Memoirs: I was one of the 200 victims of pornography - Part 1
In May 2017, a man who called for "cosplay models wanted" on a fraudulent website and had over 200 women appear in adult videos was arrested by the Osaka Prefectural Police. The criminal obtained 140 million yen in illicit profits from the series of crimes. Meanwhile, he was sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in prison, fined 300,000 yen, and suspended for 5 years. (The prosecution is appealing.)
NPO PAPS is a consultation service for those who are troubled by digital sexual abuse through revenge pornography, sexual voyeurism, gravure and nude photography, and those who are involved in the adult video industry and sex industry. The women who were victims of this incident have also asked for our help. At their request and with their consent, we asked them to share their experiences of victimization. However, in order to avoid identification of the consultants, the stories are composed of several parts.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
* The AV Appearance Damage Prevention and Relief Act went into effect on June 23, 2022.
For more information about the damage caused by pornography, please refer to the government website.
>>Cabinet Office "Even if you signed a contract for AV performance, you can unconditionally cancel that performance contract! (The article is in Japanese)
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Hi, I am a victim of one of the most well-known cases of porn extortion. I am a victim of one of the most famous cases of porn extortion among many. There are many victims, but most of them do not report it.
Defendant A (from here on, I will refer to him as "that person") forced his victims to recite "I did the performance of my own volition" after he forced them to shoot pornography. By "actual performance," we mean sexual intercourse.
At this time, they were asked to put their identification card next to their faces. The decisive factor in the investigation was the video of the girl crying while reciting. I learned through PAPS that adult film coercion is usually done by a team of several people.
They were tricked into believing it was a photogravure shoot and went to a studio in the suburbs. There, several men are waiting for them and pressuring them to perform in porn. The film crew is in on it. Even the female make-up artist is in on it. They comfort them gently and persuade them that it will be over if they just endure.
The culprit in this case was a "lone gunman".
What was the background leading up to the incident and what happened when he was victimized? What happened after the victimization, how it was connected to PAPS, and what happened after that. This is a very personal story, but I hope it will be of some help to you.
My family was a avarage family with two working parents. Financially, we were also quite normal.
I took the junior high school entrance exam and entered a private missionary junior high school.
I thought I was from a rather nice family, but I was not.
The families around me were quite fancy. I heard that one of the fathers was a medical practitioner.
The girl I was closest to ran her family's business, XX (omitted with her permission to avoid personal identification), and she was very into ballet and singing lessons.
She was aiming for entering a higher education school with everyone else, but she told me she was going to take the entrance examination for Takarazuka as a commemorative exam. I wanted to take ballet lessons like her, but when I asked my mother about it, she casually deflected the conversation.
It was around this time that I began to realize the burden my parents were placing on me.
When I was around high school, I was crazy about a certain idol group. Not boys' idol groups, but girls' idol groups. Watching them made me forget all sorts of bad things.
It had something to do with the fact that I didn't have many friends.
Even if you go on to higher education, the faces of people in rural areas don't change much. Relationships in junior high school are carried over to high school. In the winter of my first year of high school, we talked about going to the movies together after a long time. Because there were exams last winter, we didn't have time for that.
That's when I realized something.
In high school, everyone was more enthusiastic about their outfits than in junior high school. But my coat was cheap and out of shape.
I went home without enjoying it. But I couldn't say to my mom, "Can you buy me a coat?" because If I said that, I might make my mom feel sorry or poor.
After that, I stopped going out on Sundays and spent more and more time thinking about that girl from that idol group, all the time. I started to enjoy daydreaming about her. My idol had been taking ballet, singing, and dance lessons since she was a child, had a very beautiful body, and was not "cute" but "good-looking".
She had declared that she would graduate from idoldom when the time has come. She must have really been a chosen one, to simply throw away the position of a top idol that everyone longs to be. I admired her.
I would look for videos of her on YouTube and watch her over and over. I would collect goods that I could manage to buy with my allowance. That's how I spent my time.
It was my second year of high school.
I was searching the Internet and found a website that said "cosplay model wanted, idol one day experience". I don't remember exactly what keywords I used to find it. I think it caught on while I was looking for information on her and her fanbooks.
On that website, there were girls who were photographed wearing cosplay. With their comments, "It was a great memory of my summer vacation."
What caught my eye quickly was the costume the girl was wearing. It looked somewhat like the costumes that my idol and her friends were wearing in the song from last year or so. My heart skipped a beat. I had never expected that. I never thought I would be photographed wearing a costume that looked exactly like them.
I know I can't be an idol. Her debut was at the age of 14, and I am already 17. And I haven't had any singing or dancing lessons.
But it would be nice to experience it for at least one day.
Didn't you go to KidZania when you were a kid? You got a one-day job experience, imitated working, and received pseudo-currency. It was fun, wasn't it? I imagined something a little more concrete than that.
In the "one-day idol experience," I was told that if I send a picture on line, they would tell me if I passed or failed the test. And also they said that it is a photo session without an interview. Feeling like I was in hiding, I looked at the site over and over.
There were many cosplays available, I chose mine and had my hair and makeup done. I think I have to write about this part, so I will. It said that I could get 30,000 yen for a one-day idol experience. Also the pictures of me looking pretty would be sold and bought.
Like an idol, my attractiveness will turn into money.
That's impossible, but...
But maybe....
As I said later, around the time the incident was reported in the news, I went to the anonymous forums on the internet. And I always feel like wanted to die.
"Why would anyone believe such a thing?"
"How could you get that kind of money just for taking pictures?"
"Even with Junior high school students nowadays..."
Why did I believe all that?
I will answer to this question honestly, Because I wanted a new coat. And I thought 30,000 would be enough to buy one.
I believe that people are easily deceived when others tell them a lie based on their own wish.
A familiar example is when you are flattered. It's like a man who goes to a nightclub or something and knows that it's a place where he pays to be flattered, but he immediately misunderstands and says he's been duped.
People get deceived according to their own desires.
Let's get back to the case.
I finally made up my mind after seeing many advertisements for a one-day idol experience. I was thrilled and sent a photo of my face. I received a reply right away.
"I think it's good, very good. I like the juvenile look of your mouth. Seems a little bit calm, not sleazy, it's good."
Generally, it's like this. I understood that he said "lame" in a roundabout way. I understood "not sleazy" rather well. There are indeed boys who like that kind of thing. Boys who prefer girls who don't hurt their pride and are moderate.
"Thank you, but I think my eyes are a little too small, aren't they?"
I received a reply right away.
"I know that you're concerned about it because there are a lot of girls who have plastic surgery nowadays. Don't worry, professional makeup can do anything."
I thought the person was being honest because he didn't deny that my eyes weren't very big. He was really good at making light topics fun and lively.
No, that's not accurate. He has the talent to say what I want him to say. He was not afraid to praise and flatter me.
Also, he was vquick to respond. Really quick. Even though he seemed very busy, he will reply to me anytime. Like If you don't hear back from someone, don't you feel quite anxious? Wondering if this person doesn't like me anymore, or something. But he never did that. Even if it's just a word or two, he always responds.
"Are you sure I don't need to get a plastic surgery?"
"The viewers like the feeling that they have brought up the girl, rather than a girl who is beautiful from the beginning. As long as they support her, she becomes a beautiful girl that everyone looks at. That's it."
I am an idol otaku myself, so I understood exactly what he was talking about. It wasn't kind of realistic to talking to him, but it was fun exchanging messages with him, but I felt a bit like, "Is he serious about this?"
"Well, I'll take care of the plastic surgery when the time comes." He said.
My heart skipped a beat for a moment. When he told me that everything about me was wonderful, I thought I knew I was being deceived. But he didn't deny about me having plastic surgery at all, and he said, "I'll see when it happens.
Celebrities also gradually change their faces.
A little later, when we were chatting, he casually said, "Plastic surgery is expensive, you have to spend about 3 million yen for it". That was just a comment about idols in general. But I felt that he was saying that he would spend that amount of money if he was going to sell his "products".
I was surprised because I don't know much about plastic surgery, but I thought, "Well, if that's the case, I can become a beautiful woman".
I thought, "Even I, if I spend 3 million yen, maybe I can be beautiful".
At night, I became more absorbed in exchanging messages with that person than thinking about my idol.
"I'm sure you'll do well, so I'm thinking hard about your stage name." he says.
When I said that I'm not sure if I can do it, but he immediately replied, "No, it's not! A stage name is really a big responsibility for a person who is going to be a manager."
It was a fantasy idol game. There was a person who was trying very hard to come up with a plan to market me as an idol.
When I was reluctant to reply, he became so desperate that I wanted to tell him that he was spinning his wheels. It's Fun. And eventually, I learned that that person was not just a scout, but a manager at an entertainment agency.
Well, It was all a lie, though.
Also, the name of the entertainment agency he belonged to was similar to a famous entertainment agency that I knew. It was originally a small agency, but it was merged with a famous entertainment agency. So they said, "We have a lot of discretion." So I imagined it was like a subsidiary. He was strangely emphatic, saying that he was going to work hard to grow the company.
It all felt like a "common story." It seemed like something a dull person would say. That person is probably just an ordinary manager on the fringes of the entertainment industry, but not particularly talented. If that's the case, it's no wonder that he mistakenly thought I could become an idol.
He often told me a story about a popular idol who disappeared because of a scandal. And that he had tried to put out the fire, but it was all for naught, and that he couldn't help feeling frustrated about it.
The more I listened to him, the more I thought he was a poor manager.
Because that scandal happened when I was in the sixth grade of elementary school. Couldn't he have found idols during that time? That's what I thought.
But it was fun exchanging messages with people who had some kind of good feelings for me.
A poor manager and a girl too old to be an idol. I wondered if such a combination would not be bad. It may be a childish fantasy, but it was fun.
Before I knew it, I was told that he became my manager. I no longer thought it was strange. What was supposed to be a playful game was becoming less and less so in my mind.
I keep getting messages from him.
"I'm your manager. And I'm going to support you both publicly and privately. If you have any concerns, don't hide them from me."
I talked to him about many things about my family.
About my father's job, where he works, my brother's school, and even his cram school. I told him the address of the house we lived in, the high school I went to, and of course, my Twitter account.
"Who is this girl? She's cute, isn't she? Oh she's your best friend since junior high school, but things haven't been going well lately? Why?"
Unbeknownst to me, he had all of my friendships. Friends whose pictures had been uploaded unprotected, friends whose addresses could be traced, friends of friends.
So he's got all of those accounts around me.
One month later on Sunday, I was to meet that person. I took the Shinkansen bullet train, Kodama, to Osaka. Yes, my hometown is a small town. You can't even call it a regional city. On the Midosuji Line, I was so nervous that I could hardly breathe. I was still concerned about my coat even here. Compared to the girls in Osaka, I could tell they were even shabbier than when I was in my hometown.
I got scared If I could ever see the look of disappointment on that person's face.
As I was exiting the ticket gate at Umeda, where I was supposed to meet that person, a fat man with a swollen face approached me. That man approached me in a quite friendly manner.
He said, "XXX-chan, right? --- I'm A from the office."
I couldn't believe that the uncle who said his name was that person. He looked older than my father. He was wearing a V-necked shirt that showed off his chest even though it was winter. He was dressed in a forced American style. His hair was wavy and looked filthy.
I was shocked.
I thought he was a bad manager, but I never imagined him like this. An old man who makes mistakes at the critical moment but has a lovable side to him, not handsome but not so bad looking. I found myself with such an image of him.
But I immediately scolded myself for being disappointed. It is not good to be disappointed in someone who had praised me so much. My mother also told me that I shouldn't judge people by their looks. He smiled at me in a friendly way.
"Let's get going, I've made an appointment at the hair salon for you." he said.
I hated it, to be honest. I didn't like myself walking side by side on the street with a strange old man who was older than my father. If I wasn't playing "manager with idol", I would never have gone along with him. But I couldn't. I couldn't turn off my floating feelings right away, and I felt like I couldn't shun this person in front of me. There were two reasons.
It is said that that man had a "talent" for spotting weak-minded girls. They said that the strong-minded girls would have left here. I was one of the 200 who could not.
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In 2020, there were 281 cases, in 2021, 643 cases, and in 2022, 1,208 cases. We have also received many inquiries from junior and senior high school students, and the trend of young victims becoming victims is becoming serious. Pappus is the only non-profit organization in Japan that provides support for victims of digital sexual violence. We ask for your help in continuing our support activities for victims.