KAROMA OF URUMIN, a 33-year-old YouTuber who lives near Tokyo, used to dream of becoming a singer. Ten years ago, a man approached her on the street and asked her to be a swimsuit model. He also offered to pay for singing lessons and help her succeed in the entertainment industry. After some cajoling, she agreed. On the day of the photo shoot, she was brought in to be naked. She ended up appearing in several porn videos. With feelings of shame and fear, Ms. Kurumin later contemplated suicide. “I kept thinking: what went wrong with my life? ” she remembers.
Japan’s porn industry is huge. It is estimated to release 4,500 videos a month, to generate around 55bn yen (around $380m) a year, and to employ around 10,000 actors and actresses. While it has declined from its peak in the early 2010s it is still a major exporter, including in South Korea, where the production and distribution of pornography is officially banned. Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, issued metro cards stamped with a picture of a Japanese porn star.
Japanese business had long existed in a legal gray area. That changed in May 2022 when the government passed a law targeting the type of coercion that Ms Kurumin had experienced. Companies are obliged to sign contracts with actors, and clarify what is expected to be done during shooting. Failure to comply will result in a fine. It was a “miracle,” said Shiomura Ayaka, who started as a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party as a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party against such a law. “It’s a big step in protecting women from sexual exploitation.”
Abuse in Japan’s porn industry has long been a concern. In 2020 a government study suggested that one in four women under the age of 40 were reported on the streets about supposed modeling gigs. Of those who agreed, 14% were asked to perform sexual acts.
The problem became more urgent last year when Japan lowered the legal age for adults from 20 to 18. Activists warned that teenagers could be legitimate targets for the porn industry. “We could have seen an increase in high school girls turning porn stars,” Ms Shiomura said. Last year, before the legal age was lowered, 40,000 people signed an online petition urged lawmakers to allow people ages 18 and 19 to cancel porn contracts.The new law ended up extending that protection to all ages.
But the law has sparked strong backlash from porn industry workers. Before the adoption of the law, which took only three months, politicians held hearings with the victims of the industry and organizations that help them, but they did not make much effort to talk to representatives of the thousands who work willingly there.
The rapid movement of the bill also caused confusion about its contents. A survey last year found that more than half of porn stars had seen job offers and income drop after they passed. Actors and producers have criticized several provisions in the law as unrealistic. These include a ban on filming for a month after contracts are signed, and a ban on releasing videos for four months after shooting.
In the 2010s Japan saw a series of cases like Ms. Kurumin’s, in which women said they were forced to appear in videos. Facing public backlash, the porn industry “had to transform to survive,” says an industry player. In 2017 he established a steering group, the AV Human Rights Ethics Group. This group established rules that dictate contracts, regular inspections and verification of porn. This was not the first time the industry had taken steps to avoid legal scrutiny. Japanese porn videos are gender-blurred, a measure originally intended to circumvent obscenity laws. It has become a requirement for certified porn producers.
However, it is unclear to what extent the porn industry has evolved significantly, as has the ongoing level of abuse and exploitation. The lack of serious scrutiny makes the industry a black box, says Makihara Hideki of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who took part in discussions on last year’s law. Although large porn production companies and organizations tend to be very visible, it is believed that there are many underground businesses that avoid the rules.
Some women’s groups oppose the new law because it legalizes only pornography. “There is no such thing as consent in the sex industry. You can’t buy sexual license,” said Kanajiri Kazuna from PAPS, the NPO which helps victims of the porn industry.
There is at least agreement on the need for a wider debate on consent. Laws on sex and women’s rights in Japan are outdated, although they are improving. In June the country raised the age of consent for sex from 13 to 16. In March it changed the legal definition of rape to “non-consensual sexual relations”, removing the clause that the crime takes a -enter physical force.
However, Ms. Kurumin doubts that the porn law “could actually save other people from going through” what she did. Improving sex education in schools and teaching students about consent might help, she suggests. At least Japan now not only looks sexy, but talks about it a lot. ■
