This tracks. One of the things that always gets me about US media is that gratuitous rape - even fairly graphic rape scenes on TV - is just fine as long it doesn't involve visible nipples.
Anything related to sex, nudity and swearwords is held to the utmost standards of censorship.
Even the many developing nations that have very strict moral standards on such matters seem to have no problem featuring it as an evil in fiction, in the same way the U.S.A. might feature murder as an evil in fiction, for the point is for the audience to condemn it.
But rape cannot actually be shown, as that would be too sensitive.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RapeIsASpecialKi...
It's a rather interesting thing. It does not seem to be entirely isolated to the U.S.A., but definitely more common there. I remember reading an interview with a Dutch criminal defence attorney, who talked about the principle that every man deserves a trial and the best legal defence, but also said that even though he personally feels that a man suspected of a sex crime should get a legal advocate, he would personally præfer it not be he, as he had moral problems with it that would make him less effective.
This was a man that regularly defended murderers, who no doubt confess to the crime within the seal of attorney–client confidentiality to him, but sex crimes are the limit? — it seems an odd standard to me.
Which was exactly the argument that the Dutchmen in the comments raised, so the mentality seems les common in the Netherlands, but not nonexistent either.
The rules, of course, exist as a reflexion of the sensibilities of the people.
It's similar to how in Germany anything related to the Third Reich is treated with the utmost sensitivity, with many rules; these rules exist as the people willed it so. The end result was that the videogame Wolfenstein 3D had to be significantly edited ere it could be legally sold on the German market, as it depicted Third Reich soldiers in accurate uniforms, which was considered too sensitive, even though they are the opposing side the player is fighting against.
I admittedly don't watch a whole lot of TV, so I may be off base here, but my impression is that, here in the USA, on TV, onscreen depictions of rape are more common than onscreen depictions of positive sexual activity.
I must say that I find it rather tame compared to Japanese fiction.
Though, I suppose there the perspective is invariably reversed. It is almost always the perspective character that is the defending party, so perhaps it doesn't have the same influence.
It's an interesting difference. I find that in U.S.A. romance fiction, more often than not, the protagonist is the party who falls in love, and the story is about the protagonist courting and succeeding in winning the love interest, whereas in Japanese romance fiction, the protagonist usually starts out strongly disliking the love interest, who is the offensive party, but eventually is won over.
I find that say, Boston Legal is essentially a clichéd Japanese teenage girl's romance fiction from the other perspective. If one think of Alan Shore's many love interests as the protagonists of such stories, who are initially quite disgusted and annoyed by his antics and sexual harassment, but more and more find themselves falling for him, it's actually quite similar but reversed.
It's definitely shades all over the world. I only really know about Japan's culture 12th hand honestly so the only thing that's really filtered down is that it seems kind of repressed in public having gotten a big infusion of US laws and ideas post WW2 and there's some issues with creeps in public?
> I find that in U.S.A. romance fiction, more often than not, the protagonist is the party who falls in love
I think a lot of that is due to the target audience being largely women so it's written from and towards what the audience wants to read. Most TV and movie romances show a predominantly predatory almost (sometimes explicitly) coercive romance especially in media aimed at men.
Japan is a civil law country with an entirely different legal system than the U.S.A..
Japanese law knows the principle of “one witness is no witness” as many others do. In particular in sexual assault cases it is often the word of the accuser vs. that of the accused, in Japan as a matter of law that cannot result into a conviction absent further evidence, in the U.S.A. it can.
Another issue is that in Japan, confessions are treated far more seriously and the police is permitted to interrogate in quite extreme ways, often without a defence attorney.
So it often comes down to willpower, whether the defendant can keep protesting innocence when being sleep deprived and mentally worn down, without such a confession, a conviction is almost impossible, but with it, it is assured.
> I think a lot of that is due to the target audience being largely women so it's written from and towards what the audience wants to read. Most TV and movie romances show a predominantly predatory almost (sometimes explicitly) coercive romance especially in media aimed at men.
And in Japanese fiction the target audience's sex is irrelevant for this.
Romance fiction targeted at females will typically feature a female protagonist who initially despises the love interest, but is eventually won over, often still having rather mixed feelings about the latter.
This story is more or less the same in male-targeted Japanese romance fiction, except the protagonist is now male.
The only real difference is that, quintessentially, the female protagonist is conflicted and indecisive, on some level attracted to the love interest, but on another considering him very unsuitable, and in male-targeted stories, the protagonist is implausibly dense and fails to realize the love interest is in love with him, despite all the cues obvious to the audience.
One of the longest running dramas on American television is Law & Order, a crime drama. The most popular spinoff of this series, Law & Order:SVU has focused on this topic for the entirety of twenty-two (!!!!!!) season run. That's nearly 500 episodes of detectives investigating and describing some pretty brutal rapes and sexual assaults of people of all ages, genders, and walks of life.
Pretty much any crime drama is going to hit on this subject pretty regularly. Based on the stuff I've seen on shows that run on broadcast TV during primetime, there is not really much taboo around the subject. Comedian John Mulaney has a very popular skit that focuses entirely on the ridiculous things that are said on this subject during day-time TV.
As I find that a great deal of violence is often shown rather than merely referenced, but rape never is. This also seems to apply to The Practice, with which I am more versed.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=naked+yoga
There's absolutely nothing wrong with videos showing the human form, but people doing yoga without wearing a single thing—on YouTube—is definitely going to surprise some people. I'm honestly quite surprised that Google permits it, but I'm glad that they do.
Someone has to challenge the ridiculous American cultural taboos surrounding the human form. I think YouTube is a terrible dangerous tarpit of censorship, a sort of societal "attractive nuisance", but they should be credited with challenging ridiculous unnecessary censorship norms when they take steps in the right direction for once.
It seems to be a subject that often makes the U.S.A.-man extremely uncomfortable, especially when it pertains children, whereas other crimes such as child murder are seemingly discussed and shown with little issue.
"No violent rape", "no violent murder" not so much. These are fairly subjective, and even tautological.
Not saying it's not a funny paradox, just trying to figure out why.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190503/17322942136/conte...