Why hasn’t Japan banned Lolicon Hentai? For that matter, why hasn’t the US?
Please read the answer fully to see how this might harm real children. Skip down to the bold for why this is the case.
Because it would be the epitome of a thought crime? They don’t exist in reality; nobody’s being exploited in producing this content, so the only reason to ban it is because it makes you uncomfortable (in which case, don’t watch it).
You probably live in a society where murder is portrayed as acceptable fiction. Banning loli material wouldn’t be any more different than banning other types of material, as… Well, here’s a quote by a Supreme Court member: “One man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.”
There’s no reason to ban it beyond just making you uncomfortable. And that’s okay; what you consider disgusting is acceptable to someone else and is all purely subjective. No actual children are being exploited here, so what business is it of yours who is watching and buying it? Your heart’s in the right place, but the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
I won’t just explain why it isn’t banned (aside from thoughtcrimes not being cool); I’ll explain why it’s a good thing to be legal.
Why hasn’t Japan banned Lolicon Hentai? For that matter, why hasn’t the US?
Let’s place all that aside for a moment. Let’s just pretend all lolicons are pedos (I’m sure there’s some overlap, much like I’m sure there are FPS/TPS gamers who go on to kill people with guns for fun, even if most gamers don’t enjoy being around real, bullet-riddled bodies). And let’s imagine what happens if you ban this content. All of it is now illegal.
Studies indicate that pornography decreases sexual violence. It provides a safe, harmless outlet for these urges without them… Yeah.
In American prisons, you lock up a bunch of men together, and they don’t have any way of relieving that tension. They can’t see women, and there’s no porn on the inside, so they turn to other men, willing or not…
There was a man (IIRC, he was a registered sex offender before this) who said that his sex doll, which resembled a minor, decreased his urges to go for real children.
So, let’s imagine you have these potential predators with urges towards real children. They haven’t done anything yet and have no reason to in the foreseeable future because they have a safe outlet to direct their urges towards. You take away that outlet, and now those urges have nowhere to go. They rot on the inside, bubbling up…
Some might be capable of controlling themselves, but not all will.
By banning this material, you potentially put children at risk. You have many people with no way to express these urges safely and the chance they might not be capable of controlling themselves around real children.
Some pedos have the restraint not to hurt kids; all the power to them for not ruining a child’s life to get their rocks off… But some don’t have that restraint or may lose it when sexual frustration enters the picture when a harmless alternative is taken away.
So what’s more important? “Protecting real children by giving their potential abusers a safe outlet” or “feeling better about yourself for protecting imaginary people at the risk of letting sexually frustrated pedos wander around with the hope they have the restraint to never act on their impulses…”
I’m all for protecting real children. They must be protected, and preventing potential abusers from being pent up enough to try something is a great way to start… The alternative that I see, which is more worrying, is that your morals are more important to you than protecting actual children from abuse and a lifetime of trauma by preventing the abuse in the first place.
So… What’s more important to you?
Why hasn’t Japan banned Lolicon Hentai? For that matter, why hasn’t the US?
- A. Possession of actual child pornography was only banned in Japan in 2014 (with a one-year grace period to destroy the images). Production and sales were only banned in 1999.
- B. The audience for Lolicon Hentai and shotacon material in Japan is millions. The stuff is sold quite openly. Japan elected not to imprison such a large number of its people inevitably.
- C. It’s not just that children in cartoons are not real.
It’s that their age isn’t real, either. What the hell constitutes a loli? Is it the character’s stated age? Making that schoolgirl a thousand-year-old vampire is a trope in itself already.
Breast size? “Oppai loli” is a thing, and anyway, that’s so ridiculous only an Australian would establish by law a minimum breast size for pornographic material.
Lack of puberty? Lack of fertility?
Most hentai are not drawn to a level of detail that these can be directly depicted; when it is depicted, it is not particularly realistic. There’s already a law requiring that silly nominal censorship of the genitals that would utterly conflict with that level of detail, and no legislator wants to be known as the guy who created the perverse incentive that all lolis must now be depicted pregnant at some point in a comic to prove their fertility.
D. The US Congress has banned “virtual child pornography.” Multiple times. Because of our First Amendment, these bans never hold up under Supreme Court scrutiny (see, for example, Ashcroft v Free Speech Coalition).
There is a current law that hasn’t yet been struck down, passed in the aftermath of Ashcroft, that contains such language. It has never been tested in court. To the best of my knowledge, there is exactly one dude in prison for violating it, and this is because of the usual “scare them into pleading guilty” game.
The same case that decided bans on child pornography is permitted by the First Amendment, New York v. Ferber, also explains why bans on “virtual child pornography” are not permitted by basing the ban on the real thing on the following:
- The theory is that every time the offending depiction is viewed, the “performer” is re-victimized. In a drawing, no performer exists.
- The theory is that in a world in which the prohibition on having sex with children was perfectly enforced, there would be nothing available for the person prospectively shielded by the First Amendment to depict. Drawings need not rely on reality in such a manner.
- The idea that the compelling state interest in preventing children from being exploited is impossible to attain with any degree of effectiveness when there is a legal industry creating demand for the depiction of such actions. A legal market for drawings does not render the production of photographs profitable.
A warning to anyone living in any Anglophone country that is not the United States– you don’t have a First Amendment, nor is the number of Lolicon Hentai consumers high enough for your politicians to tiptoe.
Lolicon Hentai is illegal for you. Google the term sparingly. Non-Anglophone countries vary, but anyplace where English is the primary language that isn’t America, for whatever reason, always bans it.
Is lolicon Hentai (loli) illegal in the United States?
The passing of the PROTECT Act was a response to a Supreme Court decision that found all illustrations and animation pornography were protected under the First Amendment. It protected Lolicon Hentai and Shotacon if it was not deemed obscene.
The court ruled that visual depictions did not contain actual children. Therefore, there were no victims involved. As a result of the ruling, the PROTECT Act claims virtual depicted child pornography could be obscene.
It prohibits the transmission of virtual lolicon Hentai through the internet, transportation across state lines, or compiling many images or films that may indicate distribution.
The Massachusetts criminal code places harsh penalties on child pornography. How harsh depends on the specific situation and charge.
The charges and punishments fall into three categories:
- Possessing child pornography – A first offense receives a fine between $1,000 and $10,000 and up to five years of incarceration in a state prison.
- Distributing child pornography – A first offense receives a fine between $10,000 and $50,000 or three times the financial gain from the crime, whichever is greater, and 10 to 20 years of incarceration in a state prison.
- Producing or involving a child in pornography – A first offense receives a fine between $10,000 and $50,000 and 10 to 20 years of incarceration in a state prison.
Child pornography in Massachusetts defines the crime as any pornography involving a minor or anyone under 18 years old. Whether it is represented in film, sound recordings, magazines, photographs, digital images, or drawings does not matter.
Should lolicon Hentai/lolichan be illegal?
You seem to imply that animated/drawn pornography, including fictional child-like characters/children, promotes pedophilia. It makes sense until you think for about 5 seconds.
People often have the misconception that all pedophiles are child rapists or that pedophilia is a choice. Neither of those is true. The majority of pedophiles recognize their attraction to children as immoral and do their best to stop themselves from hurting any children. However, suppressing something like this can make the attraction stronger, which in turn can lead to the person doing something they regret.
Lolicon Hentai and Shotacon provide a moral alternative for them. No children are hurt or abused in any way during the production of hentai featuring characters who are children, while the opposite is true for actual child pornography.
It is the most optimal way for pedophiles to stay mentally healthy and keep children safe from themselves. There is no reason to ban it. It hurts nobody and benefits some people.
Why does Japan continue to allow Lolicon Hentai to thrive?
It is an incredibly complex question that requires the unpacking of a lot of culturally based assumptions. The first issue to consider is the age of consent. The popular conception is that 18 is a universal norm. Still, even in the USA, the age of consent varies tremendously, with a modal age of 16 and layered federal and state laws. Japan has a similar system, with a national age of consent normally raised by prefectural laws.
The bottom line is that assuming a universal morally or legally agreed age of consent needs to be corrected. The issue is incredibly complex. The next assumption to unpack is regarding pornography. In many more conservative countries, pornography is considered evil and banned or severely restricted, such as in some US states and Muslim countries. I’ve even seen some who consider viewing pornography as equivalent to cheating.
I’m not judging, but in Japan (and many other countries), pornography is quite acceptable. Walk into any convenience store in Japan, and there are pornographic magazines on sale. Pornography is normal and acceptable in Japan—no plain paper covers or hiding it behind the counter.
The final issue to consider is whether it is acceptable to depict naked children. It is unacceptable in some parts of the world, regardless of the context (again, many parts of the USA fall into this category). At the same time, in Europe, there are public statues of naked people, including naked children, and any claim that they were obscene or pornographic would be viewed as utterly ludicrous.
Why hasn’t Japan banned Lolicon Hentai For that matter, why hasn’t the US
In Japan, there are “family onsens” (hot springs) where fully naked mixed bathing is culturally acceptable. Nakedness is viewed completely differently. Now we come to “lolicon Hentai.” Is it “acceptable”? It is becoming less so, and reading Lolicon in public would be creepy (although I have seen older men unashamedly reading porn on public transport).
However, because of the different cultural frameworks around pornography, nakedness, and the age of consent in Japan, it is difficult to make simple judgments about where the line is. The Japanese government recently passed legislation banning pornographic material involving those under 18.
However, it restricted this to photography and video, meaning painting, sculpting, or drawing a nude teenager would still be okay. It may seem odd to draw the line for those from more conservative countries, but it would be a sensible place to draw the line in, for example, most of Europe.
Of course, this opens loopholes that allow the production of fairly explicit drawings of children in sexual positions, and there is an ongoing discussion about how to clamp down on this without accidentally banning famous artistic works such as The David.
Something worth considering is the condemnation of drawings of prepubescent figures. At the same time, in popular pornography, almost all the actors are shaved, both male and female, and the sexualization of a body type can only be characterized as pubescent (six-pack abs are not normal for anyone other than teenagers).
This issue is immensely complex and rooted in culturally based assumptions that make judgments difficult. However, telling any Japanese person that Lolicon was “thriving” in Japan would be utterly horrifying.
Conclusion
Why is the “Lolicon Hentai” genre not banned in Japan? Because the Japanese are not against underage sex? Sound shocking? If you know more about Japanese media and culture.
- First, Japan’s age of consent is 13.
- Second, the marriageable age for females is 16 with parents’ consent.
- Third, one of the most (if not the most) common hentai (anime porn) is about high school girls.
- Fourth, for real porn, child porno was only banned in 2014.
So, unlike the US, Japan is not shy about underage sex. And they are not really against it even. For most of the manga I read, being a virgin in high school is embarrassing. And it is just one reason. Other one?
It may sound like an excuse, but Loli in Japan’s media does not necessarily mean underage. Rather, they are usually high school or even already adults. Unlike the West, Japanese women do not have very big chest compartments. And they may be short too (sometimes only 1.4m or 4.6ft tall, the size of a child).
It is not bad because small stature can be cute in people’s eyes. Most of the time, a Lolicon Hentai is usually young but needs to be developed. And they are regarded as cute. So yes, legal Loli is real in Japan, which is usually the case in the media.
Note: I saw comments saying that fictions are not the same as normal life. Yes, of course, I know about that. No parents would want their children to have sex underage, isn’t it right? Especially Japanese, who I can say is even more traditional and conservative than their East Asian counterpart.
The thing is how fiction is accepted in law and the general populace. See, we are talking about Lolicon Hentai here, a fictional aspect. Europe has different acceptance and regulations, so I talk about the West as the USA for generalization. So, in the USA, there is a strict term for underage sex. I mean, Dead or Alive series, Kasumi’s age has been changed from 16 to 18 years old to be accepted in the West!
It’s not so in Japan. I have seen tons of series that are borderline hentai, series with imply of sex, etc. And it is still for adolescents! So, in Japan, underage sex is more accepted in terms of regulations and fiction. Real life is different, but it is another story, not an explanation for the Lolicon Hentai story.
Why hasn’t Japan banned Lolicon Hentai? For that matter, why hasn’t the US?