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Because It Ain’t Only the Bible-Thumpers To “Give Into Lust”

By Lauren on 3.13.2006

For everyone irritated that we like to post Christian sexual indiscretions, here’s equal time for Eastern religious folks getting busted:

A Japanese Buddhist priest who was arrested on suspicion of having paid sex with a teenage girl said he was under stress and had given in to lust.

Itsushi Ehara, 73, chief priest at a temple in the western Japanese prefecture of Hiroshima and also head of a nursery school, paid the 15-year-old girl 80,000 yen ($675) to have sex in a hotel in downtown Tokyo, a police spokesman said on Friday.

“I could not resist my lust. A lot of stress built up from running the school,” Ehara was quoted by Kyodo news agency as telling police.

I suspect that the girl reports she too was under stress for being forced into the “compensated dating” industry at fifteen.

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16 Responses

  1. 1
    TangoMan 3.13.2006 at 1:23 am |

    I’d be interested in reading how the girls practicing enjo kosai are being forced to do so. Are materialism and small allowances from parents considered tools of the patriarchy?

  2. 2
    anashi 3.13.2006 at 7:43 am |

    tangoman, I’m sure you have all the facts in this case. i’m sure this isn’t just conjecture on your part. all japanese women live in the lap of luxury, is that what your saying? riiiiiiiight.

  3. 3
    Heliologue 3.13.2006 at 8:37 am |

    Does Buddhism even count as a religion?

    I’ve always found Japanese culture to be fascinating in the sense their their pornography is so ridiculously repulsive, and yet they have some of the lowest divorce and sex crime rates in the world.

  4. 4
    Chet 3.13.2006 at 9:49 am |

    Are materialism and small allowances from parents considered tools of the patriarchy?

    You’re funny, but anybody who thinks that Japan represents some kind of gender-equity paradise clearly has never been there. A country that runs a popular TV comedy called “Rape-Man”, where the main character “hilariously” punishes uppity women by raping them in costume, has a little ways to go, I think.

  5. 5
    zuzu 3.13.2006 at 10:48 am |

    I’ve always found Japanese culture to be fascinating in the sense their their pornography is so ridiculously repulsive, and yet they have some of the lowest divorce and sex crime rates in the world.

    Only if you don’t count groping schoolgirls on the subway as sex crimes. It’s gotten so bad, apparently, that there are now special women-only cars on the Tokyo subway.

  6. 6
    Tara 3.13.2006 at 11:10 am |

    This is just a site I found while doing some other research lately: rape on trial in Japan

    I think it’s a pretty dumb idea to evaluate misogyny based on low divorce rates and low conviction rates. I guess that high divorce rates and high conviction rates are more likely to signal an egalitarian society!

  7. 7
    Heliologue 3.13.2006 at 2:06 pm |

    Oh goodness no, I wasn’t qualifying their depictions or treatment of women at all. Japan, in fact, might be one of the most back-asswards of the so-called “civilized” countries when it comes to treatment of women.

    I was only commenting that a society with a fetish for violent sexuality seems to have so little in the way of sexual violence (groping notwithstanding).

  8. 8
    Baubo 3.13.2006 at 4:05 pm |

    Heliologue, that is because it is rarely reported.

    Japan is not a land of omg!porn that magically lacks sexual violence.

  9. 9
    TangoMan 3.13.2006 at 4:09 pm |

    If people had actually googled enjo kosai the could have read a little more about the how this isn’t so easiily slotted into the teen prostitution model that Westerners have in their minds.

    Here’s Time Magazine:

    So I just left a message about myself on a cyber message board and chose a sex partner from the guys who wrote back. . . .”Any girl who will have sex for 50,000 yen [$420] send a message here,” and stuff like that.

    Here is another article which goes into far more depth than the Time piece and should serve as a source of a lot more in-depth discussion about the issues that it explores:

    Although we may not lack essentials in our life, we tend to want more and more and understand this as normal. For example, although we cannot afford to buy expensive brand bags, we feel that we should have them―otherwise, our lives seem less than normal. . . . . .

    In fact, most of the teen-agers who have been doing enjo-kosai are from decent families. Some of them are doing it to get more pocket money, but some of them have confessed that they are doing it because they want to escape from family where there is a discord. Since their parents do not accept them, they look for somebody else to accept them.

  10. 10
    sophonisba 3.13.2006 at 4:24 pm |

    I was only commenting that a society with a fetish for violent sexuality seems to have so little in the way of sexual violence (groping notwithstanding).

    And I think it’s nice that a society like the US has so little in the way of sexual violence (sexual violence notwithstanding).

  11. 11
    The Heretik 3.13.2006 at 4:30 pm |

    The “compensated dating” industry? Oy.

  12. 12
    piny 3.13.2006 at 4:38 pm |

    The phenomenon has been discussed on feminist blogs for a couple years–take the controversy over Gwen Stefani’s Asian schoolgirl backup dancers.

    Although we may not lack essentials in our life, we tend to want more and more and understand this as normal. For example, although we cannot afford to buy expensive brand bags, we feel that we should have them―otherwise, our lives seem less than normal. . . . . .

    In fact, most of the teen-agers who have been doing enjo-kosai are from decent families. Some of them are doing it to get more pocket money, but some of them have confessed that they are doing it because they want to escape from family where there is a discord. Since their parents do not accept them, they look for somebody else to accept them.

    Vulnerable teenagers exploited by older men? Yeah, that’s completely different.

  13. 13
    anashi 3.13.2006 at 5:18 pm |

    Seriously, piny. It’s like teenage girls can’t make stupid mistakes, they’re teens it’s going to happen, in this situation the guy is fully to blame for what he did, but people like Tangoman still consider it the girl’s fault. It’s sick. Exploitation of teens by their elders is why we have laws (thank god, we do or people like Tangoman would think it was okay for an old man to sleep with 15 yr old), I can’t stress this enough, it doesn’t matter if the teen wants to have sex with the older man, the man is breaking the law and we need to protect that teen.

  14. 14
    TangoMan 3.13.2006 at 5:33 pm |

    Nice twisting there anashi. Take a look at my very first comment. I’m not saying that this practice is hunky-dory, I’m saying that the girl wasn’t forced into it and I’m making this point because that’s what Lauren was implying.

    This practice isn’t about some pimp putting a girl on the street, yada yada yada.

    No where do I write that the men are to be excused.

    (let’s also see how the fairminded zuzu comes down on this comment: “people like Tangoman would think it was okay for an old man to sleep with 15 yr old” – my bet is that she thinks it’s just fine)

  15. 15
    zuzu 3.13.2006 at 5:57 pm |

    Pardon?

    You’re really testing my patience.

  16. 16
    kate 3.13.2006 at 8:35 pm |

    …but some of them have confessed that they are doing it because they want to escape from family where there is a discord. Since their parents do not accept them, they look for somebody else to accept them.”

    Geewiz, sounds an awful lot like the same ole pedophile game plan; find the vulnerable and then make the exchange. What I find interesting is that in Japan, they actually come out and make that statement whereas here in the states, the popular press cares not to venture into what the child may be grasping for.

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