AV

Since it was recently valentine's day, I'd like to talk about porn.  Besides, it has been way too long since I've expressed my love and hatred of Japanese porn (AV).  This is also the first question I get asked when I talk about living in Japan; "why is their porn so weird?"  To be completely honest, Japanese porn is a freaking mystery that I will likely never understand since it simultaneously has so much yet so little to offer.  Anyone whose stumbled upon this particular genre knows what I'm talking about.  I'm going to try and generalize as best I can but obviously since there is so much porn out there, not all Japanese AV will fit in to my description.

What everyone seems to notice first in Japan is the multitude of porn readily available.  Everything from animals with tentacles, bondage, to ripped panty hose is all too commonplace.  Basically, fetish porn is regular porn.  Despite all this ridiculous stuff, you can't actually SEE any of it.  Its all blurred out.  Japan used to outlaw even showing pubic hair (and the yakuza do produce uncensored stuff, but its harder to find).

I still remember my first trip to Tokyo when my bros killed some time by browsing a video shop...for research.  The first floor had everything you'd expect from a porn shop but as we ascended the floors the videos got more and more disgusting.  I mean 'dry heaving and needing a therapist' disgusting.  Needless to say, I didn't make it to the top floor, I stopped at the bleeding and animal level and decided to call it a day. 

That all sounded bad.  Don't get me wrong, its porn so it can't be all that bad.  Its the age of the internet, so you can find other freaky, non-blurred porn with a few mouse clicks.  And how can America be so quick to decide what is 'normal' porn?  When I first got to Japan, all of it seemed new to me, and new was good!  Lawson and 7-11 sell it right next to the cup noodles, so its hard to ignore.  The girls tend to be INCREDIBLY cute.  Sometimes too cute. Like, so cute and innocent that they have no confidence and you feel a little guilty watching them be taken advantage of...also, they cry.

Okay, whats wrong with you Japan!  While I'd like to celebrate an abundance of porn, this seriously can't be good for the general public.  The real problem is Japanese people don't get taught sex ed in school, and they most certainly don't talk about sex with their family, so where are they learning this stuff?  A nation of teenagers learning about sex from fetish porn can't possibly be doing any good.  Especially while rape is a genre of porn...but it seems like that's a problem that Japan has yet to figure out.