Is the age of consent in Japan really 13?
Well yes, sort of….but not really.
However, that’s part of the reason for the popularity of Enjo kyosai (援助交際) aka “compensated dating” where high school-aged girls are paid by older men to “date” them (and render sexual services generally).
Here’s the way the so-called “age 13 is age of consent” works:
The age of consent in Japan is 13 years old under the Japanese national criminal law code. However, all municipalities and prefectures have their own particular laws such as Tokyo’s “Youth Protection Law” which prohibit adults from having sex with youths who are under 17 years old. Because the age of consent in Japan ranges from 13 to 17, depending on jurisdiction, many enjo kyosai clients cannot be charged with statutory rape. See the website: Japan — Age of Consent
As an added note, even though the age of consent in Japan can be 13, the age of majority is 20 for voting. The age of adulthood is considered 20 and driving age in 20.
Weird? Here’s a better one. Japan’s “Prostitution Prevention Act”(1958) only prohibts actual sexual
intercourse (or sex controlled by organized crime). That law defines as That law defines as “true” sexual conduct between men and women, and not to “imitation” between same sex persons, so gay prostitution is not prohibited directly. That also makes hand jobs, water queens, or homosexual SM nuns legal.
Therefore, creatively kinky places like the “Sexual Harassment Corporation” where you pay to molest girls in school and business sets are totally legal.
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September 2nd, 2005 at 11:38 pm
It would be intresting to see a list of what the prefectures for age requirements rather than taking a guess. Searched the net for any information regarding this and only came up with Tokyos which is already mentioned
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:58 pm
So how do you find out what it actually is in your prefecture? Searching the net I’ve come up with nothing about what any particular information nor any information about what one would expect if one where to break that prefectural law.
October 2nd, 2005 at 9:57 pm
I also would find it interesting to know the differences between prefectures. There seems to be virtually no information on the internet about this and it’s difficult to know where to go to find out.
September 28th, 2006 at 8:43 am
Please dont rape me
October 16th, 2006 at 7:47 am
it makes me wonder that people want to know the age in specific areas…. could it be people actually want 2 violate young girls… =[
if your over 18, dont go under 17, please people
December 13th, 2006 at 2:23 am
this is horrible, i cannnot believe someone would make up such a rule for these young innocent ladies to be molested in such areas as school, i mean come on what the heck is this world coming to: i will protest if we ever get a chance: this is totally outrageous!!!
January 22nd, 2007 at 3:08 am
>>what the heck is this world coming to
Try “what the heck has the world come from.” The Japanese were anything but prude before WWII. Americans were the ones that put a lot of the ‘censorship’ into certain industries and whatnot.
March 17th, 2007 at 8:53 am
I really don’t find this bad or unusual. I just think that they have different values outside of your tradition Judeo-Christian heritage so you think there is somethin morally wrong with it. Most of the laws that forbide sex at all are primarily created after World War 2 and to keep relations with the United States good. I think Lindsey is ethnocentric and wants to police the world.
April 15th, 2007 at 7:49 am
Lindsay was appalled that it is somehow ok to molest girls in school, but I believe she may have misread the original post. I think it was saying that the allowed activities take place in “sets”. Which I take to mean rooms made up to look like certain locations, such as schools, etc. In other words, no different than some brothels here in the USA that offer similar “sets”.
April 15th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
i believe that there isn’t anything wrong with girls 13 and older being able to have sex as long as it’s consentual. People are idiots who want to believe that they’re kids are saints when the truth is that this sort of thing willingly happens all the time in the united states. if you really think about it it’s only natural for this sort of attraction to occur. youth is a trait we are biologically disposed to find attractive but people like Lindsey are brainwashed by American media to believe that this hasn’t been happening since the beginning of man, underage consentual sex = rape, and that there is something wrong with men who are into girls who are probably already finished with puberty. If these kinds of relationships didn’t have to be kept secret ther would probably be more control over them.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:34 pm
TragicEcho has a good point - although it is important to ensure that people aren’t being taken advantage of, teenagers have more capacity to make decisions than most people give them credit for. They certainly are capable of making decisions just as well, if not better in some cases than literally millions of “adults.” age 17+ doesn’t guarantee any sort of particular capacity for good judgment nor does it necessarily ensure that a woman won’t feel “violated” if she has sex - if you want to argue for those not being spoken for and abused, consider focusing on nations such as, oh I don’t know, Sudan?
June 1st, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Well….Some girls would like to date older men.
My friend,who is fourteen,says she would love to date Kyo,from Dir En Grey who is thirty-one…..
July 26th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
i agree, also, i dont see people ragging on shakespere making juliet 13. i guess i don’t see the difference, as long as you are of childbearing age. speaking of which, lindsey, me and my (at the time future) wife have been having sex since i was 16 and she was 18. i am now 22. people seem to forget that “kids” aren’t all innocent these days…
August 3rd, 2007 at 5:54 am
hmm, to a lolicon this could be fun… I’d have a field day.
August 10th, 2007 at 10:08 am
people who are so outraged by this need to relax.
if you forgot, in alot of part of the world, if you are old enough to get pregnant, or get someone pregnant, then your an adult.
and the funny thing about all this is that you can be like “oh 21 is an adult” but come one now get real, everyone knows that all because you have reached a certain age, doesnt mean you mature at all. did the movie “animal house” teach you anything? “jackass”? and those are people who are pushing 30.
point is, dont say it’s “horrible” or it’s “rape” because have you ever wondered why alot of foreign children are more ‘mature’ then in the US? in afica, i would be married off by now (i’m 17)…plz…if you dont like it, at least you dont have to live in that country and watch the “BIG BAD MOLESTATION TOUPEE”
September 6th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
I think the age of consent should be when both individuals are physically ready and consenting to one another. It’s known that most people hit puberty around age 12-13. If they want to make that desicion, it should be entirely up to them, and they should be responsable for their own actions.