If you’re a fan of the kinky kind, then there’s bad news for you.
The Australian government has just announced, quite hush-hush, a ban on all X-rated and 18+ content from Japan after a tough crack down on the distribution of child porn.
First reports of this came from a Japanese online retailer J-list who specialises in selling anime, sex toys and hentai comics to fans outside their homebase.
“DHL Japan called us last week, informing us that Australian customs have started rejecting packages containing any adult product,” the company wrote on their website. “…Following that, current Australian orders with adult items in them were returned to us this week.”
The ban extends to products like onaholes (vagina shaped merch), hentai manga, doujinshi, cast-off figures and JAV DVDs as it falls under the broad Australian Border force’s list of prohibited products
This was no surprise as red flags were raised earlier in February with investigations headed by SA Upper house MP Connie Bonaros and Senator Stirling Griff who wanted stricter evaluations on what should pass into our country.
So what’s the big issue? Well, there’s a lot of discussion around definitions in our border security law and of what hentai is -- just sexual expression or exploitative content.
For those who aren’t familiar with the Japanese sex scene hentai could be a cultural shock. Professor Mark McLelland, an expert in Japanese studies and gender says, its origins were a form of exploration into the country’s liberated sexuality post-WW2. As the porn mags and western influence grew, a revolutionary era in Japan began celebrating non-heterosexual identities and fetishes.
This could be the reason why thousands of twitter users took to the platform to express their amusement about the situation after Senator Griff’s review went viral.
Hentai enthusiasts can now expect a 10 year jail sentence or a hefty fine for shipping their favourite ‘waifu’ body dolls into Australia.
Links
Bio: Sidney Boen is an energetic 1st gen Indo-Chinese Aussie with a penchant for food. She’s going into her last year in her Bachelor of Digital and social media with her eyes set on the marketing world. Loving food and travel with a voracious appetite for media and writing, she’s always out for the next interesting read. Currently working as part of the ABC News program team and a contributor to UTS Central News.
LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/sidney-boen-4b354b1bb
Twitter: https://twitter.com/boensidney?lang=en