Orgasm Wars

The article below got linked on the very popular American news website "Drudge Report".

The first comment in the article says the author is very misleading.

So, what’s the real story?

http://theweek.com/article/index/252933 ... al-culture

[quote:13ok7609]
Meet today’s two contestants: Ryou Sawai, a heterosexual Japanese porn star with a '90s boy-band haircut, and Takuya, a gay man who owns a bar called Cholesterol. The challenge: Can Takuya bring Sawai to orgasm against his will within 40 minutes?

If you thought Deal or No Deal was high stakes, welcome to Japan’s Orgasm Wars.

Considering its scandalously "climactic battle," it’s little wonder that the show has been getting a decent amount of attention. But it’s more than the fact that it’s a 40-minute blow job contest. It’s a 40-minute blow job contest that begins with an exchange of bows and business cards, and proceeds to respectful pre blow job discussion featuring "trash-talking" that’s as courteous and polite as a tea party.

The combination of sexual temptation, shame, and competition, framed in a formalized setting, is baffling to Americans — and yet it seems to fit with what we’ve come to view as Japan’s "weird" sexual culture.

At the same time, it seems paradoxical considering the viral reports that Japanese citizens in their twenties and thirties are increasingly uninterested in having sex. According to one report, 45 percent of women and more than 25 percent of men ages 16 to 24 said they "were not interested in sex or despised sexual contact." Is this the same country that produced such a uniquely kinky game show?

It’s a sticky issue (pun intended) to analyze because too often aspects of Japanese social culture, especially in regard to sex, are written off as part of the country’s "strangeness." Beckie Smith at the U.K.'s The Independent writes, "Western media outlets clamber over each other in their haste to cover the story, with every report of bagel heads, snail facials, or ritual head-shaving being used as further evidence of a unique Japanese weirdness."

That’s the reason stories about the Japanese not having sex spread like fire. We can see the same phenomenon playing out with Orgasm Wars, which fits neatly into our conception of the Japanese as the ultimate purveyors of sexual perversion. But rarely do people actually investigate the reasons behind such trends or place them in context. "These stories gain traction because they support a simplistic view of East Asia which is at best patronizing and at worst overtly racist," says Smith.

That being said, Orgasm Wars is worthy of analysis. The fact that the show mixes traditional formality — bowing, business cards, and even a box obscuring the actual sex act — and extreme sexual playfulness is revealing.

For one, it certainly shows that sexual desire is far from dead in Japan. William Pesek at Bloomberg argues that too often low birth rates are conflated with low rates of sexual activity. While there is plenty of evidence that Japanese citizens are less sexually active than many Western counterparts, that can be attributed to the same factors that keep down the birth rate: The country’s "exorbitant living costs, elevated stress, and diminished confidence," according to Pesek.

The country has been suffering from economic stagnation, while more full-time jobs have become part-time, leading people to hold more jobs and spend more hours working. "If you leave for work at 6 a.m. and get home close to midnight, including weekends" writes Pesek, "where is time for dating?"

But just because people aren’t dating or even seeking sexual relations, doesn’t mean their sex drive is dead. In fact, that libido is often channeled into pornography, resolving the seeming discrepancy between a supposedly sexless population and a thriving industry of pornography and sex toys (and even sex toy bars).

However, there is also another element that makes Orgasm Wars such an intriguing show for Americans, and it is reflective of modern Japanese entertainment culture at large: The game show factor. There is plenty of American-produced porn featuring people in sexual situations against their will, much of which is far more graphic than Orgasm Wars. But none are so loaded with the brutal tests of composure and restraint that are common features of even non-porn Japanese game shows.

"The most consistent themes in Japanese game shows are humiliation and embarrassment — sometimes to the point of sadistic," writes Matt Hurwitz at the Associated Press. He argues that these shows play to extreme emotions like shame because they can be a form of release in an otherwise emotionally restrained society. Porn is the ultimate form of release, so this game show format actually seems fitting.

There’s also the huge role that honor plays in Japanese culture. The samurai code and Orgasm Wars actually share at their core the constant need to maintain honor even in "disgraceful" situations. Arthur Smith, an executive producer of ABC’s former I Survived a Japanese Game Show, tells the Associated Press, "Their games are all about saving face. When you don’t do good, you’ve harmed your family — you don’t look good in your family’s eyes."

Those elements are present even in a battle of orgasmic will. In Orgasm Wars, the manager throughout the match reminds his straight porn star that he cannot come from a man (the stigmatization of homosexuality is a whole other ball of wax), and at the end there is a formal acknowledgment of defeat. And lots of paper towels.
[/quote:13ok7609]

Hm…

[quote:yz0dvys7]Their games are all about saving face. When you don’t do good, you’ve harmed your family — you don’t look good in your family’s eyes.[/quote:yz0dvys7]
I think back on Endo’s family laughing behind him whilst getting the biggest shaming of his life and I can’t say I agree that it’s so serious. Ironically that part was all in an "old Japan" setting too!

Funnily enough Downtown setup something similar in a 1995 episode of their spinoff Kazaana show in a challenge called "Let’s Love Each Other". Except both were straight guys split into Yaoi-style "seme" (the dominant one) and "uke" (the submissive one) pairs. :$

viewtopic.php?f=89&t=4945

But Kazaana was a late night show. Other American news articles seem to cite the source of the video as being from:

[quote:yz0dvys7]Poko X Tate, which is part of a racy late night talk show that airs on satellite TV at 2 am[/quote:yz0dvys7]

But it’s not clear whether it really is a show. It seems related to a variety show on Fuji TV called Hoko x Tate ほこ×たて but its Wiki page doesn’t make special note of Poko x Tate and "ぽこ×たて" just points to the video the American news talk about I think (not interested to watch it so someone else can check :rofl: ). Maybe it was never a show, just a random segment?

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%BB% ... F%E3%81%A6

Actually it seems Hoko x Tate was recently deemed inappropriate for broadcast but for entirely different reasons. It ran from January 17, 2011 to October 20, 2013. On October 27th it was put on hold after complaints of animal abuse. There was another segment in the show with remote controlled cars, they had a monkey appear to chase and try to catch the car, but it came to light the monkey was tied by its neck to the car with a fishing line and being pulled along… :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoQr3sr2XuU

It was deemed cruel to the animal and inappropriate for broadcast, the show was cancelled this month after the controversy. That’s just what I got from Google Translating the WIki page though.

here is the video in question EXTREMELY NSFW

[hide:3hprx493][video:3hprx493]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6TGQRM-VFU[/video:3hprx493][/hide:3hprx493]

I don’t care what the japanese on their tv shows as long as no person or animal is harmed, however as I’ve never seen the show apart from the clip, I can say that they took it too far for my own taste.

Surely there are different views and approaches to the sexuality topic, yet it seems really contradictory to westerners. I have just seen the video, so let’s describe it first.

All action happens inside a box that strategically hides fellatio. This must be a late night show. It is broadcasted as one of those challenges from any comedy show… but the topic is way different. The challenge is done by mutual consent. I have seen that barman in pranks to comedians… NONE of them involved a blowjob at all. Being turned on by a guy with his appearance, the way he talks, his weird fetish for bras and the strange noises he makes seems quite odd. Slurping as someone’s eating, like noodles, is something well considered in Japan and other Asian countries, to point out that one is enjoying the meal. It seems the same can apply for sex issues. The most shocking part is the presentation and reaction of the people involved. It’s not an AV, it’s just a comedy show with the smaller screen that displays the reaction of celeb guests back on set.

Now on to the sex/sexuality topic. Nudity is considered something natural and common in Japan society. It has a long culture of bathing, inns, ryokan, onsen, ofuro and so on. Nothing to worry about in the media as long as genitalia is masked or even slightly shadowed. The fetish in many cases is to be dressed in a certain way instead of being completely naked.

Homosexuality in Japan goes way back in time. Still, it’s not fully recognized nowadays. It’s hard to see unknown people on Japanese TV, no matter if you are dealing with quizzes or enternainment. Celebrities, singers, models are everywhere, and the same happens with the LGBT community. Everyone knows Matsuko Deluxe, Akihiro Miwa and even characters such as Razor Ramon Hard Gay or the members of Yazima Beauty Salon, but that’s it. They’re mainly transgender personalities or role personas.

[video:4bags0d5]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nlL2p2MWZc[/video:4bags0d5]

Now on to "gayish behavior". Kissing between men or passing some candy from lips to lips as the video above shows in the first two commercials are not uncommon. After all, Matsumoto has not "switched sides" after having Yamazaki’s crotch right on his face, not even Endo with his crazy "ma-ma" challenge or delusions. It’s just part of the show. Men can be ‘kawaii’ sometimes, like Hamada and Gackt after kissing each other. It’s crazy, unexpected, sometimes hilarious but not reprehensible. Even in the aforementioned video, all action is consented. As in other occasions, one never knows how much percent of it is scripted or not, or even if everything was staged.

Humilliation and embarrassment are two strong words used in the article, and I agree with the author, as a form of entertainment release in Japanese society. "Act straight", "don’t laugh" and "every nail that stands out should be hammered" are common sentences in Japan’s society. Things are changing, sure, but the role of the asexual guy or girl is becoming more and more present in tv series, films and mangas, and they even receive lots of attention and are considered as incredibly cute.

And yes, Soudou. I have seen a few shows being cancelled due to animal abuse. For example, the high budget tv series Wild Life (based on the manga of the same name) got the axe straightaway after just three episodes. They didn’t even broadcast the last one, since two giraffes (mother and its young) who suffered from stress during the shooting as they were separated, died afterwards. Even though the purpose and the main theme of the series is the preservation of animals and so on, NHK didn’t hesitate to cut it.

PS: Grind, don’t smack your crotch like that :rofl: :rofl: