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People seem to forget that most countries aren’t down with “adult content.” Japan famously has censorship; while it’s outright illegal and censored online in In

People seem to forget that most countries aren’t down with “adult content.” Japan famously has censorship; while it’s outright illegal and censored online in India, Russia, China, and no shortage of other countries. It’s illegal on both sides of conflicts - like Russia and Ukraine (possession in Ukraine by itself is grounds for up to 3 years in prison). Some countries like Australia permit it, but “extreme” content (aka anything not “vanilla”) is technically illegal regardless of the age of the viewer. This is also not necessarily based on religion: China is officially atheist, Vietnam is as well, but both will put you in prison for importing it. Ironically, it is post-Christian countries that are most tolerant. From the global stage, America is not some overly puritanical country while everyone else goes along without religious purity concerns. The big view is that the majority of countries censor it or ban it, even democratic ones, with no religious motive required. The Western world is the exception, but that’s changing in the UK, Australia, and now the US with age gating, payment processor refusal, or other restrictions.

selimthegrim 1y ago
Japan has censorship as a result of the American occupation.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  Correct; otherwise it would likely be illegal in Japan completely, judging by the nations around them.
  - latentsea 1y ago
    Are you kidding me?
kanbara 1y ago
japan has fully legal drawn porn of children and tentacle beasts and whatever else, you just need small bars over genitals and beasts. you can buy it in a bookstore anywhere across the country freely, how is this not “down” with adult content? weird take
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  Last time I checked, you need an ID.
  - PaulHoule 1y ago
    I'm astonished though that people sell ero fan manga from popular series at Komiket, like Sailor Moon (you know... "I'm Usagi Tsukino, I'm 14 years old") [1] [1] though there was the episode that didn't get released in the US where she used a magical item to transform herself into an adult so she could go in a bar and get a drink
    - kanbara 1y ago
      parody work is super popular-- people really love to see porn of their favourite characters, age/gender/year of publication be damned
      - PaulHoule 1y ago
        It doesn't surprise me that people like it, it surprises me that they can get away with it in the open.
  - kanbara 1y ago
    i've never needed to present ID in any mandarake or book-off or the like. of course if you go to events, they'll check ID to make sure you are 20+, or i'm sure if you look young. point is, the content is just there, even in some konbini, and it's not the norm, but certainly isn't demonised-- look at maid cafe and idol culture. /shrug
teitoklien 1y ago
India’s ban wasn’t legislative, it was done by the supreme court. It has one of the most weirdest and also defacto the most powerful supreme court globally by authority. It can pursue its own laws, legislate them, overturn even laws passed by supermajority in parliament if it doesn’t agree with it and thinks it’s not what original constitution makers would’ve wanted. The Court can take up cases on its own (suo motu) without any petition being filed. This allows it to respond to media reports, letters, or social issues — an almost unheard-of power in most democracies. I don’t think indian society or gov should be blamed for banning adult content, supreme court by itself passed the law and gov didn’t wanna contest it as they didn’t feel the point to spend political capital to reverse it. India is the origin of kamasutra texts after all and isn’t that sex negative as you might think ( it has the highest population for a reason)
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  > India is the origin of kamasutra texts after all and isn’t that sex negative as you might think ( it has the highest population for a reason) I think you’re making a mistake here. It is completely possible to be appreciative of sex, and hate pornography. Even in the US, “Feminists Fighting Pornography” was a powerful cultural force for almost 2 decades. Only in the Western world is “pro sex” = “pro pornography” in most people’s minds. Everywhere else, these are separate issues, with pornography bans actually being from a pro-sex cultural position (I.e. it shouldn’t be commoditized online).
  - IAmBroom 1y ago
    Only in your mind is "pornography" not a part of "sex". "Pro sex" doesn't mean "only the plainest sex imaginable", any more than "human rights" mean "to those people whom I like".
  - teitoklien 1y ago
    I know for a fact they don’t hate pornography, i’ve been around their culture. They banned it because the judges felt like it. There were no major protests to ban it, no government ongoing policy, nothing. It was just done because the court felt like it. People were indifferent after that too, gov didn’t even comment, praise or shun the court. Life just went on and people just used vpns, gov doesn’t even care and doesn’t even enforce the ban outside of the 100 major urls and domain the supreme court itself decided and never revisited it. India’s supreme court is extremely unusual compared to other countries, it’s as powerful as the executive branch if not more, the legislative branch have no say in electing supreme court judges the previous judges elect the next ones. it just uses its power very sparingly out of fear that the legislative branch might come after their powers if they use them too much. banning a few major porn sites, banning electoral bonds (india’s version of superpac), creating new right to privacy laws without consulting the parliament (because the court feared gov isn’t taking digital privacy seriously enough), legalise lgbt rights without any parliament input as it felt it needed to protect those citizens freedoms and rights to self identify and form their own families with legal protection. are some places where the court has used its ultimate powers I personally like India’s supreme courts, they are partially the reason why india is relatively stable compared to other south asian nations. Overall they use their super powers extremely responsibly and sparingly. Accounting for both political environment and balancing it against the long term interest of the nation’s citizens
kmfrk 1y ago
Definitely going to be "interesting" to see what happens once places like UK+EU commit to age verifying interent users soon. * https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-age-verification https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-age-ver... * https://ageverification.dev/Roadmap/ https://ageverification.dev/Roadmap/
Barrin92 1y ago
>Japan famously has censorship; In Japanese culture there's often an 'official' layer of proper behavior that in some sense is a pretense and in reality people are much more free-wheeling, including in the adult sector where Japan is pretty big globally, which is likely understating it. The country is actually very sexually liberated. The pernicious thing is that the US and Anglosphere work exactly the other way around, legally you can say anything but it's the people who chase you around the globe and you have Mumsnet and American soccer moms hound you across the ocean. Which is a moral tyranny any dictator is envious of. The US was the only Western country where Leon was censored, the actually made like a 20 minute shorter version for the US market. Censoring actual art, not just porn or slop, is foreign to anyone in continental Europe or Japan.
- FMecha 1y ago
  CERO (the Japanese ratings board) have required some mature-rated Western console video games to be edited (either for violence or sexual aspects) for it to receive the "Z" (age-restricted) rating be sold in the country. Also, the passage of the law that regulated the AV (adult video) industry in 2022, intending to protect their performers, was notoriously controversial that year as well and seen as steps to censorship.
to11mtm 1y ago
> Some countries like Australia permit it, but “extreme” content (aka anything not “vanilla”) is technically illegal regardless of the age of the viewer. As a curious case, South Park: The Stick of Truth had a scene that was censored in a few countries (Australia and Germany among others) due to it's BDSM content... I will also note the odd case back in the day of Germany having such strict rules with violence/etc that many of the Command and Conquer games had humans replaced with robots. [0] Or even names of things. FF8 had 'nunchaku' changed to 'shinobu' because nunchucks are illegal in the UK [1] and "Castlevania: Bloodlines" for the Genesis/Mega Drive was named "Castlevania: The New Generation" in europe (although that also had a lot of blood removed). > UK, Australia, and now the US with age gating, payment processor refusal, or other restrictions. But also, I should note that Australia has had fairly strict laws on the book for quite some time and has a long history of using Refused Classification when they get the itch, hell the Re-release of Westwood's Blade Runner is RC. And unlike the UK (at least for now) there's not the digital/import loophole [2]. [0] - My Austrian friend on IRC said that at least the voices were really cool. [1] - Perhaps someone assumed the whole world of FF8 was a British Colony? [2] - My understanding is that somehow downloads and 'importing' never got covered in the law.

selimthegrim 1y ago

Japan has censorship as a result of the American occupation.

gjsman-1000 1y ago
Correct; otherwise it would likely be illegal in Japan completely, judging by the nations around them.
- latentsea 1y ago
  Are you kidding me?

kanbara 1y ago

japan has fully legal drawn porn of children and tentacle beasts and whatever else, you just need small bars over genitals and beasts. you can buy it in a bookstore anywhere across the country freely, how is this not “down” with adult content? weird take

gjsman-1000 1y ago
Last time I checked, you need an ID.
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  I'm astonished though that people sell ero fan manga from popular series at Komiket, like Sailor Moon (you know... "I'm Usagi Tsukino, I'm 14 years old") [1] [1] though there was the episode that didn't get released in the US where she used a magical item to transform herself into an adult so she could go in a bar and get a drink
  - kanbara 1y ago
    parody work is super popular-- people really love to see porn of their favourite characters, age/gender/year of publication be damned
    - PaulHoule 1y ago
      It doesn't surprise me that people like it, it surprises me that they can get away with it in the open.
- kanbara 1y ago
  i've never needed to present ID in any mandarake or book-off or the like. of course if you go to events, they'll check ID to make sure you are 20+, or i'm sure if you look young. point is, the content is just there, even in some konbini, and it's not the norm, but certainly isn't demonised-- look at maid cafe and idol culture. /shrug

teitoklien 1y ago

India’s ban wasn’t legislative, it was done by the supreme court. It has one of the most weirdest and also defacto the most powerful supreme court globally by authority. It can pursue its own laws, legislate them, overturn even laws passed by supermajority in parliament if it doesn’t agree with it and thinks it’s not what original constitution makers would’ve wanted. The Court can take up cases on its own (suo motu) without any petition being filed. This allows it to respond to media reports, letters, or social issues — an almost unheard-of power in most democracies. I don’t think indian society or gov should be blamed for banning adult content, supreme court by itself passed the law and gov didn’t wanna contest it as they didn’t feel the point to spend political capital to reverse it. India is the origin of kamasutra texts after all and isn’t that sex negative as you might think ( it has the highest population for a reason)

gjsman-1000 1y ago
> India is the origin of kamasutra texts after all and isn’t that sex negative as you might think ( it has the highest population for a reason) I think you’re making a mistake here. It is completely possible to be appreciative of sex, and hate pornography. Even in the US, “Feminists Fighting Pornography” was a powerful cultural force for almost 2 decades. Only in the Western world is “pro sex” = “pro pornography” in most people’s minds. Everywhere else, these are separate issues, with pornography bans actually being from a pro-sex cultural position (I.e. it shouldn’t be commoditized online).
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  Only in your mind is "pornography" not a part of "sex". "Pro sex" doesn't mean "only the plainest sex imaginable", any more than "human rights" mean "to those people whom I like".
- teitoklien 1y ago
  I know for a fact they don’t hate pornography, i’ve been around their culture. They banned it because the judges felt like it. There were no major protests to ban it, no government ongoing policy, nothing. It was just done because the court felt like it. People were indifferent after that too, gov didn’t even comment, praise or shun the court. Life just went on and people just used vpns, gov doesn’t even care and doesn’t even enforce the ban outside of the 100 major urls and domain the supreme court itself decided and never revisited it. India’s supreme court is extremely unusual compared to other countries, it’s as powerful as the executive branch if not more, the legislative branch have no say in electing supreme court judges the previous judges elect the next ones. it just uses its power very sparingly out of fear that the legislative branch might come after their powers if they use them too much. banning a few major porn sites, banning electoral bonds (india’s version of superpac), creating new right to privacy laws without consulting the parliament (because the court feared gov isn’t taking digital privacy seriously enough), legalise lgbt rights without any parliament input as it felt it needed to protect those citizens freedoms and rights to self identify and form their own families with legal protection. are some places where the court has used its ultimate powers I personally like India’s supreme courts, they are partially the reason why india is relatively stable compared to other south asian nations. Overall they use their super powers extremely responsibly and sparingly. Accounting for both political environment and balancing it against the long term interest of the nation’s citizens

kmfrk 1y ago

Definitely going to be "interesting" to see what happens once places like UK+EU commit to age verifying interent users soon. * https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-age-verification https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-age-ver... * https://ageverification.dev/Roadmap/ https://ageverification.dev/Roadmap/

Barrin92 1y ago

>Japan famously has censorship; In Japanese culture there's often an 'official' layer of proper behavior that in some sense is a pretense and in reality people are much more free-wheeling, including in the adult sector where Japan is pretty big globally, which is likely understating it. The country is actually very sexually liberated. The pernicious thing is that the US and Anglosphere work exactly the other way around, legally you can say anything but it's the people who chase you around the globe and you have Mumsnet and American soccer moms hound you across the ocean. Which is a moral tyranny any dictator is envious of. The US was the only Western country where Leon was censored, the actually made like a 20 minute shorter version for the US market. Censoring actual art, not just porn or slop, is foreign to anyone in continental Europe or Japan.

FMecha 1y ago
CERO (the Japanese ratings board) have required some mature-rated Western console video games to be edited (either for violence or sexual aspects) for it to receive the "Z" (age-restricted) rating be sold in the country. Also, the passage of the law that regulated the AV (adult video) industry in 2022, intending to protect their performers, was notoriously controversial that year as well and seen as steps to censorship.

to11mtm 1y ago

> Some countries like Australia permit it, but “extreme” content (aka anything not “vanilla”) is technically illegal regardless of the age of the viewer. As a curious case, South Park: The Stick of Truth had a scene that was censored in a few countries (Australia and Germany among others) due to it's BDSM content... I will also note the odd case back in the day of Germany having such strict rules with violence/etc that many of the Command and Conquer games had humans replaced with robots. [0] Or even names of things. FF8 had 'nunchaku' changed to 'shinobu' because nunchucks are illegal in the UK [1] and "Castlevania: Bloodlines" for the Genesis/Mega Drive was named "Castlevania: The New Generation" in europe (although that also had a lot of blood removed). > UK, Australia, and now the US with age gating, payment processor refusal, or other restrictions. But also, I should note that Australia has had fairly strict laws on the book for quite some time and has a long history of using Refused Classification when they get the itch, hell the Re-release of Westwood's Blade Runner is RC. And unlike the UK (at least for now) there's not the digital/import loophole [2]. [0] - My Austrian friend on IRC said that at least the voices were really cool. [1] - Perhaps someone assumed the whole world of FF8 was a British Colony? [2] - My understanding is that somehow downloads and 'importing' never got covered in the law.