Nationalist former general claims Japan needs sexual harassment

We reported earlier this summer on the silly circus that was the Tokyo gubernatorial election, with a female candidate stripping off during her TV broadcast and another using pornographic posters that police ordered to be taken down.

One of the slightly more serious candidates, at least in terms of mainstream fame, was Toshio Tamogami, who finished fourth with 3.9% and around 270,000 votes.

The right-wing former Air Self-Defense Force general has stood for election several times, never winning public office but using the campaigns to maintain his profile and platform as a nationalist commentator.

It has now emerged that the 76-year-old’s views go beyond just rhetoric arguing for Japan’s re-militarization and denying the Nanjing Massacre. At a party in January, according to an anonymous male attendee, Tamogami gave a welcoming speech in which he claimed that “sexual and power harassment was necessary for Japan.”

The report was published by the weekly tabloid Friday on Saturday.

And Tamogami’s basis for such a bold assertion? “Because they’re scared of sexual and power harassment, men are getting weak. They don’t have any gusto. Everyone, we need sexual harassment! We need power harassment! Please sexually harass people! Please harassment others!”

We can assume that Tamogami had had a few drinks before the speech and was perhaps trying to make a joke.

Friday spoke to the politician’s office, who largely confirmed the story. His team said that it is a fact that Tamogami has warned against the “debilitation” of society due to sexual and power harassment, though they claimed that he did not remember specifically saying that harassment was “necessary” or “recommended.”

Power harassment refers primarily to workplace bullying and is a serious problem in Japan, where people sadly work themselves to death so often that it has led to a specific word — karoshi — to describe the phenomenon.

Though MeToo has not had the same cultural impact in Japan as it has in the West, sexual harassment is a very sensitive issue in a society where men are still dominant in politics and business. Many celebrities and politicians have recently suffered professional consequences for sexual harassment, whereas in past decades their behavior might have been shrugged off.

The issue of the casting couch in Japan for actors, models, singers, and more has also belatedly gained more attention of late, as have the long-ignored predatory actions of figures like Johnny Kitagawa.