurrence of a crime).

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/rape-statistics-b...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics

> statistics might be reflective of underreporting instead of actual occurrence of a crime

I wouldn't trust (as in compare globally) any crime stat from Japan, as they have a 99% conviction rate [0]. This obviously cannot be achieved unless you set up your process to make sure only safe cases enter the systems. And guess what especially occurs in private areas, without witnesses leading to he-said-she-said?

A culture were you don't want to bring shame to your family doesn't help either.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate#Japan

> of course, statistics might be reflective of underreporting instead of actual occurrence of a crime

There you go. Almost all of my female friends who I am close enough to hear about that have been assaulted in their past and they have not reported it (and blame themselves for it of course).

On this map, most countries you will see who are below 5.0 probably have some serious under-reporting.

While I disagree that Japan is dull or boring, this is a pretty good post.

Outside of large cities it is fairly true that Japan can be dull or boring.

This can be true for any country.

Sure so Japan is basically nothing special unless you talk about Kanto or Kansai.

Dull and boring in a far-off land can also be quite interesting. Much of human experience is relative.

The regulators allow for the toddler sex but somehow normal sex is censored, all this at a national level by regulators chosen by normal citizens. It is the tip of the iceberg reflecting a problem.

> in the US you can have your car washed with stripper boobs

That is also a reflection of a problem, at least adults are involved.

I can't believe this needs saying, but drawn characters aren't real.

But people who watch such animations are real, and the choice of what to watch tells a lot about them.

The ethnographic research into the consumers of the people who watch such animations would disagree with you; for them, the more unrealistic the representation is, the more desirable. See the work of Patrick Galbraith and Mark McLelland, who are both respected researchers in Japanese culture studies. It is not clear that a desire for the cartoon form extends to the desire for real child pornography, just as it is not clear that playing violent video games extends to the desire to kill people in real life, or reading erotic Harry Potter fanfiction extends to wanting to haves sex with Daniel Radcliffe.

>more unrealistic

Some* booru owners complained that realistic 3d tags gained a significant share and views in recent years. I don’t remember if they posted exact percentages.

* not going to post it here, but it’s not hard to figure out

Unrealism doesn't necessarily mean just form of the character in the image, it can also mean what's shown in the image - is something unrealistic happening? Nevertheless, I don't doubt that realism is a significant aspect for some people, but those aren't the same people as the lolicon community, and the people who really do believe in the "2D > 3D" meme. I'd also wager that a good portion of recent stuff tagged with 3d isn't loli or shota, and could be in part explained by the popularity of SFM/Blender porn of 3D games like Overwatch.

In any case, it stands to reason that people who would enjoy real child pornography would also enjoy simulated porn (and likely, the more realistic (3D) the better), but it doesn't therefore follow that the majority of people who enjoy the less realistic content (which by far outstrips the 3D content) have the same tastes.

Assuming it does say something about a persons real life preferences (and I'm not sure that it does) I'd much rather they spend their time in front of a computer watching cartoons than out in the world causing harm. I figure it's best to give anyone cursed with desires they can't morally satisfy any outlet we can give them for those feelings.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com