A truly disturbing phenomenon...

January 7, 2002 7:55 AM

A truly disturbing phenomenon... One wonders when exams became more important than basic family integrity.
posted by Samizdata (26 comments total)

Crap like this gets forwarded via email ad nauseum. Let's try to be sensible here. This is not a "phenomenom" or even worth mentioning. I hate having my time wasted by silly nonsense.
posted by davebush at 8:13 AM on January 7, 2002

WTF?
posted by uftheory at 8:17 AM on January 7, 2002

Ooh, what a credible source! Post anything from the Enquirer lately?
posted by yesster at 8:18 AM on January 7, 2002

I'm not sure what the taboos about incest are in Japan. Obviously, in the United States, everything in that article would get you ostracized, fired from your job, and send your child to a foster home. For once, our country's strain of rampant puritanism may be more right than wrong. I mean, I usually like to remain open to the mores of different cultures, but come on.. even if a blow job isn't sex, it's still coming from your mom, and that's just weird.

That said, these kids are well on their way to becoming excellent businessmen and politicians. I'm not making a crack about illicit blowjobs from married women, I'm talking about how they are able to turn the power dynamic in their favor. Not only are they turning their own responsibilities for school into leverage over their parents, but they are completely redefining the traditional balance of paternal/filial power. My mind is reeling.
posted by Hildago at 8:19 AM on January 7, 2002

Don't believe everything you read. More to the point, don't post everything you read here.
posted by anapestic at 8:20 AM on January 7, 2002

Oh for Christ's sake. What a terrible post.
posted by Skot at 8:27 AM on January 7, 2002

I am now completely disturbed. Geesh...what a great way to start off my day...
posted by tiger yang at 8:31 AM on January 7, 2002

Heh. Waiwai is in the url. it sounds funny.
posted by insomnyuk at 8:35 AM on January 7, 2002

"Dear Penthouse,
I never thought this would happen to me, but..."

all I can think is: my mom gets pissed when I ask her to wash some slacks for me...
posted by ColdChef at 8:37 AM on January 7, 2002

When I was an English teacher in Japan, my fellow native-Japanese English teachers told me stories about how teachers and students would have arrangements for recommendations. In fact, one teacher at my school had married the student with whom she had such an arrangement. Everyone knew about their relationship while the kid was in school, but nobody really said anything - even though at least a few of my fellow teachers felt that it was unacceptable.

Although the article really shocks me, I think that my story bespeaks a cultural and ethical climate that might allow this sort of thing to happen.

aside:

And Jesus, people - get some humility. Just because one mefi post doesn't interest you doesn't mean you should disparage it.
posted by SilentSalamander at 8:50 AM on January 7, 2002

I think that my story bespeaks a cultural and ethical climate that might allow this sort of thing to happen.

I think it bespeaks cultural ignorance to believe that this might actually be true. It's the equivalent of Weekly World News. It is a perpetuation of a Japanese urban myth. People aren't disparaging it because they're not interested. They're dissing it because is a load of poo.
posted by jpoulos at 8:57 AM on January 7, 2002

And Jesus, people - get some humility. Just because one mefi post doesn't interest you doesn't mean you should disparage it.

I don't see how humility is relevant here. No one is disparaging the post for being uninteresting. We're disparaging it for being tasteless and not credible. It might be a good post at www.puerile.com, but it just doesn't belong here.
posted by anapestic at 8:57 AM on January 7, 2002

And Jesus, people - get some humility. Just because one mefi post doesn't interest you doesn't mean you should disparage it.

I didn't disparage the article because it was uninteresting--which it is--but mainly because it is such patent bullshit.
posted by Skot at 9:00 AM on January 7, 2002

Well, dammit, JP and Anapestic, you weren't there on preview.
posted by Skot at 9:01 AM on January 7, 2002

Somehow even if that really did happen I cannot imagine anyone in that particular culture ever admitting it. As far as I can tell from my reading, they are much more a shame based culture than we which means they are a lot more worried as a whole about what other people think, and they consider their actions in light of how they reflect on their families as a whole. I am of course speaking in broad generalities. But I really cannot fathom a Japanese version of Jerry Springer.....
posted by bunnyfire at 9:15 AM on January 7, 2002

bunnyfire: "Japanese version of Jerry Springer....."

Iron Chef, anyone?
posted by Sinner at 9:37 AM on January 7, 2002

The Wai Wai feature is described here. It's a collection of the weirdest articles from Japanese "weeklies" -- which sound a lot like U.S. tabloids -- translated into English for hyuks.
posted by rcade at 9:39 AM on January 7, 2002

Wow, get a life people.

It is a perpetuation of a Japanese urban myth. People aren't disparaging it because they're not interested. They're dissing it because is a load of poo.

Eh? You're saying that this doesn't ever happen? Wow, you better go out and see what really goes on on this planet.
posted by wackybrit at 10:04 AM on January 7, 2002

The guy who lived in Japan says its likely, but the MeFi-ers say its horse shit.

Like all things puerile, if you're offended or otherwise don't like it- resist the infantile urge to disparage and just CHANGE THE CHANNEL. Its not like you're paying for the data storage...

Why is slamming another person in the snarkiest, most condescending tone such a primary function of MeFi?

Tolerance anyone?
posted by BentPenguin at 10:30 AM on January 7, 2002

wackybrit - maybe, just maybe, this has happened once or twice. But that doesn't make it the cultural phenomenon that the article makes it out to be.

Didn't anyone else get the feeling, while reading that story, that it was just a slightly modified incest fantasy story? The source, in case you didn't notice, specializes in Japanese sex stories for the English language. Not only is it of Enquirer-like integrity, it is barely a step above the jackoff rags sold in porn shops.
posted by yesster at 10:32 AM on January 7, 2002

The guy who lived in Japan says its likely, but the MeFi-ers say its horse shit.

He didn't say it was likely. He said that he knew of a case where a student and teacher had a relationship and later got married. From that, he extrapolated that it was possible.

I know of numerous cases here in the US where students had relationships with teachers. In some of these cases, they later got married. From that, I am not able to conclude that it's likely that American parents gave their children sexual favors to spur them on to better grades.

I'm all in favor of tolerance, but this sort of post really makes MeFi look bad. We should tolerate different points of view on controversial matters. We shouldn't tolerate the posting of irreputable sources that can't lead to meaningful discussion.
posted by anapestic at 10:42 AM on January 7, 2002

Mother-son incest in popular Japanese culture is an unremarkable phenomenon, just one aspect of the cultural importance put on the relationship and the role of the mother in raising a productive member of society. (That book is by a Duke anthropology prof: is that a more reliable source than Wai Wai?)

It's well established that Japanese sexual culture is somewhat different from that in the US. Right now, there's a huge problem with middle-class teenage girls "dating" adult men for money. They call it "compensated dating", and though the police are trying to crack down on it, there's a lot of nudge-nudge wink-wink. Indeed, here the transgression seems to be the prostitution aspect, more than the age difference.
posted by dhartung at 10:58 AM on January 7, 2002

As much as I love this somber discourse on the possibly fictitious epidemic of Japanese mother-son fellatio, and how those who doubt this problem should get out more¹, I'd prefer to focus on the treatment of "Wai Wai" as a factual source of journalism, which as it turns out is pretty funny. Is there a Japanese language weblog out there discussing the credibility of the recent Weekly World News story on the time traveler who revealed that batboy grows up to be our president?

¹ Really, though, if that's the kind of thing that's going on out there, I've never been gladder to be a shut in.
posted by rcade at 11:42 AM on January 7, 2002

From the same site: Fortune Teller Uses Fellatio to Tell Future
posted by cell divide at 12:29 PM on January 7, 2002

Let's try to be sensible here. This is not a "phenomenom" or even worth mentioning. I hate having my time wasted by silly nonsense.
mom's always too busy, huh?
posted by quonsar at 2:56 PM on January 7, 2002

Yes, as an anime fan, I can testify that the amount of incestuous references in Japanese pop culture is rather shocking to an American. This article is probably a reflection of that.
posted by Charmian at 3:45 PM on January 7, 2002