The subject of consent in the porn industry is taken very seriously in Japan. The Japanese adult film industry is one of the largest in the world. We are talking about a turnover of more than 20 billion euros per year. And there is a lot of abuse, especially with young women who find themselves in productions without really having realized the impact that this work would have on the rest of their lives.
According to a government survey conducted in 2020, a quarter of Japanese women between their teens and forties have already been approached by “talent scouts” who promise them careers in fashion or song and 13% of those who have responded to these proposals said they had been directed without their consent to video shoots or photo shoots of a sexual nature.
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The parliamentarians took advantage of the change in the legal age to 18 instead of 20 to better regulate this activity. They were logically afraid that very young women, fresh out of high school, would find themselves recruited by porn film producers without understanding what was going on. It is indeed always the same technique, testified several young women who came to tell parliamentarians how they had fallen into this trap. You are told that you are very cute, that you are going to be a model. And then the photos follow one another and they are more and more naked. Those who try to break their contract are often threatened with having to pay astronomical compensation, according to a report by the NGO Human Rights Now published in 2016.
From now on, the producers of these films will have to wait at least a month between the moment they sign an actress or an actor and the moment they make them shoot an X movie. And then they will have to wait at least four months before to broadcast this film. The idea is to give time for reflection to young recruits who do not find themselves trapped in fact, or forced by adults. They have time to realize what is happening.
In addition, the law now allows them to demand the total removal of the video in which they appear up to one year after the film’s release. The producer is then obliged to remove the film from all online platforms and he cannot seek compensation from the actors who suddenly changed their minds. And what if the movie continues to air?
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The law provides penalties for ill-intentioned producers and directors if it is proven that they refused to remove the videos or if they pressured the young recruits not to cancel their contract, they risk fines of up to 100 million yen, ie 700,000 euros and in some cases, they may also be sentenced to prison terms.
However, the law does not satisfy everyone and a group of opponents would have preferred a pure and simple ban on pornographic filming, denouncing a text “legalizing human trafficking. The suffering associated with adult films is not the result of contracts, but of the humiliation born of physical and sexual violence and the need to have real sex”the group said in a statement.