Horizon wrote:@Néa Vanille, You bring up a fairly good point but...
I don't know what you're getting at. From a guy's point of view the lolita complex is quite understandable. It's not that hard to understand why guys would prefer innocent girls with no experience over girls with tons of experience. If the guys were in the western world then yeah maybe I'll find it a bit disturbing but only because the western world is so accepting of casual sex and slutty(even though it's not considered slutty in the west because it's the norm) behaviour. In a society as fucked up as Japan, where so many women have attitude and mental problems among many others, I can understand why guys would see younger inexperienced girls as heaven.
Easy.
Enjoying innocence = good. Who doesn't feel delighted by children?
Wanting to taint and destroy innocence is a completely different matter, though. If you have seen many Japanese porno videos (which I assume you have, as a guy) you will have noticed that the vast majority of them is about some guy interviewing a girl, who has to re-establish again and again in the conversation that she is a virgin, only to then be borderline-raped under a wail of agony.
It's about the desire to violate these girl's sanity, because as educated the average Japanese is, most of them are probably aware of the severe mental damages the actions they are watching would cause if they weren't acted out. And only wait until the 9-year-old girl realises years later what those nice uncles were really doing with her pictures...
It also implies that a woman is better kept stupid, which totally goes against the Western morals of emancipation and equality between partners. I'm not sure whether you agree with emancipation but surely you see how this is disgusting to those who do.
Horizon wrote:
This is rather a parenting problem. Japanese guys are no different than guys from anywhere else and they react the way guys do. The only difference in Japan is on the girls part. I think it's because of shoddy, neglectful parenting and a resultant disgraceful lack of respect towards them from their children.
I don't think Japanese guys are the same as guys from everywhere else - that would be like saying Japanese girls are like girls from everywhere else, which you probably wouldn't agree with and neither do I.
Japanese guys are different because their CULTURE and SOCIETY is different from ours. While ours (American and European) is rather youth-centric as well, we do not have the same craze going on there as they do, and the idols we worship are usually a good deal older than the girls Japanese boys are taught to fawn over from since they were toddlers. They ARE different because the way their surroundings deal with youth is totally different from ours. It's been researched time and time again that what we see presented as desirable on print and TV is what we grow to desire ourselves to some degree - of course, we all seem to have an inborn biological attraction (men being programmed to be attracted to fertile women with feminine curves and youthful faces for evolution's sake) but I firmly believe that what we see others desiring has a big influence on what we feel we should want.
Hence, a society that accepts paedophilia can only grow to produce more paedophiles over time. Surely you agree that isn't very healthy for a society or a country?
It's rather disturbing to me to hear you say that Japanese business men purchasing sex and exploiting innocence are not to blame, but the teenage girls and their incompetent parents.
Most scholars on Japan would say that Japanese parents drill their children more than Western parents do - which can, I agree, often results in their teenage daughters rebelling. I don't think that Japanese parents are neglectful, though - after all, it is STILL very much the norm in Japan for the mother to devote herself entirely to her children, which would surely mean they aren't neglecting and abandoning them in any way. They are still doing things wrong, though, obviously. As I said, I think they generally tend to want to control their children's life too much, so of course they are also to blame for the situation. I actually went on about Japanese parents being possessive in an earlier post.
However, these men are the worst and the most wrong for taking advantage of these girls who are NOT MENTALLY READY to be purchased for sex fully knowing what damage they are causing . Any psychologist would agree that the vast majority of teenage girls would be far from being able to get out of prostitution with their sanity intact.
For the prostitution thing, I blame the following: youth-obsessed society that should SERIOUSLY start to accept age (this should be a human right), a superificial, capitalist society that tells girls all they need to be happy is Chanel and Gucci, stupid girls attracted by "easy money" and parents who don't give their children enough freedom.
Horizon wrote:
This is totally baseless, I really can't even begin to describe how ignorant and wrong that sounds. "manga for young girls ages 7-10" doesn't mean anything. These "middle-aged men" you speak of are what is called "people who enjoy manga". Shoujo(manga alledgedly aimed at young girls) is enjoyed by people of all ages, I know I enjoy it. And btw Shoujo is about as innocent as a daytime soap opera.
I conclude you have never heard of the word "lolikon."
It is a known, recognised subgenre of manga much like shoujo is - a popular example of which is a manga called "Strawberry and Marshmellows" (or something close) which has recently been published in Germany and should probably be available elsewhere as well. It portrays the lives of kindergarten to junior high school girls, and I happen to have read a paper which said that said genre of manga (OFFICIALLY targeted at elementary school girls) sold to almost as many middle-aged men as it did to their target group.
As it said, it's not really perverted per say, because enjoying children because they are cute and innocent is more than all right. However, it seems strange to me that it isn't women or future mothers buying these type of manga, but middle-aged men - and I bet you, while most of them will have fatherly feelings for these girls, a lot of them won't.
I'm not saying "ban those mangas!" I actually think they are okay - after all, it's not harming anybody! Real girls aren't photographed or harmed or mentally abused and these men get their rocks off without making it anyone's business. It's still disgusting morally, but far preferable to pictures of real children.
I only brought it up as an example of Japanese men's twisted psyche. I doubt such manga would have success among American or European men.
Horizon wrote:
And the main issue here is you guys using the word disgusting. It just makes you sound ignorant and rather stupid(no offence). Is it so hard to believe that some people, somewhere else in the world actually have different preferences and morals than you? Is it right to condemn someone just because they have different values? I myself have different morals and opinions than many people I know, Is it then right for me to push my morals and Ideals onto them and then proceed to measure and judge them? I know the only people I would ever push my morals and ideals on are my children.
That's a tricky one because now we're getting into philosophy and into a belief-based argument. They can't be lost or won, so I'll just tell you what I think about it.
First of all, though, I think it's not stupid at all. People who actually have an opinion tend to be smarter than your average opinionless hick, but I feel this argument is too big to be carried out fully here. It included the questions whether there is such a thing as good and evil, and if yes, how you can define good and evil or whether morals are good and needed or useless waste of modern society.
Basically, I support the belief that there IS such a thing as evil in this world - and evil, to me, is, among other things, purposefully damaging another person's mind for one's own twisted pleasure which I believe teenage prostitution to be. It's a rather simple concept that people want to stay away from what they perceive to be evil - most people would condemn a mass murderer or a rapist because they violate most people's moral codexes to the extreme. I perceive Japanese business-men purchasing sex with 14-17 year-old-girls to be a very strong blow to my firmly established moral codex as well, so naturally they wouldn't be my preferred friends.
Most people have a tolerance range as far as violations against their codexes are concerned, so it isn't quite as bad as you make it out to be. I am actually friends with a few very religious people with very different values and my best friend is a raging supporter of high-end capitalism. I tolerate it and occassionally find it even interesting and helpful in shaping my own ideas.
I also personally believe a moral codex is important for guiding you through your life as well as that judging other people is necessary in order to create your own codex and personality. If you choose to argue against that, though, there's not much I can say - either you believe in it or you don't. I believe people have a right to a moral code and to condemn things that drastically violates said codex. They have "the right to ignorance", if you will. I can see why you wouldn't think so, though and respect your beliefs.
Because of all this negativity in my posts which I'm not usually a fan of, I'll mention a few things I love about Japan (to recover from bitching, in a way.
) I love Japanese (or Asian, rather) architecture and traditional costumes. I find Shintoism to be very elegant and interesting. I love Japanese acceptance of femininity in men (which the West sorely lacks), I love Japanese politeness whenever it isn't confusing me. I love Murakami Haruki. I love drama, naturally, for its excellent scores of music, its beautiful actors and actresses and its compelling plots taken from nearly all aspects of life.
I LOVE Playstation, Nintendo, Final Fantasy and Resident Evil. Only the Japanese can create Role-Playing-Games I can lose myself in!
Whew. Now I feel better.