The age of sexual consent determines how many years a person has the right to give legal consent to intimate acts and to have sexual intercourse with other persons. According to federal law in Japan, 13-year-old boys and girls reach consent age. How is this expressed in the legislation of the country, and how is it reflected in the sexual culture of adolescents?
Laws on Sex and Marriage
According to Chapter 17 of Article 177 of the Japanese penitentiary system, anyone who engages in a relationship with a woman under the age of thirteen commits a felony, which is considered rape, and the punishment is a minimum of three years in prison with forced labor. However, according to the Law on the Welfare of Children, chapter II of article 34 of section 6 says that “no one should commit fornication with children”. At the same time, the word “fornication” is interpreted as sexual activity, and “children” include persons under 18 years of age. The punishment in this case is not specified.
Despite the fact that thirteen-year-old boys reach the age of consent in Japan, they are not allowed to marry until they are 18 years old. Girls can get married from 16 years old. At the same time, persons under the age of 20, which is considered the age of majority in Japan, cannot be married without parental consent.
Territorial provisions
All prefectures and municipalities of the country have independent age laws from which young people can consent to sexual intercourse. Most prefectures have criminal and administrative articles against obscenity committed against minors and the payment of their sexual services. Also in many territories in Japan, the age of consent ranges from 16 to 18 years, and it is illegal to engage in sexual activities with partners who are younger than this limit. But there is one caveat: if parents do not approve of such a relationship. For example, in Tokyo, a person must be at least 17 years old so that he has the right to agree to any form of sexual relations, and in seven prefectures of the country this age begins at 18 years. But in some isolated islands, such as Minamitori, the local age of consent is still 13 years.
The image of a schoolgirl - a sexy symbol of Japan
Girls in school uniforms going to class as a group are a phenomenon of a modernized society that has appeared in Japan since the beginning of the 20th century. After the war, the image of an innocent schoolgirl began to be actively used in pop music and cinema. In the early 1970s, the thirteen-year-old Momoe Yamaguchi became the country's pop idol, performing “Green Peach”, a song with a very ambiguous chorus, and playing the role of “bad girl”.
Simultaneously from this period, the largest Japanese film company Nikkatsu first shot a number of films where schoolgirls were subjected to sexual and other forms of violence. The theme, picked up by several more studios, began to be widely used in the film industry, becoming a tidbit for an audience consisting exclusively of men. Such films gained incredible popularity, they were not considered child pornography and were legal, since the age of sexual consent in Japan everywhere at that time began with 13 years. The image of schoolgirls in the early 1990s began to be enterprisingly used in comics, cartoons, video and photo pornography.
"Market value" of Japanese schoolgirls
In the early 1990s, a generation of 13-18 year old girls suddenly realized the demand for their bodies and age, which, despite the acute economic crisis in the country, had a stable cost. So the practice of endse-mowing, “paid dates” of older men with schoolgirls, began to spread rapidly. This phenomenon had nothing to do with pedophilia, since thirteen-year-old girls corresponded to the age of sexual consent. In Japan, prostitution is officially banned, and therefore end-mowing is illegal only if schoolgirls accept gifts from men or money for sexual services. But, as a rule, both sides claim that the schoolgirl only accompanies the man and spends time with him without having sex, and he financially compensates for her attention.
According to the UN, the sexual exploitation of children in Japan has reached terrifying limits. Today, about 13% of secondary and high school students provide escort services to men, and the country has developed a network of companies that organize end-mow customers with girls who have reached consent age in Japan. There are about 110 registered agencies of this kind in the country, and another three dozen act unofficially.
