Granted, young performers are not particularly new. "Little" Stevie Wonder was all of 12 when he had his first hit, and let's not forget Michael Jackson was marveled at his mature vocals at such a young age. In both of the clips shown, I don't seen anything overtly sexual about how the production companies or the TV networks (who were very strictly controlled at that time on what they could or could not shown) presented the singers. It looks like the typical music show fluff.

Regarding the Hirota Mieko debut single: The version played there is different than the version I'm familiar with; totally different arrangement and vocal take. Admittedly, the version I know came from one of those oldies omnibuses that started appearing in the mid-1990s. I wonder if the version I have is a later re-record?

Granted, young performers are not particularly new. "Little" Stevie Wonder was all of 12 when he had his first hit, and let's not forget Michael Jackson was marveled at his mature vocals at such a young age. In both of the clips shown, I don't seen anything overtly sexual about how the production companies or the TV networks (who were very strictly controlled at that time on what they could or could not shown) presented the singers. It looks like the typical music show fluff.

Regarding the Hirota Mieko debut single: The version played there is different than the version I'm familiar with; totally different arrangement and vocal take. Admittedly, the version I know came from one of those oldies omnibuses that started appearing in the mid-1990s. I wonder if the version I have is a later re-record?

Jesus this topic is like boomerang!

Don't forget Misora Hibari was a little girl when she debut in りんごの唄 at age of 9 in 1946!

From wikipedia:
純粋に「かわいい」と見る層と同時に、「子供が大人の恋愛の歌を歌うなんて」という違和感を持つ層も存在した。詩人で作詞家のサトウハチローが「近頃、大人の真似をするゲテモノの少女歌手がいるようだ」と、批判的な論調の記事を書いたことは有名。this was 1948.

i thing i found the true lolita. she's here: http://www.eng.usf.edu/EE/snider/light/artist/velasquez/meninas.jpg

"I wonder if the version I have is a later re-record?"

I used to have the other version as well, and I can't tell which is the "original." She sounds really old in both of them, regardless.

I don't think the sexuality is necessarily visual here. As Aceface brings up with Misora Hibari, it's more that the girls were often made to sing "grown-up" love songs. At this point, the music market was mostly targeted towards adults with money, I am assuming, and that would have made a demand for young fresh singers singing themes for adults to relate to.

In the 1960sn Scottish "anti-psychiatrist" R.D. Laing introduced the concept of the "double bind" as a factor for explaining how society makes some people schizophrenic. Laing insisted on seeing society as sick and "mad" people as, essentially, manifesting a sane response to a mad ("schizogenic") world.

The double bind is basically any demand which has a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" structure. For instance, if we were to say that little girls are damagingly sexualised if they act younger than they are AND if they act older than they are, that would be setting a sort of trap for little girls, a double bind in which there could be no correct way either to express or to repress sexuality.

In the face of the impossibility of any kind of virtue, we could then reasonably expect these little girls to become "schizophrenic". This might express itself in the girls becoming young and old simultaneously, or sexual and non-sexual simultaneously. Some would say, of course, that sexuality is in the eye of the beholder. In which case, it's those who lay the double binds in the first place who are schizo. They're schizogenic because they're schizophrenic themselves.

'By constantly refashioning himself as an androgyne Michael Jackson has retained and expanded a vast audience of pre-teens. Youth itself is a turn-on. Why are sexy young women called 'babes'? Why do Japanese schoolgirl prostitutes call their clients 'papa-san'? Do most men want to fuck their infant daughters, real and metaphoric?'

“Jesus this topic is like boomerang!” (Aceface)

Parents protecting daughters from other men's perceived sexual perversity? There is no mention of the motivation for this perfervid campaign. May I ask, Marxy?

“She sounds really old in both of them.” (marxy)
Elderly?

"There is no mention of the motivation for this perfervid campaign."

The low-teen idol boom is new and interesting, and I think there is a need to look back at what the marketplace was like in the 60s and 70s to compare. I actually don't have too much more to say on the topic. I meant to do this video reel earlier, but Splashcast kind of made it easier.

"no correct way either to express or to repress sexuality."

The first question is whether "idols" - as products - are expressions of youth sexuality at all. Take imouto.tv. These girls are trained, styled, and photographed by adult men in order to sell the images to adult men. These idols do set the social standard for individual sexual expression, but I doubt whether they contain what the girls themselves believe is the best means of expression.

("schizogenic")

thank momus for breaking the neomarxian double-bind and actually say something critical. marxy with all his critique rarely if ever manages to portrude beyond the limits of his own double-bound schizogenic psyche.

i think the issue of japan and shizophrenia is a rather interesting one though. recall Lacan's odd comment that japanese people don't have an unconscious. as i'm writing this i'm watching the Igo show on NHK, having just watched the shogi show. both games have a strongly schizophrenic structure (particularly evident when compared to something like chess) which expalins deleuze& guattari's fascination with igo.
so a question , an this is hardly the place to put it, might be: isn't the fundamentally schizoid japanese psyche actually a more adequate tool to deal with the schizogenic conditions of advanced capitalism etc.

"if ever manages to portrude beyond the limits of his own double-bound schizogenic psyche."

God, my physician is always saying the exact same thing!

well then it's definitlely time to kill the superego, amigo.

(oops slip, i meant スーパー囲碁）

"Sounds like she is about 40...She sounds really old in both of them.” (marxy)

"I actually don't have too much more to say on the topic." (marxy)

oh boy, oh boy this page is falling into deconstruction.
i'll take the opportunity and explain that super-igo is an esoteric league of igo ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_%28board_game%29 ) where all the games are rigged.

Ugh, this thread makes my head explode a little. I think I hear the weeping of the many former little girls of the world. And it's not because they had no proper way of expressing their sexuality...

" For instance, if we were to say that little girls are damagingly sexualised if they act younger than they are AND if they act older than they are, that would be setting a sort of trap for little girls, a double bind in which there could be no correct way either to express or to repress sexuality." - Momus

It's not a trap for little girls because the issue involves two age groups. No one thinks little girls are damagingly sexualised if they act younger than they are (and besides, they don't need a proper way to express sexuality because they are too young for that); only when they are presented as older than they are. Likewise, no one is worried about big girls acting older than they are, only when they are presented as younger than they are (like little girls, but of sexual age).

In other words, the issue is little girls being given a sexuality, and BIG girls acting younger than they are, both converging on some sort of lolita age fantasy presented for the enjoyment of men who are themselves still emotionally children.

If 10 year olds could be 10 year olds, and women over 18 or 20 would/could act like adults, then things would be vaguely normal, no?

Huh.

The amusing thing is, these posts read like a case study for a Critical Gender Studies class. Western or not, the comments by Marxy and readers always have this shadowy vascillation between the two penis wagging, potentially Orientalist poles of:

1) questioning "unnatural" guidelines for and misrepresentations of Japanese gender roles and sexual conduct.
2) celebrating some culturally-relative sexual awakening and expression. But, not commenting on a hope to get some!

This is not a personal attack on anyone, but reading commentary on the state of Japanese female sexual representation is just unsavory when the authors rely on abstract theory or cold market numbers to make their points w/o commenting on their own status as predom. Western men (some with Japanese partners).

So, yes yes, this is such a good example of schitzo capitalism! (pushes porn under the bed and weeps next to Lauren's aforementioned little girls)

Double bind? Is that what Perfect Blue is about then, Momus?

Perhaps the lolita complex here is wanting to believe that the women and the girls are the same thing, because the appeal is the convergence of power structure, availability, and sexuality?

Nutrition and environmental effects make puberty sooner; education and internet makes smart kids sooner. Has Japan simply provided through the path of least resistance?

Slim said: "and besides, [little girls] don't need a proper way to express sexuality because they are too young for that... the issue is little girls being given a sexuality, and BIG girls acting younger than they are, both converging on some sort of lolita age fantasy presented for the enjoyment of men who are themselves still emotionally children."

I think we need to get clear about whether children are sexual beings from the get-go (Freud famously thought they were, as do most sex educators). Your statement here disallows childhood sexuality in women but allows it in men -- you say that men who sexualize girls are "emotionally children". Either this is self-contradiction, or you think that little girls and little boys are virtually different species, one sexual in childhood, the other not.

I'd agree that my childhood horse obsession was probably a sexual thing, so I'd agree that children are sexual beings, but that is hugely different from adult sexuality and should be treated as such.

It's also hugely different when the girls in question are like these "low teen idols" being posed by adults - the end product is not an expression of them, only of the tastes of the men consuming it. I just don't buy that any girl that young can comprehend what that means. I imagine Saaya Irie would be totally grossed out and embarrassed if someone explained to her that her photobook was designed to get men off and what that actually entails.

Girl may not be asexual, it's a process to go from having a "boyfriend" in kindergarten or what have you to being an adult who enjoys "adult" things - a private, and usually awkward and embarrassing process and to be rushed along is pretty traumatizing.

I'm just saying - you gotta let the kids blossom on their own before you can enjoy them and that takes time. Yeah, they probably won't be "kids" anymore by the time they are there, but, uh, too bad.

"Sounds like she is about 40...She sounds really old in both of them.” (marxy)

おばさんくさいよ。

”But reading commentary on the state of Japanese female sexual representation is just unsavory when the authors rely on abstract theory or cold market numbers to make their points w/o commenting on their own status as predom. Western men (some with Japanese partners)."

At least in my case, I'm not talking about "women" as much as "female-based products" created and consumed by men in the Japanese market. Yeah, this sounds like an excuse to limit the discussion, but if I wanted to deal with actual ground-level sexuality, I wouldn't pick the changes in pop singer styling over the years - which are obviously top-down decisions in one of the most oligopolistic and closed markets in Japan. This market reflects more of Japanese male taste than female expression. You couldn't have had the Onyanko Club singing 「友達より早くHしたいけど」without Akimoto Yasushi writing those lyrics.

Also note that when kogal took sexuality into their own hands, older men liked this until the ganguro showed up, who were obvious delinquents with a rebel idea of sexual morality. Today, there seems to be a wide understanding that sexually-provocative uniform for women is more about their self-confidence than for attracting men. With the bodicon craze of the Bubble, the appeal seemed to be the voyeuristic enjoyment of these girls up on the Juliana's platforms - not bringing these girls home as girlfriends/wives.

This is a brief summary, but it would be interesting to look at where non-media-created, female-driven innovations in female sexuality have been welcomed by most men.

" Your statement here disallows childhood sexuality in women but allows it in men -- you say that men who sexualize girls are "emotionally children". Either this is self-contradiction, or you think that little girls and little boys are virtually different species, one sexual in childhood, the other not." - Momus

You've forgotten the third option: far from "allowing" it in men, I was criticizing the men who are still emotionally children, or the society that creates them, as much as I was critcizing the society that makes every female over the age of 10 and under the age of 30 into a 14 year old Lolita.

Kids have a gender, sure. But neither should have a sexual identity until they are adolescents. After they reach 16 or so, I'm not exactly sure what it is that makes a fully physically developed female off limits to older men, and why it is prefered that they learn about sex with boys their own age instead, but i suppose it's preferable that they be preyed upon by boys who have no idea what they are doing than by men do.

Sorry, that post shoud conclude: "...than by men that do."

-- more of Japanese male taste than female expression

I really don't think it's possible to separate those two without running into an endless chicken and egg.

I'm totally repulsed by the sort of mindset that can only see things in terms of perpetrators and victims. (what does it really say about the people practising that kind of thinking ?)

A lot of what some of you people see as preditor-ist has more to do with (self-)representation within an accepted set of codes. (should elaborate here , but hell ..)

Another dimension to the child sexuality scenario: In this country there is basically no tabu to children being exposed to the sexual act (between adults). Check out Ukiyoe prints (cca Victorian era) with children doing their thing while adults are fucking nearby. Nowadays you sometimes hear about some couple's sex life going down the drain since the child arrived and is always (literally) between them. [ and westerners tend to love hearing these kind of stories because it makes them feel superior; even met an architect who suggested we 'design' something to help those poor japanese couples] What you don't hear , because it's too obvious is that the sex life continues as normal. Anyway my point is that although the import of European morals from meiji on has messed things up quite a bit, there is basically no 'primal scene', no trauma, which is basically the thing that motivates most of the western discourse on sexuality.

Marxy, this is definitely along the lines of the issues you've been raising.

http://movies.yahoo.co.jp/m2?ty=nd&id=20070219-00000020-flix-movi

"I'm totally repulsed by the sort of mindset that can only see things in terms of perpetrators and victims."

I am totally mystified by those who cannot admit that there is a power balance between consumers and producers. With pop music in Japan, there is a chicken and it lays eggs. Consumers have the right to pick which eggs it wants, but the farmers have all come together to tell you which eggs are the best. Why ignore their advice?

This line from that article: 「色気というより、元気なイメージで撮れていると思う。」 is informative. The accepted line on these young naked girl pictures is that they are not about "sex" but "genki." They should close down all the pink salons and sell genki instead - seeing that's what all these male fans are evidently after.

Marxy: "This market reflects more of Japanese male taste than female expression. You couldn't have had the Onyanko Club singing 「友達より早くHしたいけど」without Akimoto Yasushi writing those lyrics. Also note that when kogal took sexuality into their own hands, older men liked this until the ganguro showed up, who were obvious delinquents with a rebel idea of sexual morality."

I think you're doing a bit of an Akimoto Yashushi here yourself, though. When you say kogal "took sexuality into their own hands", that's also a script, a lyric, an explanation you're writing, a song you're singing about people different from yourself. Again, I think it would be a lot more useful to think of gender relations, whether expressed through the market or not, as something co-dependent, interdependent, mutually defining, with agency on both sides, rather than (as Alin points out) a relationship of activity and passivity, victors and victims, from which the only successful exit is a declaration of independence, a defiance, a "liberation".

"Breaking free" and "splitting off" are favoured tropes, reminding us of the Protestant reformation and the American Declaration of Independence, but are they really the best way to think about gender relations in an Asian country where symbiotic interdependence is much more readily accepted as a social model than it is in the West (despite the fact that we in the West are as interdependent as they are)? Aren't you writing a script for Japanese adolescent girls here, a script even less wired into their way of thinking than Akimoto's?

"This line from that article: 「色気というより、元気なイメージで撮れていると思う。」 is informative. The accepted line on these young naked girl pictures is that they are not about "sex" but "genki." They should close down all the pink salons and sell genki instead - seeing that's what all these male fans are evidently after."

All 550 of them standing out in the rain waiting to buy the book (entitled "First Step," which begs the question "toward what?")...Then again, maybe Westerners on the whole really can't see (or accept) other aspects to these kinds of visuals, solely focussing on the prurient aspects.

You asked before about where exactly these types of books are meant to lead the talent involved -- it's interesting in this case because the girl (Kitano Kii) has already achieved some mainstream success starring in the wholesome-looking movie『幸福な食卓』(Kôfuku na shokutaku). Are there no content conflicts of interests here, or is it all good? In the US, for example, the producers of the film might distance themselves from their wholesome star's "extra curricular activities." Any thoughts, Aceface?

"Symbiotic interdependence" is a favoured trope, reminding us of the (neo-)Confucian tradition and the State-friendly versions of Shinto and Buddhism, but is it really the best way to think about gender relations in a country where that very notion of "symbiotic interdependence" is the ideology of choice of the ruling class, despite the fact that Japanese people are as irreducibly individual as Westerners are, and that this alleged symbiosic society is arranged in such an obviously hierarchical manner as to make Plato jealous? Japanese social structure is anything but a Deleuzean rhizomatic wonderland- it is as arboreal as bonsai!

Sure, we are all interdependent, but some are more interdependent than others, depending on what sanctions they face for not holding up their end of the social rituals of interdependence.

In plain language: I can't harrass my boss, or he'll fire me. The opposite is not true.

Actually, Japanese workers have a proud history of firing their bosses: the "production control strike." See this condescending article in Time magazine from 1947:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,887345-1,00.html

I bet they're sorry now that they let the bosses back in. ¡Viva la expropiación! And Marxy, please no bourgeois paeans to the eternal sanctity of private property. I almost stopped reading this blog after your comments about Katrina "looters."

If I prefer Marxy's take on Japan and Momus' take on America, does that make me an incurable pessimist? Anyway, sorry to derail the conversation again...

Jasong:

"In the US, for example, the producers of the film might distance themselves from their wholesome star's "extra curricular activities"

I guess the differences are in U.S,the film industry is still in the top of the pyramid in the entertainment world and not anymore in Japan.
The Big five used to own their stars and have them constantly in the company's movies,twice in a month even,thus made profits.

Nowadays,it is difficult for productions to make profit by sending their talentos only to the silver screens,especially indie ones(幸せな食卓may not be an independent,it certainly is no blockbuster either).The merit,I think is the production can put new face into public eyes,and
he or she can write that as a career in their CVs.
On the contrary,photo albums are easy money makers.And that is why grabia idols are hot commodity for the industry.And this commodity has very short lifespan.No wonder Kii has to jump into the bathtub in front of the cameraman old enough to be her father at the age of 15 .

I think the production wants to play both games.Get some quick cash out by selling her as an grabia idol and if she can memorize some of the lines,then she'll be an actress.You might even have some multiplier effects;
The core fans,including those 550dieharders,will definitely go and see the movie.Media will make an article on her like the one previously posted by Jason"That girl from the movie is half naked in the Photo album coming out next thursday!Eveyone,check it out!"kind.

Hopefully She can be next would-be Nagasawa Masami and she might even get a small role in TV dramas,even Dentsu might shows up and give her a contract of the TV commercials.
It's all reverse career seen from America to be a new Japanese sweetheart.But if she could possibly come to this stage,No more bikini for you,Girl!

The motto of Japanese wholesome star is somewhat hybrid of U.S.Army,Navy and Marine recruite slogans: Be All You Can Be,and Accelerate Your Life.Only The Few and The Proud can make to the stardom!

"I almost stopped reading this blog after your comments about Katrina "looters."

I believe my comment was about the sad irony of cops looting, but I apologize regardless.

"where that very notion of "symbiotic interdependence" is the ideology of choice of the ruling class"

I pretty much agree with this line, and I am not sure anybody who has actually studied Japanese history - especially post-Meiji - can deny it so easily.

"If I prefer Marxy's take on Japan and Momus' take on America, does that make me an incurable pessimist?"

You are a realist.

All the intellectual whipped cream aside, I think most of us can understand the difference between the following two scenarios:

1) 10 year old boy to 10 year old girl: "hey lets go play Doctor"

2) 40 year old man to 10 year old gir: "Hey little girl, do you want a lollypop?"

For those who think I'm just BS'ing, lets make it country simple; kids do have inate sexual tendancies but exploiting them is considered wrong.

But Marxy, cops are people too: They need food and water ... and big screen TVs and 100 pairs of Nikes!

Demand is limited but desire is infinite, I'm sure Momus and Alin are with me here. By the way, Momus and Alin, I'm appreciating your contribution to this dialectic (how weird was it that Chris B and Momus were agreeing two threads back?), and Alin's "superigo"/double-bind pun was Nobel-worthy!

Props to J. I tried to identify these two poles on Neomarxisme as the id and the ego a while back, but it probably should have been the id and superego. I need to re-examine that.

Chris B, you broke it down indeed. Big up yourself! I'm a sucker for the informed consent stance.

And Aceface, you've got critical insight AND you crack me up- truly an Army of One!

OK, enough shout-outs, back to Marxy: In all honesty, I appreciate the apology, it sets my commie heart at ease. If you go back and re-read your words, you might be surprised at how they came/come off. That's curse of writing for posterity, I suppose...

> anything but a Deleuzean rhizomatic wonderland- it is as arboreal as bonsai!

hey, i use that lingo. glad to see someone else is. i also compared japan to one of these trees ( http://www.alinadesign.com/japan/tokyo/tokyo-pages/image104.html - that url's no relative of mine), which is about as rhyzomic (rhyzomatic?) as a tree can get while still being a tree.

Since this is such a recurring topic, for balance's sake, i'd really like to see a bit of effort into analysing the girl-image in a way that doesn't short-circuit straight to sexual perversion. seriously, people.

And would the props holding up the branches of that bonsai be the symbolic order, the Big Other? As Zizek has said, the only one who truly believes in the Big Other (in this case the ideological superstructure of "symbiotic interdependence") is the psychotic. No sane Japanese person really believes this nonsense in their heart of hearts, they just act AS IF they do, which includes, sometimes, professing aloud to believe it- a futile illocutionary act (apologies to Karl Popper, I'm not sure how to subject this assertion to the test of falsifiability)!

I think our discussions about sex tend to veer towards perversion for the same reason that discussions of psychological processes tend to focus on the pathological and neurotic. These extreme cases, far from being dead ends or abberations, serve to highlight the underlying structure of the psyche. If I recall correctly, Karen Horney maintained that neurotic trends are universal, but only become problematic/noticeable under certain conditions, or when a subject employs socially unacceptable coping strategies.

Similarly, the perversions of the Other are so noticeable because they differ from our own. Habitus, habitus, habitus!

May I insert a "woot" for the level of debate on this blog? WOOT! Because at one time I thought it was going the way of those Metropolis threads, and would become a gaijin grumblefest. But actually, there's a lot of interesting deconstruction going on, including self-deconstruction.

"If I recall correctly, Karen Horney maintained that neurotic trends are universal, but only become problematic/noticeable under certain conditions, or when a subject employs socially unacceptable coping strategies."

Yes, well, that's really an extension of Freud, the whole idea of sublimation and the necessity of sublimation (because instinct and society will never be compatible). I think Horney's idea applies to the dimension of paranoia / conspiracy too, but our universal tendency to paranoia / conspiracy (they're all in league against me!) might become problematical when you start to use it as your main metaphor for, and point of entry to, the cultural study of a society you weren't brought up in.

But, I may add, this kind of entry (the boomerang that keeps coming back, and "coming up") suggests a new direction -- perhaps the switch in theme Marxy has been promising. And it's a switch in the direction of the elephant in the room: the fact that it's not paranoia/conspiracy that really provides most of us with our entree (quite literally, our entrance) to Japan, but sex. Most of us are living with Japanese partners. Sex is key, the exogamous exception to a highly endogamous culture. Perhaps, in a sense, a mirage of openness, for this is a society that isn't. But I'd say we're more likely -- as outsiders -- to change and be changed by our partners than change the business and legal structures of Japan. So I agree with J's point above:

"reading commentary on the state of Japanese female sexual representation is just unsavory when the authors rely on abstract theory or cold market numbers to make their points w/o commenting on their own status as predom. Western men (some with Japanese partners)."

If the promised sea change here were a shift towards the politics of the personal, I'd welcome that, because a lot is lost when the actual circumstances of the observer are left unexamined, unmapped, unrooted, undeconstructed.

"All the intellectual whipped cream aside, I think most of us can understand the difference between the following two scenarios:

1) 10 year old boy to 10 year old girl: "hey lets go play Doctor"

2) 40 year old man to 10 year old gir: "Hey little girl, do you want a lollypop?"

For those who think I'm just BS'ing, lets make it country simple; kids do have inate sexual tendancies but exploiting them is considered wrong."

Thank you......THANK YOU... now, is that from Lacan or Slavoj??

Sex, huh? Does that mean this is gonna become a pay site?

Madsen asked: "Thank you......THANK YOU... now, is that from Lacan or Slavoj??"

Um, Locke, I think. Chris B is old school.

"May I insert a "woot" for the level of debate on this blog?"

What you really mean is, can I get a "whoot" for the sudden increase in cultural capital? Because usually I only go for academics like Galbraith or Levitt or oldies like Marx, not to mention the scores of other nameless academics who are experts in their field but score way less on the cultural capital chart. The people I often reference are all technocratic - based in numbers or historical evidence - and not exploring the romantic framework of reading society like a text, which is to say, abandoning all hope of working towards an objective, final judgment and going on the principle that any interpretation is as valid as others.

Recently, I looked at Beckwith's theory of the Koguryo-Japanese language family and Miwa/Ramseyer's idea of no keiretsu, and while these theories may not be totally accurate, they both open up the ongoing debate about their respective topics in very, very interesting ways. The origin of the language and the underlying economic structure of society (which includes not only employment and consumer behavior, but also political issues, as well) are crucial for understanding Japan as a whole (and the way it has been framed by the Japanese for specific goals), and yet, I barely get any debate nor a "whoot" from my elder referees. Because the truth is that these topics require a specialist knowledge and they are "social science" - which automatically makes them difficult for applying these general post-modern "we are not metanarratives" metanaratives and hard to justify an equality of all interpretations.

We can deconstruct my own biases and perspectives all day long, but we can only do that to in order to finally get back to the actual issues of trying to build cohesive models of social action through looking at inductive evidence. Instead the dissent usually serves to basically say, stop talking, in a more dignified way.

And as I respect Brown for doing, if you are going to wield all the PM Brigades to proudly proclaim your cultural capital and give you cover away from left-brain activity, at least turn these deconstructions on the outdated and ahistorical ideas that "Japan is a peaceful group-based society" etc that otherwise seem to get swallowed up whole.

You will deny it, but the problem with Locke is not that his ideas are totally irrelevant, but that his being no longer contains any cultural capital.

"perhaps the switch in theme Marxy has been promising."

This is not the switch. You will know when it happens.

This week in Shukan Bunshun has an article on
this topic.Callingバカ親stupid parents are to be blamed.and demands to apply child protection laws.

This proves of course that the problem lies only in our biased Western perspectives. Oh wait, Shukan Bunshun...!

Seemingly there is no boundary of East and West in the commonsense of the ordinary.

For those wondering, the article in Shukan Bunshun is called:

「小中学生Ｔバック写真集」が年300万部
娘をハダカにして稼ぐバカ親たち
変態教師だけじゃない「ロリコン天国」ニッポン

Translation:

"Elementary and Middle School Girl Thong-Bikini Photo Books" Sell 3,000,000 Copies
Idiot Parents Profiting from Making Their Daughters Strip Naked
Not just hentai teachers, Nippon is "Lolicon (lolita complex) Heaven."

This just in
From Mainichi:

Elementary school principal faces punishment for molesting three girls
HAKUSAN, Ishikawa -- An elementary school principal faces punitive measures for molesting three girls in the lower grades of the school he heads, education officials said.

The principal in his 50s, whose name is being withheld, admitted to the allegations during questioning. "I did a terrible thing," he was quoted as telling officials of the Hakusan Municipal Board of Education.

The education board is poised to punish him. "We'll get to the bottom of the incident and take strict punitive measures against him," a board official said. The principal has been absent from school since Tuesday last week on the pretext of illness.

The principal put his hand inside the underwear of the three girls and molested them in other ways while engaging in sumo matches with the victims at the school on the morning of Feb. 8, board officials said.

The incident came to light after one of the victims reported it to her homeroom teacher.

February 20, 2007

Those who practice the pedophilia in this country better hide themselves underground.
We are gonna have one hell of a nationwide witch hunting starting today.

Aceface,

On this blog you're in the unique position of being a Japanese who's lived in both cultures and can bring a lot to the debate.

The topic is a "boomerang" (good simile) because westerners cannot wrap their heads around this kind of...mainstream acceptance (or tolerance?) of things that spark almost instantaneous media witch hunts back home. The 週刊文春 article reflects the questions that this blog and others have been asking, but they're only getting to it *now*, after how many years and how many thousands of 写真集?

It's full-blown industry providing jobs for publishers, agencies, photographers, IT people, the parents... Is the whole thing really based on emotionally stunted men who can't relate to adult women? There has to be more to it than that. Thoughts?

おばさんくさいよ。

I make it a habit to believe everything I read but to doubt all that I'm told, but I'm rarely told all. Imperfect information. That's an economic matter. Let's re-enter the space race. Or repave the amazon rain forests. Now there's nowhere to park. And erect statues and monuments to great persons, places, and events. And abolish museums. Keep out those who are in the right. Only a town of wrongdoers can do it right. Sexual revolution. Gardens. The weavel. I love seedless fruit. I have no ideas. I once opened a letter that contained bad news. So now I don't check the mail. Sure it piles up. But there's nothing worth reading in it but bills, magazines, and bank statements, and I hate when anyone tries to make a statement. Or a restatement for that matter. Or craft an argument. Or marshal support for a thesis. Or correctly cite from binding authority. Love is probably statistical. I am so profound that I am prosthetic. Both my eyes are made from bumblebees. My left ankle once belonged to a japanese world champion cucumber salesman. Water is too wet. Let's make it drier?

"westerners cannot wrap their heads around this kind of...mainstream acceptance (or tolerance?) of things that spark almost instantaneous media witch hunts back home. "

Don't ask me any logical answers on this.I'm confused about this lolita complex craze myself.
I had to get some help from Japanese wiki and it says there was strong restriction on sexual expression in youth magazines and manga in the mid 80's due to the heated debate in the diet.I remember some manga artist had made statement of rejecting sensorship on manga and philosopher like Tsurumi Shunsuke鶴見俊輔 made solidarity statement.And in late 80's,there was infamous otaku pedophile killer Miyazaki Tsutomu宮崎勤 case,which also brought huge witchhuntlike atmosphere in the society.

In 1999 Child Porn law was enacted(lots of foreign pressure was behind this,I think Swedish Embassy in Tokyo had a symposium on this to advocating the issue at the time.)and all the child porn became target of the prosecution.There the trend divide into two schools.One goes second dimentional.Anime,and erotic computer simulation games that many akiba guys love.In these products everything is possible because no human is involved.The other is junior idols.No sex,No nudes,But lots of low teens in thong bikinis.This would explains the rise of Imouto TV and the liking in the past few years.

I knew some of the female parliamentarians notably Moriyama Mayumi森山真弓 and Noda Seiko野田聖子 were working on legal restrictions on pedophile manga and computer games in 2005.But seemingly their effort had become victim of unintended collateral damage of Koizumi's "postal reform" Shuugiin elections in September 11th of the same year.Because Noda was against postal reform and Moriyama being a chair of the party discipline commitee had to notice her comrad's expel from LDP.
Now under merciful leadership of Abe Sinzo,The two are back in the same team,and might continue their crusade against pedophiles,because this issue could well be served as LDP's red herring for upcoming election to cover up cabinet member Yanagisawa's lapse on"baby bearing machine"feud.

Two obvious conclusions:
a)Instant success of Imouto TV and the "junior idols" are because they operate in the loophole of the legal restriction where major productions are fear to tread.
b)Loose legal restriction on pedophile industry is the byproduct of underrepresented female MP in the Japanese diet.

Why dominant male MP don't act?If you were Japanese MP,Would you want to be famous for being "pedophile buster"?
In the west the church will reward you with the chiristian votes for serving such a gloom task.But that may not be the case in this country.Male MP would rather go to other issues that will gain him both vote and popularity.
If you ever read Ian Buruma's book"Behind the Mask,On sexual demons,sacred mothers,transvestites,gangsters and drifters" then you will find out that social norm of sexual expression in Japan is way more loose compare to the west.This is the country where a comedian who slept with underaged sex worker can be elected and become governor of the month.

But then again you guys already know all this and still talk about desconstructions.....

Marxy said: "The people I often reference are all technocratic - based in numbers or historical evidence - and not exploring the romantic framework of reading society like a text, which is to say, abandoning all hope of working towards an objective, final judgment and going on the principle that any interpretation is as valid as others."

First, I don't think that "working towards an objective, final judgment" is empirical at all- empirical theory and praxis are endlessly recursive and reiterative by definition. Which, we should note, is pretty darn subversive. It may be cliche by now to say it, but Copernicus, Darwin, and Einstein have done at least as much to decenter us as Derrida- and I say this not to slight Derrida, but to pay tribute to the three subversive empiricist geniuses I mentioned.

Second, I'm worried that you're working with a vision of "Pomo," that may be in large part a mirage- a strawman employed equally by both neoliberals who want to dismiss the many valid criticisms of modernity that it contains (along with a bunch of nonsense and relativism too, to be fair), and by reactionaries, who want to use its cultural capital as a smokescreen and employ its relativism as a justification to further their own political agendas. Read the original goods and decide for yourself. You just might find that these "pomo" cats are much more an extension of the Enlightenment and the whole Western canon than many people would like to admit.

[And yes, I know it's not as simple as "good" pomo thinkers and "bad" interlocutors- see Foucault's problematic support for the Iranian revolution, which created a regime that would have executed him for his homosexuality even more "baldly" than the Brits did Turing.]

Third, a sincere plea: Please don't make the error of lumping Zizek in with any sort of mushy relativist "Pomo" school (which, as I said above, may never have really existed anyway, except in the minds of some fine arts undergrads- no disrespect to fine arts undergrads though, they do throw the best parties, God bless 'em)! See Zizek describing the duty and function of philosophy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDNXS3NrVdE

Personally, I'm inspired by Zizek to employ the dialectical method- That is, to seek to comprehend, as fully as possible, the arguments of your opponent, draw out the internal contradictions that exist in every position, and allow them to collapse under their own weight. And, to make it "country simple," as Chris B, says, it's a rush to be able to call bullshit on people in their own language!

Please note that in saying this, I imply no disrespect for my philosophical/political opponents whatsoever. In fact, quite the opposite: That someone has taken the time to understand and critique your ideas should be the ultimate compliment. Yes, it's Oedipal as hell, I know, but listen to this: I originally started reading post-structruralist, deconstructionist, etc stuff precisely because I wanted to attack it (at least what I *thought* it was before I started actually reading it). Along the way, I found that I could also learn from it! In the same way that we can read and learn from such problematic thinkers as Confucius, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and de Sade, we can learn from 20th Century "Pomo."

So- and now I'm addressing not Marxy, but his "Pomo" detractors- in this sense, wasn't Marxy was taking a much more risky and properly dialectical move by engaging with the Miwa/Ramseyer keiretsu book, as it threatens to demolish his belief system on its own terms? I encourage you all to subvert the metanarrative of Neomarxisme with its own internal contradictions (and jokes and puns too, of course)!

Incidentally, Locke has heaps of cultural capital in my book. Like Zizek (yes, him again, I'm quite the acolyte, as you can tell), I honestly appreciate the "inner greatness" of liberalism:

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200407/?read=interview_zizek

Finally, whatever changes are in store for this project, I hope it retains its seriousness, without losing its sense of humor. 'Nuff respect to you all! It's exchanges like this that make me glad Al Gore invented the internet.

Sibil_ator, I'm not sure what you said, but I think it was brilliant!

Aceface, thanks again for the inside scoop. Your analysis is top-rate. Do you write opinion pieces in your day job? Then again, you needn't answer that question if you're worried about compromising your anonymity. That Buruma book you mentioned is great, but I was pretty disappointed with his "Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies," what I read of it...

Keep these streams going people, there's no reason why there can't be a Surrealist Neomarxisme, a quantitative, statistical Neomarxisme, an うらばなし Neomarxisme, etc ad infinitum! Let a bazillion flowers bloom...

Sibil_ator, you weren't by any chance channeling this were you?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v720/DeadWolfBones2/1299718-1.gif

"That some funny ass Japanese slang, girl?"

To clarify, I mean to say that both the neoliberal and reactionary fundamentalist sides of our 21st Century coin cherry-pick "pomo" to their own ends. I do too, to be honest (it's kind of hard not to, there's a lot of garbage surrounding said cherries), but I'm happy to be called on it. Also, I've made some errors conflating "modernISM" and "modernITY," and "postmodernISM" and "postmodernITY," but I'll leave those for others to point out, if they're so inclined- I'm not that masochistic!

Marxy's position may already be more postmodern than he realizes (if we define postmodernism, as Jameson famously did, as "the cultural logic of late capitalism"): it's not so far from the mantra of "decenter" to the mantra of "decentralize"...

Brown, I appreciate your defense of PM - seeing that I am railing against its pointed misappropriation to preserve convenient myths rather questioning the ideas themselves. (Maybe reading David Harvey, however, I seemed to have taken to a Leftist critique of PM rather than just a neoliberal one.)

(Also, boy this thread got quiet as soon as it turned out that my position on low-teens idols is actually less hostile than the Japanese mainstream media.)

i think that may be partly because everyone was quite exhausted by that point.

also i find your smirk , like you've come through as the winner and you were right all along rather deplorable. as Aceface points out the situation was quite the opposite some 25 years ago. Nobuyoshi Araki was getting arrested for showing nude pictures in a gallery etc. that's fine and we've problems there, what bothers me though is that say if somehow the situation reversed we'd get exactly the same people here railing in exactly the same way but for the opposite cause - taking for granted that they're on some enlightened middle way above the problem, (even worse believing that culturally, historically they've overcome the problem and dealing with a primitive little cousin of their own country-folk) and whatever the issue may be it's hystericized to look like some nan-fckn-kin massacre. It's bad and it's bad faith. yes, it's a certain attitude that bothers me most.

I think Araky got arrested for showing pubic hair un the public.And that is will take us to another looong debate.

Un×in○
that is will.×
that will○

And I agree with you about other things alin.

Brown:
Yeah,Buruma shouldn't write something he doesn't know very much about which is middle east.And Avshai Margalit should know better that where Palestinean fury comes from instead of describing it as the equation of Nazis and Kamikaze pilots and Soviet Stalinism.

yes though i'm inclined to think that the 'obscenity' of the pictures and the candid mode they were shown kind of threw focus on the hair issue - until kishin shinoyama came to save the day.

i agree better leave it here even though going in this direction could possibly open up a loophole here.

Alin said: "As Aceface points out the situation was quite the opposite some 25 years ago. Nobuyoshi Araki was getting arrested for showing nude pictures in a gallery etc."

That, Alin, is a truly excellent dialectical attack. Sex/gender relations and media representations thereof are not ahistorical, but that cuts both ways- I'm also a bit skeptical as to whether we can make any claims about progress or decline in the long term. Change and continuity, y'know...

"What bothers me though is that say if somehow the situation reversed we'd get exactly the same people here railing in exactly the same way but for the opposite cause."

Funny, you might just be right. But that doesn't really bother me, as long as the argument gets argued in an illuminating manner (though I guess you're lamenting that it isn't happening in such a manner).

Marxy, I'm betting you'd appreciate Eagleton's "After Theory," if you haven't already read it.

Aceface, I'm with you- moral equivalence is a dead end.

And as for the original subject at hand... Not that there isn't something unique and maybe even directional pulsing underneath, but aren't the specific contours of the boundaries to be pushed with regard to sex(y) media basically all SCAP's fault? Where exactly is the mystery? Or am I de-subjectifying again?

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