Entrepreneur tells Japan to stop censoring porn

Famous (or possibly infamous) Japanese entrepreneur Takafumi Horie, aka Horiemon, has weighed in on the issue of adult video censorship.

Japanese adult video, despite being possibly the biggest porn industry in the world, is censored: no genitals are shown. This is a strange workaround to avoid prosecution under the obscenity law that was introduced to Japan in the Meiji era. The same policy is used in softcore porn and mainstream cinema, even if the nudity is not in a sex scene.

In a Japanese movie, the makers will simply shoot in a way to avoid genitals. If it’s a foreign film, they will add black marks to cover the offending bits of flesh or pixelate the image.

This pixelation is known in Japanese as “mosaic” and is the censorship method of choice in Japanese porn.

It takes a bit of getting used but has acquired an aesthetic of its own — so much so that fans might be uncomfortable with uncensored porn.

That said, consider the poor souls whose job is to pixelate cocks all day just so you can enjoy the latest releases by your favorite Japanese porn stars.

There is something faintly ridiculous about the pixelation, since it’s obvious what it’s (barely) obscuring. Nonetheless, it allows the industry to thrive without fear of prosecution.

Demand for uncensored porn certainly exists, domestically and especially internationally, but removing the mosaic can lead to arrest and prosecution. Likewise if you make your own porn and sell it uncensored: expect to be targeted by police and made to do the perp walk for the cameras.

In his characteristically blunt verbal style, Horiemon recently argued on his YouTube channel that Japan’s stance on censorship of nudity is ridiculous because uncensored porn is “easily available overseas.” (Actually, Mr. Horie, you can still watched uncensored porn easily in Japan — it just won’t be Japanese, on the whole.)

“Why does Japan prohibit uncensored porn? It’s pointless.”

Ever the businessman, Horiemon says that ending the culture of mosaic would boost the Japanese economy because it would be

He may have a point, though JAV is already insanely popular around the world, especially in other parts of Japan (not least because those countries are even stricter and don’t allow hardcore pornography, like South Korea). Would uncensored content make it even more popular? Quite possible.

But Horiemon is thinking also about the Japanese viewer, who is apparently so desperate to see uncensored content that they resort to overseas providers and pay them money. If Japanese-produced content was uncensored, that money would go back into the domestic industry (and then to to nation through the taxes that distribution companies pay).

“This is bleeding the nation dry! The taxes that should be coming back to us are draining away because the police are idiots.”

For his anti-mosaic rent, Horiemon was talking with former porn star (and now scholar/writer) Suzumi Suzuki.

We suspect that Japanese viewers are so accustomed to censored porn that they don’t mind consuming JAV as it is, and their tastes and fetishes are probably better served by JAV than foreign porn.

On the other hand, Horiemon could be referring to overseas distributors like FC2 who provide Japanese porn content uncensored (and with their servers and executives safely based outside the country). FC2 is certainly very popular among Japanese men, which has made it the enemy of both the police and mainstream JAV distributors.

The founder of FC2 is openly opposed to porn censorship and even ran as a political candidate on that platform. He is also on an international wanted list and cannot return to Japan for fear of arrest.

Horiemon is known for his loud, flashy style, his opinionated personality, and provocative business ventures. Shunned by the mainstream media since his legal woes in the 2000s, he has found success via his own online platform and outlandish projects.

These include launching a rocket into space with Tenga in 2021.