Tokyo police seize 100,000 uncensored porn DVDs

It happened again.

Tokyo Metropolitan Police raided the Kabukicho entertainment district Jan. 21 and seized 100,000 uncensored porn DVDs. Every time I hear about these police raids on “uncensored porn,” I remember the time I saw the cover of a Japanese porn film. I was in Tokyo and friends recommended seeing a local sex shop is a “must do” for everyone visiting Japan. Especially for a sex writer.

I have seen a good deal of sex shops in my life — being a diligent global sex correspondent and all — but none quite matched the level of kink of Japan.

Let’s just say Japanese porn isn’t for the faint of heart. It features anything from schoolgirl rape fantasies, to mass peeing contests, to women having sex with eel. Live eel, if that makes a significant difference.

An average Japanese sex shop gives the impression nothing is “off limits” in local porn.

Except, of course, for one thing. Full nudity.

In Japan, all “intimate parts” of porn actors must be fully blurred or pixilated. Say, for the sake of argument, you are into films where women copulate with long, skinny fish.

Thanks to Japan's porn regulations, all you would actually see is the eel disappearing in a large brown pixilated splotch. Which, in this case, is probably for the best.

It’s almost funny that it’s illegal in Japan to display genitalia anywhere in erotic films or on DVD covers. Even in erotic “manga,” Japanese comics, genitalia of animated characters must be covered or blurred. This stubborn commitment to covering intimate parts of people in the wild sea of the world’s most bizarre fetishes and the most advanced sex toys, is almost as bizarre as the porn flicks themselves.

And, based on the frequency of police raids on sex shops in Tokyo, the market for uncensored (or “unblurred“) porn is flourishing. During the latest raid on Sunday, the police searched three shops, arrested six people, and seized approximately 100,800 discs and nine copying machines, The Tokyo Reporter writes.

All three shops, which didn’t use any advertising signboards, began selling DVDs in August, 2004. According to police, their sales have totaled approximately 1.58 billion yen ($20.2 million.)

Not that anyone has asked me, but I’ll offer my advice to the Japanese porn-censoring authority anyway:

1) Allow nudity
2) Scrap the eel
3) Definitely scrap the eel