Japan stops shooting porn after new law passed

[hoochimama]

A post from the largest western VR porn company a couple months ago shedding some light on what was happening to R18 & eventually will to everyone else:

We're really sorry about the frustrations, but if you think it's hard for you - you should try being on our content compliance team. It's a hard and thankless job, and when they manage not to have users angry at them, they get angry phone calls from payment processors instead.

I will be perfectly blunt and honest with the community about what is happening: One major credit card in particular is cracking down hard across the globe on various "high risk" industries. I'm sure most users on this sub are already familiar with Japanese megasite R18. Well they got cut off from this credit card because too many Japanese videos break the rules. They lost half their international revenue overnight and a chunk of their domestic revenue as a result.

What are the rules? That's a great question and as soon as we know them for sure we'll tell you. But they won't tell us, either. They give some rough guidelines but they're incredibly vague and written in such a way that they basically retain the right to interpret anything how they prefer.

This is not unique to us and it effects other companies that produce and / or distribute content as well, but the enforcement is just as patchy as the rules. We can post a video that feels edgy and taboo one day, and then the next day we receive an e-mail from someone outside the company needing an explanation about the bottle of wine on the table in one of the scenes. A scene not only needs to be completely legal, it needs to look completely legal. OnlyFans, a site invented for sexy people to build a community of content followers, briefly just said "fuck it" to porn as a whole. Even YouTube is tightening down rules on all kinds of content and demonetizing channels across the board in categories like gambling and talking about drug use. Even educational material.

This is one of those hazards that's hard to avoid as a multi-national company working across financial regulations and legal hurdles around the globe.

We are radically against censorship, but we are also powerless here. If it were actually a legal fight we might be able to do more, but if a credit card or payment processor doesn't want to do business with you, there's little you can do.

Pornhub was publicly slashed to ribbons in the media for uploads that we all know they did everything in their power to stop. The same just happened to R18. These are some of the largest sites in the world, and SLR is the largest VR porn site. When the pressure came down for us (as I can almost promise it will come for all adult sites) SLR could have made sweeping, fast fixes. And at first we did by rapidly deactivating anything even remotely controversial, and then we started watching them - individually tagging problem frames, timestaps, and videos. We go through our content and the content of EVERY studio that uploads. By the way - did you know we're hiring? We could use the help. :-D

We sincerely hope this is only a speed bump because we're staunchly against censorship, but we don't just want to tell the community why we've had to make new restrictions, we want to get the message out to other content creators: now is the time to be cautious and careful. The morality police already knocked on Pornhub's door, R18's door, and our door. Those are some of the biggest houses in the neighborhood, sure, but there are a lot of houses to go and they've got plenty of time to get to them.

Also https://www.zenra.net/blog/breaking-news-r18-permanently-closing

 

[tvstrip]

https://www.zenra.net/blog/whats-going-on-with-r18-how-did-we-get-here

@hoochimama
Sorry for my ignorance, but what was the issue with the movies which were purged from R18? Were they from studios which clearly flaunted the human rights rules, or was it something else?

 

[hoochimama]

@hoochimama
Were they from studios which clearly flaunted the human rights rules

No, nothing of the sort.

First R18 had to remove or retranslate all their family roleplay titles so that the characters would be step-relatives only. Step-mother-in-laws!
Then they had to remove all the scenes where pornstars cosplayed in japanese school uniforms (nevermind that jav stars were all 20+ years old) which if you know anything about JAV meant a huge loss of the catalog.
Then anything that could be construed as a roleplayed character not consenting to sex, nevermind that all women acting in JAV are expected to act reluctant/scared of intimidating japanese penises being too large for them. Again, another huge chunk.
That's only the stuff I saw directly mentioned on jav discussion boards and could notice (I wasn't a fan of R18 because of the DRM), though going off what the censors forced on other sites I assume the demands eventually included getting rid of any roleplay depictions of sexwork/prostitution (all the soapy massage and health delivery titles) and more.

Same kind of issues/demands that forced brazzers to remove all pornstarpunishment scenes, iwantclips to remove anything to do with hypno & assorted fetishes, why teamskeet had to go back and butcher their older family roleplay scenes to half the original length and why new scenes have the characters repeat they're only step-related throughout the scene, why clips4sale had to remove all poppers joi videos and more (with several studios closing down) etc.

Japanese porn tastes are more varied than western ones, more fetishistic in the culture and religion. It's why their smut seems so original and playful and why the loss of entire porn categories & fetishes would be much more significant to a JAV catalog than to brazzers for instance.

It should've been obvious to anyone what the end goal of these compliance-dictating "payment processors" was when they tried to force Onlyfans to abandon all hardcore/porn content last year (which would have shut down the company). The only reason the censors ended up backing down against OF was because OF was so well known in the mainstream (celebs do OF) that it stayed on top of international CNN for days on end, drawing a lot of unwanted attention and questions for these organizations.

 

[JuicyBunny]

It's February and R18 is gone as of November. Employees have moved on to other lines of business. As in, out of porn. Funny to see some of the fucked gaijin who helped wreck JAV and AV biz whining about it even if it is a link to their crap site. Many of the companies on that site are at the center of the documented, rape, extortion and forced prostitution brought to light. Forced prostitution is unfortunately still a thing though it is moving in some new verticals like Girls and Boys Bars.

THE AV Industry has been cannablised by a few bad actors. And still today, there remains little work, companies having to rehash old content. Lots of "remastering" going on. And girls shifting more into other lines, more dangerous lines, of work out of necessity. No coincidence that syphillis and other STD rates are skyrocketing in Japan, especially, Tokyo, Okinawa and Osaka.

Your foolish if your're not checking mosaic AV. Hottest girls, and most unique scenes and ideas. Way more than Uncensored at this point. And the assholes are still uncensored. We will soon be distributing Taiwanese content. All uncensored. Check my threads for updates.


.

 

[tvstrip]

THE AV Industry has been cannablised by a few bad actors. And still today, there remains little work, companies having to rehash old content. Lots of "remastering" going on. And girls shifting more into other lines, more dangerous lines, of work out of necessity. No coincidence that syphillis and other STD rates are skyrocketing in Japan, especially, Tokyo, Okinawa and Osaka.

Are there reliable sources for this? I'm genuinely curious if there could be co-relation

 

[JuicyBunny]

Are there reliable sources for this? I'm genuinely curious if there could be co-relation

You can try asahi and Japan times. if you an get sources from them then put their articles into DeepL translator. Its not perfect but it is close. A lot of this is reported on Japanese news sites and not so much on the English papers. Just looking at new releases on mosaic sites and uncensored AV from the states tells the story.

 

[tvstrip]

You can try asahi and Japan times. if you an get sources from them then put their articles into DeepL translator. Its not perfect but it is close. A lot of this is reported on Japanese news sites and not so much on the English papers. Just looking at new releases on mosaic sites and uncensored AV from the states tells the story.

I've worked in Japan before so my Japanese used to be "totemo jyouzu", but I haven't been keeping it up. Maybe this is a perfect opportunity catch up on reading Japanese media and refresh my skills

 

[tvstrip]

Then they had to remove all the scenes where pornstars cosplayed in japanese school uniforms (nevermind that jav stars were all 20+ years old) which if you know anything about JAV meant a huge loss of the catalog.
Then anything that could be construed as a roleplayed character not consenting to sex, nevermind that all women acting in JAV are expected to act reluctant/scared of intimidating japanese penises being too large for them. Again, another huge chunk.

JK is literally a JAV genre in and of itself, so that's crazy.
And unless the model is cast as a "bitch" (slut), there is always some degree of resistance/non-consent in even the most "mainstream" JAV. Heck, the standard female sex moan in Japanese is "Iya/Iyan", which literally means "no".

I'm surprised there's much left.

 

[JuicyBunny]

I've worked in Japan before so my Japanese used to be "totemo jyouzu", but I haven't been keeping it up. Maybe this is a perfect opportunity catch up on reading Japanese media and refresh my skills

You may have to juku up your Japanese. NHK already scrubbing the news.

Tokyo male companion arrested for allegedly forcing woman into …​

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20230123_10
WebPolice in Tokyo have arrested a man on suspicion of forcing a female customer of a so-called host club into prostitution. Investigative sources say Akiba Takuya had worked as …

404 now.

 

[JuicyBunny]

JK is literally a JAV genre in and of itself, so that's crazy.
And unless the model is cast as a "bitch" (slut), there is always some degree of resistance/non-consent in even the most "mainstream" JAV. Heck, the standard female sex moan in Japanese is "Iya/Iyan", which literally means "no".

I'm surprised there's much left.

JK has a specific meaning though. Not just high school girls but high school girls who are 18+ implying adults, cosplay, no kids.

joshikousei​

Is the complete word for it. I think all of the rules and context that Japanese have for pracrtically everything only work INSIDE Japan. Outside, foreigners blunt force attack things with a Neanderthal affect. The only guys going after high school girls for real in Japan are usually found to have a mental defect. lol. That old saying in the states, "15 will get you 20" applies to the criminals entire family. Still, with the way the media sanitizes sex horror stories and cops who never talk. We don't know the real story.

I like the sounds Japanese girls make during coitus. And they know it.

Years ago a women's group I support came out against all the violent gang rape content with women as the victim. Many women came out and said "there are plenty of videos with women abusing men. And we like it so mind your own business." lol. It's a complicated world. Men that like getting their junk smashed around and worse are known as M Men in AV. It's a fairly prolific genre.

 

[tvstrip]

FemDom is a universal fetish. Not gonna lie, I like it too.

I wonder if JAV where the female is the aggressor is subject to the same rules? Is it only "objectionable" if a woman is the victim? And what about LezDom then?

 

[JuicyBunny]

FemDom is a universal fetish. Not gonna lie, I like it too.

I wonder if JAV where the female is the aggressor is subject to the same rules? Is it only "objectionable" if a woman is the victim? And what about LezDom then?

FemDom can be fun. Especially if the girls are into it. I see tons of listings for the play. You should visit Tokyo or Nagoya. I know some places.

I think the dominate problem, pun intended, has been the treatment of women. The Police set up rules years ago to try and help.
1. No more street touting for sex work.
I see it going on today in many places.
2. No more bait and switch ads.
Still a common practice to advertise for bikini or lingerie work and have girls show up to a gangbang.
3. No more coercion of models.
Still goes on.

BTW, the story I posted that NHK already removed was about a host club for women who has been successfully coercing women into prostitution to pay off their bar debts which can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of yen.

I used to be more simpathetic to the AV business people who were claiming foul. But I've more or less lost that empathy.
I do know plenty of producers who are straight with their models, play by the rules and just want to make a comfortable pipeline for earnings for their company and for the models. These producers often work with girls on a variety of projects. Not all are dvd output.
They are mostly indie producers.

Irony is, many of the lawbreakers and rule violators have set themselves up as gatekeepers to the biz. That's being used against them. Laughing my ass off. A bunch of them are headed for prison. Not all are Japanese.

 

[tvstrip]

Same kind of issues/demands that forced brazzers to remove all pornstarpunishment scenes, iwantclips to remove anything to do with hypno & assorted fetishes,

Speaking of fetishes, I noticed this. I know it's not a huge genre, but is "hypno" fetish now taboo too?

Like, when the depiction is clearly fake/acted, are we holding them to the same standard?
What about superhero porn? That's a huge market in JAV.

 

[hoochimama]

Speaking of fetishes, I noticed this. I know it's not a huge genre, but is "hypno" fetish now taboo too?
Like, when the depiction is clearly fake/acted, are holding them to the same standard?

Yup, no such thing as clearly fake/acted for the censors. Here's a couple of links about it:
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/erotic-hypnosis-censorship
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vuwKN-yuOJDlLiOa8CyCVA8BMpXg7knCZxS8YgFE98Y/edit#gid=0

What about superhero porn? That's a huge market in JAV.

Same thing. I do believe that up till a few years ago some western producers operated under the assumption that if the video looked goofy enough by dressing up as superheroes it couldn't be taken seriously so they could roleplay some nono fetishes in them. But that no longer seems to be the case. Chicks like Rachel Steele and Christina Carter have had to move a good chunk of their c4s clips to smaller niche platforms.

 

[rhapsodymipo]

Who's watching censored porn anyway?

a shitton of people. The story is better

 

[Torre82]

Japan = Vegas =internet.
Insofar as that after a while, they'll find that making things family-friendly on the outside is more.. Welcoming?

But like tumblr, prohibition, republicans or the d7³p web, behind the scenes there will be things being made, sold, etc.

This works out in their favor, honestly. The taboo is strong.
In my opinion.

 

[tvstrip]

Same thing. I do believe that up till a few years ago some western producers operated under the assumption that if the video looked goofy enough by dressing up as superheroes it couldn't be taken seriously so they could roleplay some nono fetishes in them. But that no longer seems to be the case. Chicks like Rachel Steele and Christina Carter have had to move a good chunk of their c4s clips to smaller niche platforms.

...So even this would be banned???

 

[DrakeM]

So I guess this would be "right out": http://www.hostave3.net/hvw/fhg/video/0242gix/index.html

 

[hoochimama]

View attachment 1037029

...So even this would be banned???

If a big site like brazzers etc tried it, probably. Stuff like punishedheroines, shg-media etc still seem to manage but probably because they're small operations.

 

[JuicyBunny]

Credit card companies ban content processed by gateway companies based on local laws. Its not universal. Case by case.
Though it is starting to look more and more universal.