by kthulhu » Tue Oct 08, 2002 7:13 pm
I heard that Japan's obscenity laws are still pretty much based on ours - circa the 1950's, which explains the mosaicing or pixels. If you look at most of the readily available X-rated magazines from that time, a lot of it is tasteful, as it were, pictures of topless or naked women. No pubic hair (or even many shots of the pelvic region), and DEFINITELY no hardcore genital display. The REALLY hard stuff (explicit nudity, sexual acts, etcetera) was amateurishly produced, and usually distributed in a less than public manner, otherwise you could get prosecuted for public obscenity. I think a rather famous court case in the late 60's or early 70's (although the name escapes me) changed this, and now, here in the US, you can get all sorts of unedited erotic goodies without so much as stares from other people.
Anyhow, the Japanese kept their obscenity laws on the books, unchallenged, until a few years ago when a few porn producers started testing the waters. No idea of the status of uncensored porn in Japan, but it's slowly getting there. The yakuza, naturally, are the biggest producers of uncensored domestic porn over there, BTW.
I'm out...