A 29-year-old employee of the Shibuya Ward Office in Tokyo was arrested this month on suspicion of quasi-forcible sexual intercourse. He allegedly forced a woman in her 20s, with whom he was dating, to drink milk tea containing a sleeping pill at his home and sexually assaulted her.
This incident came up as a topic of conversation at "Ginza Mayumedia College" (M College), an adult learning institution of which I am the president.
At M-College, people involved in "children and sexuality education," such as midwives, nurses, school nurses, and other medical professionals, national public officials, university faculty members, and police officers, are studying online from all over Japan. This semester, the "Developping the text of Sexual Information Literacy Education" class has begun. Discussions were held on the actual impact of sexual information disseminated by the media and "sexual consent."
The classic love manual of Japanese media is that "a girl who comes to my house is willing to have sexual intercourse." In other words, the manual instructs that "consent" is considered to have been established at the time she comes to the house. As a pretext for inviting a girl to one's house, the following phrases are recommended: "Let's watch a DVD together," "Let's have a drink together," and so on.
According to reports, the suspect in this case also invited the woman to his home, saying, "Let's watch a movie together. " However, although she came to his home, she did not want to have sexual intercourse. If the suspect had been working based on media's sexual information, he might have been puzzled by the unexpected turn of events.
The suspect then allegedly gave her a cup of milk tea containing a sleeping pill and then proceeded to commit the crime. There is not the slightest hint of an attempt to obtain sexual consent from the other party.
The Japanese media is full of sex-related communication that is out of touch with real people's minds and does not respect the dignity of the other person. It is necessary for adults to teach students at school and at home how to deal with such sex-related information. The Ministry of Education's Courses of Study for junior high and high school students also state that children should be taught how to deal with sexual information.
What is important for children to be able to deal with sexual information appropriately is media literacy, or "sexual information literacy," which is the ability to critically read and understand sexual information in pornography, the Internet, social networking services, and other media without simply reading it.
Since its opening in 2020, M-College has been developing educational materials to cultivate sexual information literacy, the first such initiative in Japan. We are looking forward to seeing what kind of teaching materials will be completed this semester. We hope that by fostering in children the ability to read and understand sexual information, sexual violence, which is suspected to be influenced by misguided sexual information, will be eradicated.
