Quote: (04-20-2011 10:24 AM)Moma Wrote:
I am almost certain it is illegal unless they have legalised it now. My friend even showed me a link that stated it is illegal in Japan. I cannot pull up that link because I am at work right now and I don't want to throw the word porn into the search engine and register on the work servers.
Is this link roughly heading in the direction you speak of?
http://www.japanprobe.com/2006/01/31/why...-censored/
According to this article, Meiji era law banned pornographic material, claiming it to be "injurious to public morals". This law remains on the books to this day(the American occupiers did not see fit to change it) and so pornography could, if this is read a certain way, be termed illegal.
The thing is that the wording makes it difficult to make a hard claim regarding illegality. Censored porn (by virtue of its obscuring much of the hardcore action) is technically legal under this definition, which explains why Japanese porn to this day is still censored. In spite of the censorship of the hardcore action(fully revealed bodies engaged in sexual acts with only the genitalia blurred out), most of us would still deem this ostensibly legal material to constitute pornography.
Furthermore, the definition of what is "injurious to public morals" has been shifting consistently lately. A decade ago, pubic hair had to be censored-this is increasingly no longer the case, and today the mosaics that cover the genitalia are far thinner than they once were.
Uncensored movies are legal online so long as they are "made for export". There are about a million entirely legal loopholes around this prohibition, which is why uncensored Japanese porn is so common online. It is also technically illegal to bring porn into Japan I believe.
But pornography in general/as a whole is not illegal in Japan at all. Censored porn is legal, as is the viewing of uncensored porn (again, with loopholes).
Quote:Quote:
I mean you can score tons of weed in Jamaica but it is actually illegal there. But I bet you didn't know that from all those rastas you see with a joint perpetually dangling from their lips.
I was aware. I am a Jamaican, and spent most of my formative years there with my family, most of whom are still on the island.
Cannabis is technically illegal in Jamaica, but is more tolerated in practice. While the books say that cultivating, selling and using it is entirely illegal, these laws often go without enforcement. This is why you see it out in the open so often while there.There are also some legal loopholes that are fairly easy to exploit. This has a tendency, of course, to give an impression of open legality to those less informed about the nation.
This being said, I understand your larger point.