For a long time, sexuality and sex ed in Japan have been difficult topics. Even friends rarely discuss sexuality or contraception. When it does come up, it is often in the context of unwanted sexual comments or sexual harassment, a problem many people (mostly girls and women) still face at work or simply by existing in public.
This is yet another one of those confusing and conflicting aspects of Japanese life, as pointed out on Twitter in response to a previous survey on Unseen Japan. There, a reader made a puzzling but astute comment. The public considers naked shoulders “too sexy”; propriety generally dictates you cover them up. But people will openly read pornographic comics on the train – in plain view of other passengers.
Japan doesn’t have a monopoly on double standards and miseducation. But even local experts consider the current sex education lacking.
Things haven’t always been this way, though. According to Gendai Business, the AIDS epidemic led educators to implement these topics in Japanese schools. That sparked a sex-ed boom for elementary and older students in the 1990s. This continued until 2003 when a school showed students materials later deemed “inappropriate” by parents.
This incident subsequently started a period of “sex-ed bashing” in Japan. In response to this, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Board of Education shifted course towards a policy of supposedly protecting children from “harmful influences” like overly sexual content. This included, for instance, forbidding the demonstration of proper condom use to middle school students.
A new path
For years, the mantra surrounding these topics was to let sleeping dogs lie. The authorities reasoned that discussing sex would make children want to experience it sooner. However, this goes contrary to research from the WHO and UNESCO. This research shows that comprehensive sexual education actually fosters a more responsible attitude towards sex in young people.
Starting in 2021, Japan will finally see a revised version of sexual education, called 生命の安全教育. (Inochi no Anzenkyouiku, or Life Safety Education.) The new program aims to teach students of all ages how to protect themselves and others from sexual violence, like coercion or the circulation of private photos.
In an interview with Toyo Keizai Online, Tashiro Mieko, a professor of sexual education history and gender at Saitama University, points out that while several media outlets have been calling this new program sex-ed, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) itself does not.
Alone in the dark
As Tashiro further explains, many teachers or decision-makers in education find the actual logistics of sexual intercourse, contraception, or sexually transmitted diseases hard to discuss. Due to this, even with this new revision, there remains a large gap of young people who have not received comprehensive sex ed in school. These youth have to rely on rumor or unreliable information online.
The lack of education leaves young Japanese adults in the dark. Take, for example, a chat room staffed by midwives in Osaka, founded to answer questions about sex-related topics. On some days, the chat room receives over 800 messages from users asking what to do about unwanted pregnancies.
Midwife Hiroko Uehara tells NHK: “I am surprised by the large number of people who believe the things they read on the internet, which can appear true, but are often wrong.” While teachers acknowledge the necessity of combating misinformation, the new guidelines issued by MEXT do not give them any guidance on doing so.
Media to the rescue?
In 2020, the paid video streaming service Abema TV produced and broadcast a nine-episode-long drama series following three female high school students as they grapple with issues surrounding sex and sexuality. The show, 17.3 about a sex [sic], has garnered favorable reviews as well as hundreds of comments on Youtube (where some episodes can be seen fully and others partially). Many commenters said schools should show it in sex-ed classes.
With only around 30 minutes per episode, 17.3 (the average age people worldwide lose their virginity according to the show, a number that causes the main character Sakura, a 17-year-old virgin, to panic) lacks depth as it tries to tackle many topics at once.
Unlike MEXT’s Life Safety Education, the show actually deals with STDs, contraception, and the bullying of teens on the LGBTQ+ spectrum. Unfortunately, the format means that the resolution of such issues is more neat, clean, and idealized than you could expect in real life.
All about “a Sex”
Of course, the show is not without flaws. On the one hand, we have deuteragonist Tsumugi. The young woman figures out that she is asexual after wondering why she cannot squeal over crushes with her friends.
Happily, two girls, Sakura and Yuna, readily accept her (the third girl in their close-knit group). Sakura and Yuna can’t really understand Tsumugi’s feelings but support her anyway. Conversely, Tsumugi calls Yuna “slutty” for having many sexual partners.
While the show tries to tell its viewers that there is nothing wrong with girls enjoying sex (and even self-pleasure, through a hilarious episode in which Sakura finds her mother’s personal massage device), it ends up perpetuating some stereotypes by portraying Yuna as somewhat thoughtless and vapid. Her only personality trait seems to be falling head over heels for one boy after the other. One of them is a grown man in his twenties, which the show only points out as problematic in passing.
The show only touches on the topic of consent in passing. Tsumugi goes on one date with a boy who kisses her without any preamble. Sakura agrees to explore sex with her boyfriend, who then proceeds without heeding her utterances of “wait” and “stop.”
The show only comments on this issue indirectly by giving Sakura a new, respectful, and feminist boyfriend in contrast. Instead of everyone learning about explicit consent, we hear Sakura and her friends repeating how lucky she was for managing to run away that time.
Social critique
The series itself bemoans the lack of sex ed when a classmate of Sakura has to leave their high school after becoming pregnant (by Sakura’s ex-boyfriend no less). This causes Sakura to plead her friend’s case to the principal. The principal explains that a pregnant student would be a “bad influence” on others. But the boy who got her pregnant gets to stay (though his classmates ostracize him).
Their biology teacher intervenes, calling out the principal for his hurtful statements, and proclaims both students as victims of a bad system lacking in sex education. While sex ed is necessary long before the high school level and therefore not the sole fault of the principal, her point is a good one. Sakura’s friend had been willing to engage in unprotected sex because it was a “safe day” — not knowing that safe days are unreliable, nor do they protect one from STDs.
Overall, 17.3 is a good start to a hopefully bigger trend of conversations about sex in Japan. It is also not the only outlet trying to mitigate the lack of action from official channels. Tenga, manufacturer of sex toys, has launched a website featuring expert-created content including the human body and diversity.
SHELLY to the rescue?
TV personality Shelly (who was recently a co-host on the first season of the Japanese Bachelorette, counteracting some questionable comments from the male hosts) has started a Youtube channel called SHELLYのお風呂場, or Shelly’s Bathroom. The talent talks about sex and adjacent topics, including a recent episode where a gynecologist shared information on the morning-after pill, or Plan B. Plan B is still only available in Japan by prescription. (As of June 2023, the government is finally moving to make it available over the counter on an experimental basis.)
Sex ed in Japan: Teaching consent
In an interview with Huffington Post Japan, Shelly talks about teaching consent to children. In response to a viewer’s question on NHK’s Asaichi about explaining this to their son, she says:
「ここの教育は私もすごい大事にしていて、やめては絶対に2回言わせないっていうのを言っています。やめてって一回言われたらやめるんだよって子どもにも教えていますし、娘たちにはあなたのNOには力があるんだよっていうことを教えるため」
「例えば大人がくすぐったりするじゃないですか。こしょこしょってしてやめてって言われたら、絶対やめています。やめてって言っても大人はやめてくれないんだって思ったら、自分のNOには力がないと思わせてしまう」
“I really care about this aspect of education, and I say that no one should have to say “stop” twice. I tell [my] children that if someone tells them to stop, they have to stop after the first time, to teach my daughters that there is power in their ‘NO.’”
“For example, adults would tickle [children], right? If I get told to stop tickling, I definitely stop. If they think adults won’t stop even if they’re told to stop, they’ll think that there is no power in their ‘NO.’”
Japan still hasn’t been able to do a lot against chikan (a word often translated as “groper” but also designating for far more serious crimes) other than segregating women into different train cars and vaguely warning them to be careful through their coffee. In such an environment, teaching children about consent could go a long way in improving things for future generations.
Filling in the gaps in sex ed in Japan
Other Youtubers have been tackling the woeful undereducation of the Japanese youth with regards to topics concerning sexuality. A noteworthy example is シオリーヌ (Shiorin), a midwife who talks candidly about contraception and LGBTQ+ issues on her channel. In one comment, Youtube user Kako (かこ ) sums up the problem Japanese people face when it comes to sexual education:
「私自身学生で強く実感してるのですが、日本って性教育をしてくれないくせに、自分で調べると「変態」扱いされ、若くして妊娠＆出産をする人には「無責任だ」「間違っている！」と責める人が多いように感じます 」
“I have strongly felt this as a student; even though they don’t give us proper sex ed in Japan, if you try to research things on your own, you’re treated like a pervert. And when young people end up pregnant and have babies, many label them as “irresponsible,” or blame them for “doing something wrong.”
In other words, doomed if you do, and doomed if you don’t. As Professor Tashiro says:
「性教育＝性交のことと思い込んでいる大人も多いですが、性教育は科学的な身体の知識を身に付けるだけではなく、ジェンダー教育や人権教育でもあります。こうした包括的な性教育を通して生徒たちは人権意識を持つようになります。人権侵害という言葉が日常的に使われるようになると、生徒同士の関係もよくなりますし、先生も強圧的な指導をしなくなります」
“Many adults misunderstand sex-ed as teaching sexual intercourse. In reality, sex-ed is not just about acquiring scientific knowledge of the body, it also teaches about gender and human rights. Through comprehensive sex-ed, students become aware of human rights. Once ‘human rights violation’ becomes a widely used term, the relationships between students will improve, and teachers will stop employing pressure-based guidance.”
Or, in other words, improved sex ed in Japan might be an important solution to some of the problems many Japanese citizens face. While NPOs, private companies, and Youtubers are picking up the slack for now, it would benefit students to learn the fundamentals from official sources in order not to fall for false information spread online.
