Why Are We Talking About "RapeLay" Again?

Thanks to Equality Now, "RapeLay" is in the news again. They're calling on the Japanese government to ban hentai games where women and children are sexually assaulted or raped within the game. This is because of a rise in people seeking out the game online for download since the initial controversy.

Brent Bozell from Newsbusters wrote a piece that was put up today on the continuing controversy over the game. Although I agree with him on certain aspects of what he's saying, the first paragraph annoyed the hell out of me.

Many -- too many -- red-blooded American boys grow up on Japanese video-game systems from Sony and Nintendo. Their cultural interests can extend into Japanese cartoons ("anime") and some even discover Japanese pornographic cartoons ("hentai"). How so? Boys play games and watch cartoons like the "Dragon Ball Z" series, but can quickly surf the Web and find related cartoon titles like "Dragonball X," only to learn they are hard-core porn.

Things that annoyed me:

1) Bozell makes the assumption that watching anime will lead to watching the hentai version of said shows. Being an anime fan, I have never been tempted to watch hentai, parody or otherwise.

2) There is plenty of family friendly anime out there. Films released by Hayao Miyazaki, for example, are a great way to introduce children to anime.

3) Being a stepparent/parent who is an anime fan, I can best monitor what is appropriate for my stepchildren as well as my son because it's an interest that I have.

4) The kids have to know what they are looking for. Simple solution: don't use the word "hentai" in front of your kids, and they won't know what it is and what to look for.

He goes on about the critics and those who are willing to defend the game. I'm not willing to defend it, but I realize it's a different cultural standard over there that allows hentai games like this to thrive over there. Japan has always been a very patriarchal society, with no real history of feminism.

In an interview on CNN, Cheryl Olson, who co-wrote the book "Grand Theft Childhood," told the interviewer that, basically, kids don't try to get their hands on games like this until there's a controversy surrounding it. She cited the "Hot Coffee" controversy involving "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," where spikes in downloading the mod for the game went up after politicians started making such a big deal about it.

And people who talk about this controversy forget one thing -- the game was not available for sale in the United States. It was only sold in Japan. Those who got copies here in the United States downloaded pirated "fansubs" of the game that, in some cases, contained viruses that crashed computers. The CNN stories talk about it being "pulled off the shelves," giving the person the impression that it was sold on store shelves here.

Bozell's final point in the article I can agree with -- parents need to be aware of what's out there. But we also have to be careful about demonizing an entire country's culture over a controversy that involves different cultures in two very different countries.