SNA (Toronto) — Social media provides a platform of self-expression for young people, but there is considerable evidence that in Japan, these services have been used to embolden pedophelic trends.

A TikTok posted by user kevinthepepperoni (Kevin) featured a picture of a youthful-looking Japanese woman, and asked a native Japanese man and an American man to guess her age. The woman looked 24-25 years old to the Japanese man, while the American man guessed that she was 12 years old, “maybe elementary, maybe middle school.”

Similar opinions soon emerged, with Japanese commenters guessing the woman’s age to be older and English comments suggested younger: One English comment reads, “I thought she was 15-17”; while one Japanese commenter stated that “she looks around 40.”

Although the TikTok was only a single instance, it calls attention to the larger issue of pedophelic beauty trends on Japanese social media.

Youthful, round, soft, and naive are all features of kawaii culture (“cute culture”), which is a standard of beauty for women in Japan.

Feeling pressured to adhere to such standards, many women chase ways to look not only younger, but also childish.

In social media, Augmented Reality face filters are now one of the ways in which people can easily make themselves look more youthful. Using computer vision, a template is overlaid on the user’s face and can be tweaked according to the filter’s features. This technology is rooted in photo-editing features from Japanese photo booths (purikura), and often involves giving a person a smaller face and wider eyes.

Although not inherently controversial, the ways in which these filters are used reveal evidence of preferences for a childish look as opposed to simply being “cute.”

These filters work in tandem with the trends on TikTok where people mimic the mannerisms of children.

One particular trend involves using the sound of a child’s voice singing Baby Shark while dancing and singing along with animated expressions. When searching for other videos using the same sound, the gallery is filled with adult women wearing oversized clothing and employing baby-faced filters with childish expressions like crossed eyes or pouted lips.

“I used to think it was cute until I realized they weren’t doing it for fun, they were doing it to be attractive,” commented one user.

TikTok user mishadesu (Misha), a Japanese university student who often uses her platform to talk about feminist issues, replied to Kevin’s skit with her own thoughts on sexualizing childish features in Japan.

“It’s romanticized pedophelia. In the United States, internalized pedophelia is young girls trying to look older than their actual age. In Japan it’s not about looking older. It’s about embracing your youth,” she stated.

She then added, “Instead of asking why women look a certain way, ask what it reflects about society.”

She received mixed responses, showing arguments in support of and against her statements. One user argued “We have different values and think differently but, ‘when in Rome, do what the Romans do.’” Another user noted, “And that’s why I stopped getting catcalled in Japan by local men at around 30 years old.”

Questionable comments encouraging normalized pedophelia impact Japan not only in popular culture, but even on a governmental level.

Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker Hiranao Honda created a national scandal in May leading to his resignation over comments he made at a party meeting where a proposal to raise Japan’s age of consent from 13 to 16 was being discussed.

His reported remark, later acknowledged, in opposing the proposal was, “I’m not far off 50 years old, but if I had sex with a 14-year-old, I would be arrested, even if there was consent. It’s strange.” While many Japanese were upset with Honda’s view, especially within his center-left political party, it revealed a different sort of common sense that exists in at least some pockets of Japanese society.

At any rate, pedophelic trends continue to be encouraged on social media, with women feeling the need to mimic childish behaviors, and young girls sexualizing their own innocence. When looking at what is considered “attractive” and trendy in Japan, it quickly becomes clear that there is a larger issue of fetishizing childlike features, thinly veiled as self-expression.

One woman at a Flower Demo demonstration in March stressed the importance of continuing the conversation about sexual injustice in Japan: “Things may change only a little, because even if the law does change, it does not mean that people will. What’s important is changing societal awareness.”

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