Sexuality in Japan has developed separately from mainland Asia, as Japan did not adopt the Confucian view of marriage. Monogamy in marriagewas not prized in Japan, and married men often sought pleasure from their courtesans. Prostitution in Japan has a long history, and became especially popular during the Japanese economic miracle, as evening entertainments were tax-deductible. Homosexuality and bisexuality are less frowned upon than in many other parts of the world. Japanese pornography has a wide following worldwide and is translated and exported nearly everywhere due to its wide range of themes and media. Japan has a vibrant fetish scene particularly in the larger cities that has influenced many fetish communities worldwide. Decreased sex drive in the 21st century was blamed for the low Japanese birth rate and declining growth of theJapanese population.
Historically, pornography in Japan may have begun as early as the Edo period as erotic artwork referred to as shunga that was typically done on woodblock prints. Between the 1920s and '30s in Japan there was a literary and artistic movement known as ero guro which focused on eroticism, sexual corruption and decadence. Softcore pornographic theatrical films known as pink films dominated the domestic cinema in Japan from the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s.
In contemporary times Japanese pornography has gained a worldwide following and is frequently translated and exported to other cultures because of its large spectrum of themes and media. Pornography in Japan has in recent times expanded into new mediums such as manga (hentai) and video games (eroge) in addition to the more common film and historic mediums.
In the years since the end of World War II, eroticism has gradually made its way into Japanese cinema. The first kiss to be seen in Japanese film—discreetly half-hidden by an umbrella—caused a national sensation in 1946.[15] Foreign films throughout the 1950s introduced female nudity into international cinema and were imported to Japan without problem.[16] Nevertheless, until the early 1960s, graphic depictions of nudity and sex in Japanese film could only be seen in single-reel "stag films," made illegally by underground film producers such as those depicted in Imamura's film The Pornographers (1966).
Mainstream pornography did not arrive in Japan until the advent of Pink film. Erotic films were called "pink film" because the color pink carries erotic and feminine connotations with the Japanese who associate pink with a woman's vagina. Pink film was theatrical film which featured soft core, suggestive themes and later full-on nudity and sexual acts. The first wave of thePink film in Japan was contemporary with the similar U.S. sexploitation film genres, the "nudie-cuties" and "roughies".[18] Nudity and sex officially entered Japanese cinema with Satoru Kobayashi's controversial and popular independent production Flesh Market (Nikutai no Ichiba, 1962), which is considered the first true pink film.[19] In the 1970s, some of Japan's major studios, facing the loss of their theatrical audience, took over the pink film. With their access to higher production-values and talent, some of these films became critical and popular successes.When ownership of VCRs first became widespread in the early 1980s, AVs (adult videos) made their appearance and quickly became highly popular.As early as 1982 the AVs had already attained an approximately equal share of the adult entertainment market with theatrical erotic films. Since then the market for pink films has decreased tremendously and a majority of Japanese seeking pornography go to AVs.
Although the pink film genre has declined dramatically since the advent of AVs on VCR the genre is significant in that it paved the way for true pornography in Japan as well as for multiple other genres of Japanese pornographic film including: hamedori, roshutsu, and Japanese bondage. Other Japanese pornography genres include: group sex (with gang bang as a subgenre), lesbian, and fetishes (particularly foot fetishes). Lotion play is a popular element in Japanese pornography.