For some reason, the Japanese government seems to be just as intent as ever in its quest to keep it citizens as ignorant as possible regarding the appearance of their genitals. Once citizen, however, is just as determined to fight for the right to gander.
Publisher Takashi Asai started on his quest eight years ago when customs official confiscated a book of his by the late American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, which includes sado-masochistic homosexual images, because they were judged to be obscene
Asai, who heads a film distribution company, translated and published a collection of Mapplethorpe’s works in Japan in 1994, based on imported negatives that customs did not check.
But when Asai carried a copy of his book back from the United States in 1999, it was seized by customs officials and he has battled with courts since to reverse the move.
Japan’s domestic obscenity laws were relaxed in the 1990s to allow pictures of pubic hair, but imported publications are handled by customs and it still bans images of genitals.
“It’s meaningless to have to cover nude photos in this day and age when images are being freely accessed on the Internet,” Asai said in a telephone interview this week.
The book is in the Japanese parliament’s library, he said, and copies were offered for sale on the Web.
Japanese obscenity laws have loosened up a bit over the past couple of years. There once was a time not that long ago when any image that showed any pubic hair was off limits. . . Though there was softcore nudity nightly on TV and hardcore strip joints operating out in the open scattered here and there among the various night spots.
Pubic hair is no longer taboo, but the physical genitals are still officially off limits. Above-board publishers follow the law to the letter, so what is specifically declared off limits by the law (which actually is not that much) is masked. Everything else is presented in its entire glory for the purveyor’s viewing pleasure.