Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

This paper analyzes Japanese youths’ consent negotiation process after the 2023 penal code revision that adopted an affirmative consent framework to argue that survivors’ victimhood awareness is obstructed by deradicalized sexual violence narratives. Data is drawn from a self-made dating simulator.

Paper long abstract

This paper investigates the narratives surrounding sexual violence during the sexual consent negotiation process among Japanese youth in the wake of the penal code revision that adopted an affirmative consent framework. While Japanese legislation provides eight instances in which consent would be nullified, it does not specifically define its meaning. Currently, sexual consent education in Japan has been spearheaded by grassroots student movements and organizations, such as Chabudai-Gaeshi Joshi Action– one of the four groups that were involved in a campaign to push for legislative reform in 2016. Approximately 20,000 copies of their original sexual consent handbooks were distributed across university campuses in Tokyo, in which they directly translated educational materials from Western non-profits like Planned Parenthood and Hollaback! into Japanese. The Japanese word for sexual consent, “seiteki-doui”, only started to make headlines in the Japanese mass media from the mid-2010s, meaning this nascent concept is at risk of solidifying its cultural presence as an import of Western thought. Consent, which assumes a Kantian liberal subject and an autonomous, self-deterministic agent, will clash with a Japanese cultural background that favors the will of the community over the individual. This ontological difficulty to assert one’s desires, paired with a linguistic penchant for indirect, context-based communication, can hinder the implementation of sexual consent in Japan. Legally enforcing an unfamiliar Western practice into youth’s private sexual relationships without efficiently adapting to local frameworks can create strain during youth’s consent negotiation process, further disrupting narratives surrounding sexual violence. As interview data demonstrates how prolific undesired yet consented sex can be among Japanese youth across all gender expressions, the definition of sexual violence starts to blur– is it rape if they don’t identify as a victim? This paper will first discuss the structural influences on consent communication, such as patriarchal gender roles, and later explain how the research participants’ narratives of their experiences with involuntary consent are comparatively deradicalized and soft, obstructing survivors’ victimhood awareness. Data will be drawn from interviews that adopted a self-made dating simulator for participants to safely recount instances of undesired yet consented sex.