# Chinese/Japanese incestuous relations?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 8, 2001, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503 "2001-08-08T21:51:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/1 "2001-08-08T21:51:12Z")
This morning on the way to work, I was changing through radio stations and heard a few minutes of the local broadcast of the Howard Stern Show. Apparently they were fielding calls from listeners to discuss their incestuous experiences. A caller came on the air to talk about how, when he was a boy growing up in Beijing, his mother used to fellate him as a reward for doing well in school. He said that this occurred about once a month from as far back as he could remember, until he moved to the USA at about age 13. The caller claimed that this was a common practise in China. Others on the show claimed to have heard/read something about this also occurring in Japan, in a sense trying to lend credibility to this guy’s claim. The rationale was that this “release” allowed the boys to maintain proper focus on schoolwork.
Does this have any basis in reality? It just seems to “shock jock” to be true. I am even a bit embarrassed just to post this as a question, sorry in advance if anyone is offended by the nature of this question.
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### Author:  [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2001, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/2 "2001-08-08T23:09:04Z")
I did a quick search on Google but couldn’t find anything relevent… assuming this isn’t a put on, which considering the source it very well may be… I find it hard to believe that this is a “common” practice in Asia and nobody is aware of it.
Also, it’s pretty disturbing to think that this actually could go on in the first place. Why would mothers do this? It doesn’t make any sense to a westerner like me and sounds like 50’s anti-communist propaganda to me…
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### Author:  [@PublicBlast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PublicBlast)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/3 "2001-08-09T00:31:23Z")
OK, everyone, on 3:
1…2…3…
**EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!**
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### Author:  [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/4 "2001-08-09T00:36:14Z")
People will believe anything. When I lived in Japan 1991-1994, I remember ONE newspaper report that basically said what you’re talking about.
I live/have lived in China for a long time, and this is not something that I have ever heard of.
I’m sure if you dug around the US, certainly cases of this type of behavior could be found. That is not to say that this is common or accepted practice in the US or other countries including Japan and China.
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### Author:  [@Chas.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chas.E)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/5 "2001-08-09T00:41:30Z")
I should be astonished that someone would actually believe an anonymous phone caller on the Stern show. But I’m not.
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### Author:  [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/6 "2001-08-09T00:51:38Z")
Trust me, I am a fair-minded skeptic, not even prone to listening to the Howard Stern Show. However, I would like to find out more about this, with hope that the data supports refutation.
But its clear that there are a large number of people out there who take whatever they hear in the media without inclination to search out the truth. And I am curious to find out about this alleged newspaper report and from whence it comes.
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### Author:  [@Chas.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chas.E)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/7 "2001-08-09T00:55:33Z")
Well, let me rephrase that. I am astonished that someone would give ANY credence to a caller on the Stern show, especially someone boasting about having sex with their mother.
I’ve heard this sort of story many times in my years of studying Japanese culture and language, it comes up almost as often as the old UL about Japanese women’s vaginal orifices being horizontal instead of vertical. It’s just another piece of racial propaganda.
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### Author:  [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/8 "2001-08-09T01:08:09Z")
The caller claimed he was Chinese, not Japanese, but I am guessing it’s more claptrap from the same tree. Its the first time I had heard anything like this, so I didn’t have any idea where this could come from.
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### Author:  [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/9 "2001-08-09T01:20:11Z")
I can see where a UL might have originated about Japan. Take the following factors:
1. Many Japanese marriages are at least partly arranged.
2. The majority of Japanese wives are homemakers, or at most have part-time jobs.
3. Middle-class workers tend to have very long commutes - 1.5 or 2 hours each way is _common_.
4. Japanese culture is very child-focused. The good side is that Japanese children don’t seem to suffer from the same loneliness and anomie common in the U.S. The bad side is that the pressure to succeed can become all-consuming.
5. It’s still pretty acceptable for married Japanese men to have girlfriends (or occasionally, boyfriends), provided it’s kept officially hidden from neighbors and children.
Add that all together, and the stereotypical middle-class family includes a mother who expends most of her energy on her children, since the husband is often physically (if not emotionally) absent. We can see how someone might stretch this to include incest.
Which is slanderous, but when has that stopped anybody?
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/10 "2001-08-09T01:41:18Z")
Not sure it’s really an urban legend.
I’m trying to remember the source but I _do_ remember reading in some article, somewhere in some quasi-historical scholarly context that, in the past, it was common practice for Chinese nannys to hold an infant boy’s member in their mouth to get them to calm down and stop crying (I don’t know if you call it “fellatio” in that non-sexual context).
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### Author:  [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/11 "2001-08-09T02:52:58Z")
-
-
- Racial and ethnic discrimination is not accepted on these boards, and it would be silly to accept so outrageous a rumor as fact, and culturally insensitive to dismiss it as simple perversion even if it is true.
- As such, if anybody can steer me towards a Chinese or Japanese nanny in the St Louis area, say, mid-twenties, slim but with big hooters, I shall investigate the matter fully as soon as possible. - MC
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### Author:  [@onnanohito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/onnanohito)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/12 "2001-08-09T03:26:40Z")
[http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/06a1\_incest.html](http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/06a1_incest.html)
> [@](#):
>
> Western observers even today often notice that Japanese mothers still masturbate their young children during the day in public and at night in the family bed - in order, they say, “to put them to sleep.”(156) The average Japanese today sleeps with his or her children until the children are ten or fifteen years old,"(157) - one recent Japanese study found daughters still sleeping with their fathers over 20 percent of the time even after age sixteen.(158) Even when the home contains a dozen rooms or more, parents and grandparents feel “lonely” if they sleep apart from
> the children in the family, and therefore go to bed with some child every night (the mean age in one study of children sleeping alone is 12.7 years).(159) Since so many families still practice what is termed dakine co-sleeping - with the parent or grandparent sleeping while physically embracing the child, a practice said to be beneficial to the health of the adult"(160) - and since most Japanese parents still regularly have sexual in-tercourse while the child is in bed with them,(161) one wonders how scholars can continue to maintain that nothing sexual usually happens to the Japanese child in the family bed, particularly since none have yet ask-ed the children themselves about their sexual experiences.
how’s that for your UL…
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### Author:  [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/13 "2001-08-09T05:05:16Z")
Well, I skimmed the article in the link you provided. Personally, I think its bunk, irrespective of the citations given. So does my sister-in-law who is Japanese\*, however, she also doesn’t object to being referred to as “Oriental” so maybe she doesn’t know what shes talking about.
Al.
\*From Japan I mean, as opposed to being Canadian born with Japanese heritage.
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### Author:  [@Gozu\_Tashoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu_Tashoya)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/14 "2001-08-09T12:14:10Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by ShibbOleth \*
> \*\*The caller claimed he was Chinese, not Japanese, but I am guessing it’s more claptrap from the same tree. Its the first time I had heard anything like this, so I didn’t have any idea where this could come from. \*\*
FWIW, the last time I heard this, it was Japanese and, at the time, the supposed rationale behind it was not the “release” per se, but that it was an attempt by the mother to help her son ignore the distraction of girls. There was a thread on another MB that pretty much decided that it was all a bunch of rubbish, but I’ve long since forgotten where that was. Sorry.
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### Author:  [@PublicBlast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PublicBlast)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/15 "2001-08-09T13:51:39Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by astro \*
> \*\*Not sure it’s really an urban legend.
>
> I’m trying to remember the source but I _do_ remember reading in some article, somewhere in some quasi-historical scholarly context that, in the past, it was common practice for Chinese nannys to hold an infant boy’s member in their mouth to get them to calm down and stop crying (I don’t know if you call it “fellatio” in that non-sexual context). \*\*
A couple years ago, there was a criminal case where an Afghani immigrant in the U.S. was brought up on child molestation charges because he was kissing his infant son’s penis to calm him down. At the trial, experts testified that this is common practice in Afghanistan. I believe he was found not guilty, but I don’t remember.
This was the best cite I could find, but I do remember this being in the news: [http://www.lectlaw.com/tsex.htm](http://www.lectlaw.com/tsex.htm).
If it happens in Afghanistan, why not anywhere else? Although, I must reiterate my earlier EWWWWWWWWWWW. When I have kids, I’ll just give 'em candy and videogames when they’re good, thankyouverymuch.
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### Author:  [@Arken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arken)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/16 "2001-08-09T14:02:22Z")
Jeez, AkashJ, as a substitute for kissing their penises, you rot their teeth and their brains?
I’m callin’ social services!
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### Author:  [@Allworthy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Allworthy)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/17 "2001-08-09T14:46:16Z")
After a bit of insomnia-fueled Googling, I believe I have a few answers. According to [this page](http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/intersections/issue5/mackie_review.html), there was an early 80’s/late 90’s Japanese media scare regarding mother-son incest which was picked up by the Western tabloids. The story was appropriated by Japan-bashers, who opined that the incest was an indication of the dehumanizing effects of the crushingly competitive educational system and the mandatory absence of the husband from family life. [This anti-Japan thread](http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a91b80e5fd0.htm) on the Free Repubic was met with appropriate skepticism, at least as far as the hummers from Mom were concerned. An apparently reliable source for reports of mother-son incest in Japan and the surrounding mythology is _The Japanese Woman : Traditional Image and Changing Reality_ by Sumiko Iwao.
The author of the psychohistory article (emphasis on _psycho_) cited by **onnanohito** is an unusually prolific crackpot with a buffed-up Web presence. He believes that the vast majority of children worldwide (and throughout history) are victims of incest. He remains a proponent of the theory of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA), which has been quite thoroughly debunked. See [ReligiousTolerance.org](http://www.religioustolerance.org/sra.htm)on SRA or [an FBI report](http://www.rickross.com/reference/satanism1.html).
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### Author:  [@Chas.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chas.E)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/18 "2001-08-09T15:41:11Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by onnanohito \*
> \*\*how’s that for your UL… \*\*
The “psychohistory” guy is a well-known crackpot amongst Asian Studies circles, and you should know that his opinions are particularly despised by scholars. Ignore his ranting.
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### Author:  [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/19 "2001-08-09T16:04:35Z")
-
-
- I’m still waiting on that Chinese/Japanese nanny, anybody? Anybody?
~
-maybe, also add “with poor eyesight”… - MC
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### Author:  [@ninja\_rydr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ninja_rydr)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2001, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-japanese-incestuous-relations/75503/20 "2001-08-09T16:37:57Z")
I heard the shoe also. True or not it was funny to listen to. Did anyone hear the fught with Gary Busey?
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