In view of the fact that there is a Japanese comic book character named Rapeman (no links provided), I would assume that a long history of extrememly low status for women makes them little more than objects in the eyes of a majority of the male population. Add to this the intense bias towards having male heirs that is so common in many Asian cultures and it is not too surprising to see that rape is marginalized as a crime.
Recent molestations of female students by their Japanese male teachers have revealed intense social pressures upon the girls to remain silent. The vast burden of shame is placed upon the victim, who is seen as being disruptive to social order by accusing someone older than her of immoral conduct.
I have heard that the typical scenario in a Rapeman comic book involves a misbehaving underage Japanese schoolgirl. Retribution for her misdeeds is doled out in the form of sexual assault and rape by the central character. This sort of formalized degradation of the female population should serve as a prime indicator of the views currently held by many Japanese men.
I am not in the least surprised that Japanese society is going through tremendous upheaval as their youth are exposed to a larger world view. The collapse of Japan’s rigid economic structure (i.e., lifetime employment, collusion of business and government) is propelling vast changes in a culture that abhors discontinuity of any sort. May Japanese women of all walks soon be free of such repression.
FTR, hentai is not a genre of rape-oriented video games…hentai encompasses any and all things stylistically anime for which sex and its explicit artistic depiction is a main focus, including video games, movies, and manga (comics). Rape is commonly found in the movies and video games, but it is certainly not the defining point of the genre.
Well, Flammi, if you changed your OP to read “some Japanese men” then you’d be on the ball. I don’t know any women, Japanese or otherwise, who find rape funny.
Recently a group of Waseda university students were arrested for the gang rape of some girls. They started a group specifically for that purpose. When it all finally came to light, a politician here said something along the lines of “The students are very virile and more normal than guys who can’t get a girlfriend and so don’t have sex at all”. WELL! the shit really hit the fan. Female politicians are asking for his resignation and women’s groups are going to town.
Although attitudes are slowly changing, the prevailing opinion over here (from what I’ve seen and heard) is still that a woman who is raped must have been asking for it, by drinking, or being out on her own, or wearing a short skirt, or being pretty, or talking to a guy… the list of excuses goes on and on.
As for why they think its funny, I’ll agree with what Zenster said…a lot of men still think of women as objects and somewhat less of a person.
Hmm… after reading the replies here, I’d have to say that it could be the result of living in a society with many rules which you have to adhere to strictly. It’s probably only the Japanese men who do find that funny, as I wouldn’t imagine the Japanese women find it humorous at all. Of course, it was 1 AM when I posted the OP… so probably wasn’t thinking all that clearly… sorry, Tsubaki.
I’ll send this thread link on to my friend, and see what he thinks… even though he was telling me last night that “message boards aren’t valid sources, as those people don’t know anything!” Not quite sure whether he was joking or serious, but he did want me to look things up on Google or at the library. (more credible sources, in his view) I wouldn’t know where to start, though!
“they’ll say 'You can’t joke about rape. Rape’s not funny. ’ … I can prove to you that rape is funny. Picture Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd. See hey, why do you think they call him Porky?” - George Carlin
Says that as far as he knows, the relationships in Japan kind of go with the man doing what he wants with the woman putting up with it. This is coming from a teacher that lived there for a long time; he said foreign people marrying Japanese women usually worked fine that he saw, but foreign women marrying Japanese men rarely worked. (care to expand on that one, Tsubaki? )
Are relationships really like that now, even in these more modern times? (I know Japan has had a difficult time adjusting to modern society, or that’s what I gather from my limited reading on the subject) Do marriages between foreigners and Japanese really not work some of the time due to cultural differences?
Sorry to be asking so many questions here, but now I really do want to know.
Clayton Williams lost the Texas governor’s race a decade ago after he made a joke about how women should just “lie there and enjoy it” while being raped.
Some sociologists have speculated that the recent upswing in interest in schoolgirls in Japan springs from the changing dynamics in relationships; older women are working more and challenging the traditional male-dominant relatioship dynamic. So schoolgirls satisfy some kind of need to dominate.
I did not know Japanese men were into rape, but have to say it does not surprise me in the least. I have gone for interviews (for a high level financial position) and been warned by the recruiter that the company’s headquarters was in Japan, and how did would I feel about that?
I gave the pat answer and turned down any and all subsequent interviews.
Huh? You’re going to get raped because the company is funded with Japanese money? I don’t get it.
Wasn’t there another political flap a few years back when a Japanese politician said something like “we would all be rapists if we could get away with it?”
And a further hiijack (Arr, matey!)…shouldn’t the fact that “hentai” translates roughly as “perverted” count for something? I mean, if the Japanese themselves call it “perverted,” that kind of implies that it isn’t exactly welcomed and accepted by their society at whole.
Larry and the girl he met at the supermarket are upstairs in one of the rooms in Delta House. She passes out, and he has a scene with a stylized miniature angel on one shoulder and miniature devil on the other shoulder. The devil says “F*** her brains out” while the angel says it would be wrong. Larry goes with the angel and the devil yells “Faggot” as he disappears.
The above is entirely from memory and may be wrong in detail but right in essence. So it’s a ** potential ** rape scene rather than an actual rape scene.
I can think of Western examples so its not just the Japanese
Example:
Two nuns are walking through a park when a man seizes them and violently rapes them. Afterwards one says to the other “Oh the shame, we are going to have to confess to mother superior that we were raped twice.” The other says “Twice? We werent raped twice!” The first one replies, “well, yes, but we are walking home the same way arent we?”
Which twenty years ago, I thought was the height of hilarity :smack:
Well, of course it isn’t any more sanctioned by society as a whole than any other kind of pornography anywhere in the world; I never contested that it was. The point of my hijack was simply to correct the misunderstanding that hentai was totally rape-oriented. It’s just animated porn, and its focal points vary as widely as those of live-action; that’s all I was saying. But, while we’re on the subject, most hentai is not considered any more perverted than any other pornography; however, because the limits of the physical world are removed in animation, things can get a bit weirder than in real life (I imagine that’s much of the appeal, and perhaps the reason for the name).
IIRC Pinto and the Mayor’s daughter are in a sleeping bag in the middle of the football field when she admits her age. Statutory rape is a serious thing but considering the circumstances I wouldn’t put it on par with a forced rape.
From my experience, I’d say your friend doesn’t know what he’s talking about (or is still going by what was true 50 years ago).
I’ve seen marriages between Japanese men and foreign women work better than the other way around, because the women generally know what they are going in to (or rather, they expect the worst, that their husband may expect them to be good little housewives and servants after they are married). The foreign men married to Japanese women often think they are going to have a woman who will worship them, which often isn’t the case.
Women nowadays don’t put up with much crap. They will yell on the train when being molested. They will go to the police when raped. They are in charge of the family finances, and will use them to go and buy brand-name bags while their husbands survive on an allowance of $100 or $200 per month. They are becoming politicians and fighting against chauvinistic attitudes. They are working, plus raising the family (often without hubby who is working so much) and looking after the house, helping on the PTA, neighbourhood association and children’s association.
Sorry, I got carried away! But Japan isn’t the chauvinistic society it once was (its still not great, but its getting better). And trust me, if it was as bad as all that, I wouldn’t be living here!
