Eric Takabayashi wrote:

> This month I read the claim that 60%? of child porn online originates
> in the US. A far cry from the time maybe 80% was claimed to originate
> in Japan.

Hmm. And did you believe that 80% claim at the time? What do you think now?
That times have changed that much, or that the claim was false, or what?

I am, of course, reminded of the figures you cited for chikan a couple of
years ago, suggesting that Japanese women were more likely than not to have
been groped on the trains. Take a look at
http://ballz.ababa.net/uninvited/groping.htm. It says:

"In 2001, a survey of two private high-schools in Tokyo revealed that more
than 70% had been groped on the train."

Remember how you used statistics in the region of 70% to defend the
allegation that groping women in the trains was "the norm" in Japan?
Well, now that the hysteria has died down a bit the statistics are starting
to look rather different. The same source says:

"A recent survey of Japanese companies suggested that at least 17% of
Japanese women have been groped."

17% is "a far cry" from 70%, isn't it? Of course, as far as I'm concerned,
*any* percentage is too much, so I'm not defending the perps here. I just
want to show how unreliable that 70% percent statistic was.

Have things changed that much in the last few years, or were those very high
figures inflated for some reason? The number of reported cases is continuing
to rise sharply, and women continue to feel threatened, so I doubt chikan
behaviour has slumped in the way the figures might suggest. Alternative
explanations seem more likely.

For example, it could just be that what was happening in two high schools
wasn't representative of the country as a whole. It could even be that
respondents felt it somehow more charismatic to claim (anonymously and on
paper) that they had been groped, or that if they said they had not it might
somehow reflect on their attractiveness as females. It's not that difficult
to imagine kids using claims of having been groped as a way of establishing
credibility with their peers. Or whatever.

I'd also like to point out how you jumped on those very high statistics in
defence of a racist and prejudiced agenda. You thought that, in the light of
the 70% statistic, Ernest Schaal was justified in claiming that

> In japan, chikan is the rule for men, not the exception
(http://tinyurl.com/5yy2q)

Remember? OK, then, now that they're saying 60% of child pornography
originates in the US I guess you and he will be perfectly comfortable with
the following statement:

"In America, paedophilia is the rule for adults, not the exception."

Well?

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com