Love jam

[imomus]

Pop and porn have always been on a continuum with each other; sex, after all, is a major and perfectly legitimate element in most pop culture. The I Love Music forum currently has a thread going entitled Top Howevermany Transparent Sex Barely-Even-Euphemisms in Pop Music in case you need reminding of that fact. One of the many tragedies of the current Michael Jackson trial in California is the fact that, however it turns out, Michael will be culturally emasculated; he will never again be able to hiss and yelp out the sexual innuendos that once powered his music. Considering that he's a true genius of pop, and that the true genius of pop is sex, this will truly be a loss to the world, and a victory only for the new puritans -- the same people who reacted so violently to his sister Janet's "wardrobe malfunction" and made it part of their pre-election "culture wars" last year.



In Japan, a culture much less hung up about sex than the US, the continuum between porno and pop flows with much less turbulence. Culture stores like Book Off, Tsutaya and Village Vanguard shelve their stock with a smooth, unanxious transition from the "pure" to the "impure", the sexless to the sexy. Although there have recently been concerns in Japan about the too-easy availability of porn products to children, it's generally accepted that sex is part of the normal commercial landscape and doesn't do much harm. I'd say that, just as America's attitude has a lot to do with Christianity, Japan's is the result of their combination of a detachment religion (Buddhism) with a fertility and nature religion (Shinto).

Let's jam a bit further on this riff. When Avex recording artist Ai Otsuka released her Love Jam album last year, it was accompanied by a major poster campaign showing Ai's faced spattered suggestively with globs of jam. We don't need to call a semiologist to decode the sexual meaning of the Love Jam campaign, but just in case we missed it, porn site 100% Douga has Photoshopped the fig leaf (or should we say "the jam jar"?) of metaphor away entirely, reminding us that the fruit from which we make jam is nothing more than an attractive, glossy distribution system cunningly devised by strawberry plants to spread their DNA. They have quite a bit to teach us about pop marketing, those strawberries.

Comments

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

The Japanese do not have this relaxed approach to sex that you describe. Japan detaches sex from its procreative function more than any other country in the world. Sex is fetishised to the extent that they obsess over body parts, youth, nubility, rather than, say, fertility. Japanese men's worst fear seems to be a woman possessing an adult sexuality. That's why it's schoolgirls' - rather than, say, 'ladies'- knickers in the vending machines and they have no tradition of porn featuring MILFs, grannies, preganant or lactating women, like in the West. Jap porn is borderline paedophilic - even pubic hair is taboo.

They seem to be stuck at, or before what Freud describes as the 'anal stage' - they haven't even got to the phallic stage yet. No doubt you (or some of your tedious 'friends') will try and discredit me here for using a Western thinker's terminology when discussing Japan.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Who "obsesses over fertility"? I mean, even over on alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pregnant (if it still exists) it's not really fertility that's getting them off, is it? And by the way, pubes have been acceptable for quite some time in j-porn. Mores change, which is why the "love that dare not speak its name" of 1890 may be quite a different thing than "the love that dare not speak its name" in 2005. What remains a constant, alas, is persecution of those who step outside of society's arbitrary chalkmarks.

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

You're missing the point. You claim that Japanese attitudes are partially the result of Shinto, a "fertility and nature religion". But j-porn only ever paints women as subdued, frozen recipients/recepticles (this is the country that created Bukkake) and fetishises the infertile schoolgirl. I'm not saying that Western culture worships fertility in its own right, but we certainly prefer our women to be visibly capable of child-rearing.

Perhaps the things I've described are just a feature of Japanese porn that's available in the West. If so, why are the Japanese happy to allow this image of them to be spread worldwide, and why do Westerners look for this from the Japanese?

I think it's a part of all macho, patriarchal societies (and let's stop bullshitting here, Japan is one). Somewhere like Italy has the madonna/whore split. Once women give birth, they become almost 'born again virgins', incapable of being thought of a sexual being. Hence the old story about Italian men only having anal sex with their wives after the first child is born - a vagina that has fulfilled its biological purpose is no longer considered sexually viable. Compare this with the status of wives in Japanese society, who function as sexless mother substitutes for their husbands, who go to prostitutes for sex. But Japanese culture seems to push this further - once Japanese women's parts have the *capability* of functioning biologically, they become damaged goods. Hence the fetish for schoolgirls.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

You seem to have at your command a large quantity of sexual knowledge of the mentality of the various races. You're clearly either a well-travelled gynaecologist, an anthropologist, or a sailor.

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

preganant or lactating women,

Oh, I only wish it were the case that no hentai features preggers or lactating women.

fetishized

[(Anonymous)]

From my experience in Japan fetishism abounds here...and I wouldn't describe it as relaxed. I would , however describe it as interesting, energetic, and creative. Schoolgirls are a very public face of it, but scratch the surface and there are a milion other varieties...from OLs, Cosplay, stockings, food, older housewives,public nudity, and my favorite...pantyline fetishes. Personally I think the focus on a piece of clothing that is seen as a shape through tight pants has a certain amount of subtlety and style. Not actually my cup of poison, but I kind of admire the taste of those interested in that niche.
A little off-topic, but related... Momus I was reading your recent comments at GlitchslapTKO and was surprised to see you question why Japanese men don't get off on blond round eyes or some such thing....very weird. I'm sure enough do to keep the Russian hostesses flowing into the country. My friends here have just as many different desires AND dissatisfactions within and outside their society as you or I might have with ours.