Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Not for the faint-hearted.

Japanese culture has always been of personal interest, with its beginnings in popular fiction by authors such as Natsuo Kirino and Ryu Murakami. They tend towards darker plotlines that explore the taboo and sometimes even the grotesque. Disturbing, perhaps. But forbidden fruit is often the most exciting to plant your teeth into. Plus, my penchant for the odd and bizarre genre doesn't help.

It was of great interest then, when a recent Freudian-inspired discussion on creativity and sexuality eventually and inevitably led a group of us towards Japanese culture and the supposedly repressed - or I should say 'suppressed', sexuality of its majority population that may explain its explosion of 'sexual creativity'.

Have you heard of the Love Machine? No, it isn't the hit disco song of the '80s you might hear at Mambo Night. It really is a thinly veiled name for used panty vending machines, preferably schoolgirls', as such:



Apparently, these Love Machines were the talk of the town some time ago, the incredulity and outrageous nature of it causing people to question the truth of the matter. Naturally, this inspired investigations that were voraciously blogged, digged and youtubed where it was discovered that they do indeed exist despite the public outcry it generated upon its onset. This should come as no surprise, however, due to the 'bura-sera' industry that Japan's sex industry thrives on, which refers to the 'specific male fascination relating to that country's schoolgirls', otherwise known by the rest of the world as the Lolita Complex or plain old panty fetishism. 'Bura-sera' however, is moreso prevelant in Japan due to its deep-seated traditions where the female gender holds less regard than the superior male, being seen more as sex toys than anything else.

Will the Japanese government ever succeed in banning these vending machines? In a country that subscribes so unwaveringly in pornography and is purported to have a 'shadow economy' booming on sex and drugs, is this truly likely? I personally believe that the phenomenon of supply and demand will prevail. Nevertheless, this is some web fodder for the voyeur who thrives on my little succulent tidbits of nothing, really.

2 comments:

  1. only the Japanese have this much time to think of something like this!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love this kind of machine, now I can sell there my dirty underware. :P

    ReplyDelete

 

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