Sexual Repression or an open attitude?

[Aaron]

I ran across an interesting statistic today, one that had to do with the total sales of pornographic material around the world. Before I get too involved, let me point out this research came about as a result of an argument that I was having with my brother, who stated Japan was more sexually repressed than the United States. I didn't agree, although now that I think of all the weird stuff you see in anime, it would make sense. Anyways, what I found out is that the US with a population of around 312.5 million people only spends about 20 billion dollars on porn (I know, only? But in comparison to other countries, it's really not as high as one might believe.) Americans actually only spend around $44.50 per person on pornographic material per year.

 

Now the shocker came from learning that Japan with it's population around 127.7 million people spends nearly 20 billion dollars on pornographic material per year, or around $156.75 per person. Nearly three times as much as the US, yet on the surface one would assume that Japan was much more reserved and conservative than US is. Now that's actually the second highest per person amount in the world, the highest is actually South Korea, which has a per person amount of $526.76 per year (well over twice that of Japan and over five times that of the US.) Now the thing that shocked me was that the two most progressive countries in Asia also ended up being the two highest consumers of pornography world wide, despite the fact they make up a small margin of the overall population in comparison.

 

It's easy to enter this discussion and think that it has something to do with sexual repression, but in reality it has little to do with repression (imo) but rather the attitude many in Asia have towards sex, and that's what I'm wondering and I hope others might share on. Is the consumption of pornography indicative of the spiritual decline of a country, or is it the sign of a more open minded attitude, an attitude that is less influenced by guilt than it is the expression of one's sexuality? I look forward to hearing other people's opinions.

 

Aaron

Edited November 21, 2011 by Twinner

[Protector]

I think it's more of an economy thing

Piracy is really shaping the world now, no one can risk with making new shows and the animation quality is dropping to save costs

A lot of animators have to go into porn because of that

Abundance of pornographic content makes it more available and "mainstream" so it gets sold and sold to nearby countries and online

speaking of online, what happened to all the free porn?

[gendao]

I think measuring the amount of time spent using pr0n would be a better starting point for analysis.

 

Money spent can be comparatively inaccurate due to varying regional costs-of-living and also freeloading with P2P file-sharing. I mean, you could easily download 1000s of hours of pr0n absolutely FREE - and that would never show up in "money spent."

 

That said, it's no big secret the Japanese and Germans are infamous for kinkiness. Also remember that prostitution is basically legal (I think) in those (and various other) countries, as well.

[Birch]

Yeah, I was going to say it's hard to compare because so much of our porn (North America for example) is free.

If you want to compare sexual freedom vs repression I think you would have to find another measure (or series of) that wasn't so "tainted" by $.

Not sure what that would be though!

[Aaron]

I think measuring the amount of time spent using pr0n would be a better starting point for analysis.

 

Money spent can be comparatively inaccurate due to varying regional costs-of-living and also freeloading with P2P file-sharing. I mean, you could easily download 1000s of hours of pr0n absolutely FREE - and that would never show up in "money spent."

 

That said, it's no big secret the Japanese and Germans are infamous for kinkiness. Also remember that prostitution is basically legal (I think) in those (and various other) countries, as well.

 

Germany has one of the lowest rates of per person per year spending on pornography, around $7.70, so I'm not sure that we can use that as a reasonable explanation.

 

Aaron

[RiverSnake]

I think a better tool analyzing this would to find statistics that measure the level of satisfaction women and men find in there sexual relations. I think that is a good indicator of sexual repression.

 

-My 2 cents, Peace

[konchog uma]

can you link to the data you're citing?

 

i'm curious about thailand and some other countries

 

i can't explain that to myself... weird.. thanks for shaing!

[Sloppy Zhang]

I think measuring the amount of time spent using pr0n would be a better starting point for analysis.

 

Money spent can be comparatively inaccurate due to varying regional costs-of-living and also freeloading with P2P file-sharing. I mean, you could easily download 1000s of hours of pr0n absolutely FREE - and that would never show up in "money spent."

 

Yup.

 

Pretty much, if you're paying for porn, you're doing something VERY wrong.

 

I ran across an interesting statistic today, one that had to do with the total sales of pornographic material around the world. Before I get too involved, let me point out this research came about as a result of an argument that I was having with my brother, who stated Japan was more sexually repressed than the United States. I didn't agree, although now that I think of all the weird stuff you see in anime, it would make sense. Anyways, what I found out is that the US with a population of around 312.5 million people only spends about 20 billion dollars on porn (I know, only? But in comparison to other countries, it's really not as high as one might believe.) Americans actually only spend around $44.50 per person on pornographic material per year.

 

Now the shocker came from learning that Japan with it's population around 127.7 million people spends nearly 20 billion dollars on pornographic material per year, or around $156.75 per person. Nearly three times as much as the US, yet on the surface one would assume that Japan was much more reserved and conservative than US is. Now that's actually the second highest per person amount in the world, the highest is actually South Korea, which has a per person amount of $526.76 per year (well over twice that of Japan and over five times that of the US.) Now the thing that shocked me was that the two most progressive countries in Asia also ended up being the two highest consumers of pornography world wide, despite the fact they make up a small margin of the overall population in comparison.

 

It's easy to enter this discussion and think that it has something to do with sexual repression, but in reality it has little to do with repression (imo) but rather the attitude many in Asia have towards sex, and that's what I'm wondering and I hope others might share on. Is the consumption of pornography indicative of the spiritual decline of a country, or is it the sign of a more open minded attitude, an attitude that is less influenced by guilt than it is the expression of one's sexuality? I look forward to hearing other people's opinions.

 

Aaron

 

I can't speak to spiritual decline or Asia in general. But I know a bit about Japan. I've been a couple of times, and studied there for a semester. I know lots of Japanese people both in Japan and in dense Japanese communities here in the states. Also, I'm American born and raised in America, so I'll be contrasting it with what I know of American culture, and make no claims on how it contrasts with "western" culture at large. Also, I'm a guy, so I'm writing from a guy's perspective.

 

Basically, their culture is very different from ours, and I think that they are having to cope with some very different issues which are unique specifically to their own culture.

 

Japanese culture is big on appearances, in/out groups, things you do out in the open vs things you do behind closed doors. You're supposed to know your place relative to everyone else, and you are supposed to act accordingly. Failure to do so results quite literally in social ostracism. Allowances are made for kids up to a certain point, but beyond that, you better know better. Foreigners are also allowed a bit of wiggle room, depending. When I went there I was conversationally fluent, so most people assumed that along with my language knowledge, I also knew the culture. Thankfully my Japanese teacher in the states was from Japan herself, so she filled me in on many of the major pitfalls. There were one or two instances in which I was blindsided by something, and acted inappropriately, and I felt the consequences. In some ways it was worse for me, because I was expected to have known.

 

So that's something you have to understand. You don't make a move unless you know what the group is thinking, what the group dynamics are, who's a senior and who's a junior member, the history of the group, etc etc. Not at all like the rugged individualism that's been crafted in America for decades. In America, it's better to make a move and screw up than it is to hang back in be silent. In Japan, it's better to hang back, be silent, get the lay of the land, and only make a move when you know that it's going to be okay.

 

For sex itself, it's not that big a deal. In general. But it becomes a big deal depending on who you're talking about it/doing it with, under what circumstances, etc etc. Again, the in/out groups, closed/open door groups, and above/below relations come into play.

 

So now we come to the general Westernizing of various cultures. Basically, more independence for younger people, more independence for younger women, and a throwing off of more traditional habits for how you meet and interact with people. And basically... traditional values won't help you in a non-traditional setting.

 

So if you're trying to, say, meet some ladies, and the ladies are waiting for you to make the first move, but you want to hang back until you get a chance to transition from the "out" group to the "in" group... well guess what? It ain't gonna happen!

 

I think that's probably one of the reasons why foreigners can go into Japan and get scores of women, because they aren't hamstrung by always waiting to make the first move. One of the guys who studied abroad with me was a Japanese guy, but he was born and raised in America. Even though he didn't stand out like I did, he was just as good at pulling chicks as I was because he wasn't operating under the same cultural bounds as many of the native Japanese guys were.

 

So what happens when you are a sexually frustrated dude with no interpersonal outlet for sexual needs? Well you turn to porn.

 

And what happens when you've got a country full of great artists and animators? You get anime porn.

 

And what happens when the in/out cultural groups are so strict that you're never really allowed to (or maybe you just never allow yourself to) even interact sexually with girls/women from a very young age? You've got a lot of pent up tension, and that results in ridiculously fucked up anime porn

 

Oh, and crazy fucked up anime porn isn't anything new to Japan. The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife.

 

So that's my take.

[ATMA]

It's almost too scientific. Pornography is thoughtless IE so full of unrestricted thought that the ego self overloads.

IF everyone was enlightened would there still be porn?

Does this mean the porn consumption per capita increases as spiritualism decreases/lacks?

It would seem that way. When you think about it all sexual desire stems from a thought... Maybe there's some spontaneous banging events that happen between man and woman but that is just natural like bonobos on the plains.

Porn is not important. Conversely, it's the only thing that truly matters.

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.