# Rape in Hentai... a big fat WTF? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 2, 2004, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148 "2004-02-02T04:38:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![badmana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@badmana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badmana)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/21 "2004-02-02T06:54:44Z")
Heh, I cheated by skimming over it and re-read it after I posted that one paragraph. Lots of interesting data and I’m convinced the study is legit. Kinda disturbing…K-12 students getting sex ed since the 70s means my parents went through sex ed. Kinda weird 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Darkhold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/22 "2004-02-02T07:04:28Z")
One of the most annoying things is how girls that resist the ‘rapes’ are only more viciously brutalized and shamed while girls that don’t usually end up having huge orgasms and coming back for more. One wonders if this contributes to the low cases of reported rapes in Japan? The shame of admiting they were raped coupled with the idea it’s their fault is something I’ve enounted those feelings in real life with American girls that have been taught for years it had nothing to do with them yet still are ashamed and think it’s their faut. In the hentai side of Japan it’s routinely shown as the opposite. (I’m not honestly venturing that as a theory just something that’s crossed my mind from time to time) ---
**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/23 "2004-02-02T07:13:45Z")
Where’s table 1 for the linked article? ---
**Author:** ![Lucki\_Chaarms](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lucki\_Chaarms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucki_Chaarms)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/24 "2004-02-02T07:27:18Z")
Just had to pop in and say that I saw Bible Black IN A THEATER!! Once a week the local theater shows an anime movie, but it had certainly never been hentai when I’d gone before. The evening’s host was at a loss for words when introducing the movie. I think he just mumbled something like “So here’s this week’s movie. If this is your thing, great, if not… uh… sorry.” Like 2 minutes in to the first episode, there’s a scene where a female teacher uses black magic to grow an enormous penis and rape a female student. It gets more and more intense from there, with a demonic/magical sex scene every few minutes. It started off slightly uncomfortable, but as it went on nobody could hold back their laughter any more. “Minase… my ass! Your cock is penetrating my ass!” You try not laughing at dialogue like that! LC ---
**Author:** ![capacitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/25 "2004-02-02T07:46:37Z")
All I have to say is that Bible Black is relatively tame compared to otehr anime. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/26 "2004-02-02T08:02:25Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Unlike Japan, if you commit murder in the US, we’ll _kill_ your ass, and yet we still have murderers. Japan’s prisons may be worse, but our prisons aren’t exactly garden patches either, and we still have rape. So no, I don’t suppose it has anything to do with Japanese prisons being hell on earth. Just a nitpicky hijack, but Japan has the death penalty as well, and makes pretty frequent use of it. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/27 "2004-02-02T13:32:27Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Unlike Japan, if you commit murder in the US, we’ll _kill_ your ass,. Not unlike Japan. Death penaty does exist in Japan. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/28 "2004-02-02T13:54:50Z")
> [@Sublight](#): > > Just a nitpicky hijack, but Japan has the death penalty as well, and makes pretty frequent use of it. This may be a dreadful continuation of the same hijack, and no cite here, but I heard on a radio documentary a few years ago that what distinguishes crime places like Japan and Singapore from the West is not the severity of punishment, but the high detection rate for crime. The documentary proposed that there was an inverse corellation between detection rate and crime rate. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/29 "2004-02-02T15:24:38Z")
> [@cainxinth](#): > > Before I make my rebuttal would someone tell me if pedophillia or beastiality are featured in hentai? As mentioned before, Lolicon (“Engrish” for _Lolita Complex_) is pervasive in much Japanese porn (hentai) AND regular exploitation-media, be it live-action(videos), model photography(magazines), Anime(cartoons), Manga(print comics), or computer game. In live-action porn, of course, it will be models aged 18-21 wearing the uniform of middle-school girls and acting all giggly. In Anime/Manga/PCGames, as previously described, it’s often barely-pubescent characters. Technically this really is not pedo but Hebephilia – desire for young but sexually viable teens. Though the age-of-porn-employment in Japan is 18, the everyday-consenting-sex AOC is lower than in most of the USA – so maybe it’s that an adult lusting at a 14-year-old may be seen as immature, but not necessarily criminally depraved. Even in non-porn – there is a tolerance for a subtle (or sometimes not so subtle) sexualization of underage characters in mainstream productions, e.g. Evangelion’s 14-year-olds (Studio Gainax has licensed nude calendars, figurines, and computer strip-mahjong :eek: games featuring Rei and Asuka. Being toons, they don’t really exist, so the only one getting expoited is the buying fanboy) Out-and-out _pedophilia_, meaning explicitly sexual portrayal of _children_, is to be mostly found “ghettoized” within a subset of Doujinshi (“Underground Comix”) in both print and e- format… Often the author will try to weasel out by casting the character as an android, alien or fairy. Sure. As to Bestiality, other than mythological monsters, you can spot it in an ocassional mainstream-porn H-Manga such as the US-released _Princess of Darkness_ or _Voice of Submission_, as isolated vignettes, not much different from what you may run into in Western porn. But that falls more into the whole “taboo topic” side, together with the incest, hermaphrodites (seems these dudes really like their shemales!), nuns, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Bubba\_Ray](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Bubba\_Ray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bubba_Ray)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/30 "2004-02-02T15:46:03Z")
> [@Tentacle Monster](#): > > Google for Waita Uziga sometime. I did, I come back slighty disturbed, well done my multilimbed friend. Can’t say I shouldnt have been warned. ---
**Author:** ![Deadly\_Nightlight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Deadly\_Nightlight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deadly_Nightlight)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/31 "2004-02-02T15:57:57Z")
Never watch “Legend of the overfiend” then. _I know its something like Onorushymitshiwa: Legend of the overfiend, but I can’t remember what it is and am too lazy to look it up_ That being said, I have played a few hentai games. All of the characters were in college, but some of them look like they are about 14. ---
**Author:** ![peasea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc79bd/32.png) [@peasea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peasea)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/32 "2004-02-02T16:37:43Z")
Definite nitpick: > [@cainxinth](#): > > hermaphrodites were raping pregnant women She’s not pregnant, nor is the viewer supposed to think she is. I’d explain, but I doubt you want me to. ---
**Author:** ![Tentacle\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba9def/32.png) [@Tentacle\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tentacle_Monster)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/33 "2004-02-02T18:48:07Z")
**Deadly Nightlight** : It’s Urotsukidoji. I’ve never seen it, and I really don’t know why I remembered how to spell it. **Bubba Ray** Only slightly disturbed? :eek: You’ve got a much stronger stomach than I do. But it does illustrate the point that rape isn’t exactly the most disturbing thing portrayed in hentai. Unless you consider rape more disgusting than… well… damn. I just had lunch and don’t really want to think about that. ---
**Author:** ![nevermore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a587f6/32.png) [@nevermore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevermore)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/34 "2004-02-02T20:54:26Z")
To the OP, I’m not sure that rape is actually more prevalent in hentai than in live-action porn, but if it is (and I wouldn’t be at all surprised), I’d guess it’s something to do with the fact that there’s no trauma or degradation in voice-acting a rape scene, as opposed to live-acting it. In other words, I doubt it’s for a lack of American interest. **Darkhold** , you said > [@](#): > > One of the most annoying things is how girls that resist the ‘rapes’ are only more viciously brutalized and shamed while girls that don’t usually end up having huge orgasms and coming back for more. > > One wonders if this contributes to the low cases of reported rapes in Japan? The shame of admiting they were raped coupled with the idea it’s their fault is something I’ve enounted those feelings in real life with American girls that have been taught for years it had nothing to do with them yet still are ashamed and think it’s their faut. In the hentai side of Japan it’s routinely shown as the opposite. (I’m not honestly venturing that as a theory just something that’s crossed my mind from time to time) aaand, I’m not quite sure what you’re saying here. Are you proposing that Japanese females have been conditioned (by hentai pornography??) to feel that resisting = bad and not resisting = better, so, associating going to the police with resisting, they’re discouraged from reporting the crime? Whereas American girls would be more ashamed if they _didn’t_ resist? (Am I following your logic? I don’t want to respond until I’ve got it right) …at any rate, I’ve heard several people who’ve lived in Japan, including a cultural anthropologist, say that the great burden of shame in a reported rape is primarily on the victim there, so I’d imagine that’s a huge factor in the low incidence of reported cases. As for the cultural mentality causing this phenomenon, I can only speculate it’s at least partially to do with the still-deeply-ingrained notion of male dominance in Japan, and perhaps even with the importance of consensus in their society… there is _much_ more emphasis on the group and proportionately less on the individual there, so the one voice disturbing the calm waters is going to be not-subtly resented, and will feel alienated (a very, very bad thing in Japan). Now, **Tentacle Monster** : > [@](#): > > So the Japanese watch/read more porn than we do, of a more graphic nature, and yet there are fewer rapes and sexual assaults. I’ll admit it might not be the “drive-quenching” effect, but there is something majorly different, here. More speculation, of course, but my theory’s that it’s because they’re just a much more sexually open society, due at least in part to the fact that there’s no national religion prohibiting sex before marriage, or ‘sodomy’, or placing really ANY limitations on sex provided it doesn’t violate the rights of another human being. ---
**Author:** ![Darkhold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/35 "2004-02-02T21:43:06Z")
> [@nevermore](#): > > aaand, I’m not quite sure what you’re saying here. Are you proposing that Japanese females have been conditioned (by hentai pornography??) to feel that resisting = bad and not resisting = better, so, associating going to the police with resisting, they’re discouraged from reporting the crime? Whereas American girls would be more ashamed if they didn’t resist? (Am I following your logic? I don’t want to respond until I’ve got it right) Sorry for my rambling post here’s basically what I was saying. Shame and guilt seems to be a universal feeling even by those that have been told all their lives that it’s not their fault for being raped. Even by girls that ‘know’ better they rarely to never report what happened. Japanese porn seems to tell girls it is their fault and they should be ashamed. Especially if they fight back or try to report it that just causes things to get worse for them. That might be a small part of the low rate of reported rapes in Japan. As I said I wasn’t putting it forth as a serious theory with research to back it up. Just something that I wonder about time to time. ---
**Author:** ![MelCthefirst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@MelCthefirst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MelCthefirst)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/36 "2004-02-02T22:53:41Z")
Agree with last two posts - also, rape within marriage is legal in Japan, so women don’t even think of it as ‘rape’ if they are married. ---
**Author:** ![DeaganTheWolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@DeaganTheWolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeaganTheWolf)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/37 "2004-02-02T23:21:48Z")
Easy, easy… Guys, it’s art. Hentai and other erotica provide a way for people to explore the strange and bizzarre in a safe manner. Chances are, the animators and artists are relatively normal sexually, and are merely chasing after the extreme for it’s own sake. True rape, isn’t about sex, it’s about power, the hentai is a fantasy of domination. In fact, since the girls who go along with enjoy it in the end, it’s a total male power trip. “see I told you you wanted it! You were wrong, I was right, aren’t you glad now I didn’t stop?” -type of deal. Same goes for beastiality, necrophilia etc. There may be a few pervs who are INTO that sort of thing for it’s own sake, but the majority is a simple fascination with the bizzarre. Relax, it’s a cartoon. If they were producing homemade films of actual rapes I’d be much more worried. ---
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/38 "2004-02-02T23:24:49Z")
as a friend said to me, it’s not hentai unless the woman is crying. aside from that, it’s a cartoon. noone is hurt in the making of it, so who cares? It’s not teaching anything other than a girl with giant eyes and giant spiky green hair like having sex with multi donged monsters. ---
**Author:** ![kimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f0a364/32.png) [@kimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kimera)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/39 "2004-02-02T23:40:12Z")
> [@Darkhold](#): > > Shame and guilt seems to be a universal feeling even by those that have been told all their lives that it’s not their fault for being raped. Even by girls that ‘know’ better they rarely to never report what happened. Japanese porn seems to tell girls it is their fault and they should be ashamed. Especially if they fight back or try to report it that just causes things to get worse for them. That might be a small part of the low rate of reported rapes in Japan. I’m going to have to agree with this and say that Japan actually has a lot more rape victims than are officially known. For one, I have seen anime and manga (written for girls) where girls are raped and are treated horribly by school mates/neighbors, peers. I have read a few where the girls committed suicide. See Tokyo Babylon, which will be released here soon, for a sad story of a girl raped by gang members who feels she has no choice but to kill herself. But as anime/manga does not reflect Japanese society, I have a few cites: [Seiichi Ota, a lawmaker with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) said “Gang rape shows the people who do it are still vigorous, and that is OK. I think that might make them close to normal.” …Yasuyuki Takai, vice chairman of the Japan Federation of Bar Association’s committee on victim support, said Mr Ota’s remarks were indicative of Japanese society’s passive attitude to rape, which often goes unreported. “It shows that in Japan, rape is not thought of enough as an awful act… Japan’s social views against incidents of rape need to be made more strict,” Mr Takai told the French news agency AFP.]([BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Fury over Japan rape gaffe](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3025240.stm)) [“The case shows that Japanese men, especially young men, are contaminated with a rape myth that a girl who joins a party wants to have sex,” said Satoshi Sugita, a professor who published The Politics of Rape. "Although having sex is totally different from being raped, men strongly believe that the two things are the same. It is because of an ideology that has spread in Japan through pornography, especially adult videos. “About 80 to 90 per cent of male high school students have seen an adult video, whose typical plot is a man raping a woman after having got her drunk.”]([http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/04/1057179159324.html](http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/04/1057179159324.html)) [Uchiyama also made another shocking discovery. Half the suspected rapists aged from 14 to 19 and 48 percent of those in the same age bracket facing charges of indecent assault say they were inspired to commit their sex crime based on what they’d seen in pornographic movies. Adult sex criminals were similarly influenced by adult movies, with 38 percent of suspected rapists and 21 percent of those accused of indecent assault saying they were merely copying what they’d seen on their VCRs.](http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/features/0208/20020829sexcrime.html) [[V]iolence against women in Japan remains largely unreported due to inadequate laws and the failure of police and judicial officials to treat such crimes with the requisite degree of concern. In 1994, for example, only 1,500 rapes were reported in Japan. This under-reporting may be attributable to a six-month period of limitations within which a rape must be reported, as well as the difficulty of securing justice in rape cases. In Japan, a rape victim must show evidence of having resisted the attack. The legal standard of the degree of coercion in sexual assault cases is that the force used must be so extreme as to deprive the victim of the ability to resist. A rapist’s misunderstanding of consent is still accepted as a defence.]([Asian Human Rights Commission - AHRC](http://www.ahrchk.net/hrsolid/mainfile.php/1999vol09no01/788/)) [Decisions not to report sexual assault in Japan](http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/proceedings/27/dussich.pdf) Now, on the flip side, I must admit that I get off on reading comics that feature males raping males. It is rather strange and I don’t understand it myself, especially since male on female rape disturbs me very much. I do not enjoy rape in real life at all (my boyfriend was almost raped) and I think that anyone who tries to rape anyone should be put away for a very long time, but I do find these comics very erotic. I put myself in the place of the victim most of the time too. I do not think that watching/reading things that involve rape make a person more likely to go out and rape unless they are already likely to do so. There are comics that are made for women that feature males involved in romantic relationships with other males. In almost all of these comics (as in most h comics. the proper term is h or ecchi, not hentai) a primary male character is raped. In some of these, as also in H, the victim will eventually come to love his/her rapist, although in most of them, the rapists is the antagnoist who the brave “seme” (top) will save his “uke” (bottom) from. I also have noted that in the male/male comics. (known as yaoi or shounen ai) The relationship between the two main male characters is sometimes violent. BDSM is very popular in a lot of these, although in the last 10 years or so, more light, cute and happier comics are on the market compared to their dark counterparts. Still, I have worked selling these comics before and the ones that feature the rape and bondage sell at a much higher rate than the cute fluffy ones. These are to people in the US, but I imagine the rates in Japan are about the same. I collect various comics and I have a lot of them on my harddrive. Probably the most disturbing one I have is the homosexual, pedephilist, bondage, rape, beastiality one I found. The kid in the comic can not be more than 7. The shocking amount of pedephilistic rape in Japanese comics disturbs me much more than the rape itself. ---
**Author:** ![Darkhold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148/40 "2004-02-02T23:40:42Z")
> [@DeaganTheWolf](#): > > True rape, isn’t about sex, it’s about power, the hentai is a fantasy of domination. In fact, since the girls who go along with enjoy it in the end, it’s a total male power trip. “see I told you you wanted it! You were wrong, I was right, aren’t you glad now I didn’t stop?” -type of deal. And this is an acceptable thing…how? 😛 > [@](#): > > Relax, it’s a cartoon. If they were producing homemade films of actual rapes I’d be much more worried. Well there’s plenty of live action ‘rape’ videos from Japan. Many of them claiming to be the real thing. (with the actors face blurred out the woman screaming and crying while being yelled/laughed at…I assume they are saying fairly degrading stuff but it’s of course Japanese so I have no idea what they are saying) is this less acceptable b/c it’s not a cartoon? Now I’m not a hysterical type that’s claiming that this causes rapes or that the people that routinely jack to it are closet rapists. Just saying it’s weird and creepy how prevalent it is. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-in-hentai-a-big-fat-wtf/227148.md?page=3)