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The following is a brief excerpt from the article in The Journal ofPsychohistory (vol. 28, no. 1) on "The Spawning Grounds of the JapaneseRapists of Nanking" by Stanley Rosenman:
"Sexual exploitation of children, including incest, has been longestablished in Japan. Girls and boys served as temple prostitutes inancient times. Still ongoing in the 19th century, especially from thecountryside during hard times girls were sold to be prostitutes andcourtesans. Their life span averaged 22.7 years. During early stages of industrialization, 12-year old girls, purchased by textile houses, suffered physical and sexual abuse (Bornoff, 1981, deMause 1990, Kitahara, 1989a).
In historical times marriage between close relatives wassufficiently widespread to affect the health of the population. Should the mother die, the father often wed the daughter. Questionnaires of females reveal a considerable percentage with memories of being sexually abused. Currently mothers may masturbate their children, supposedly to soothe them.In Japan mother-son incest rates are higher than in any othercivilized country, apparently instigated by the frustrated mother'sdesperate craving for contact, perhaps an angry recklessness. Often, heropportunity came upon seeing the boy masturbate: "It's not good to do it alone. It lowers your I.Q. I'll help you." Or "I will teach yousomething better:" Or "You can't study without sex. You may use my body."Again, "I don't want you to get into trouble with a girl. Have sex withme," or "If you do that, you won't be able to have a baby." (Kitahara,1989, a,b, cites K. Kawana who based his findings on 1978-1979 records kept at the "pregnancy prevention hotline," a private counseling service, in Tokyo; see too deMause, 1990).
Sexual involvement with mother both gratifies and disturbs. Themother obtains singular control over the son's sexual life. In incest'swake, despite the specialness of being an Oedipal winner, the boy must cope with feeling sexually inadequate to satisfy the adult woman, terror of a world for which he is unprepared, rage at mother for deforming his psyche by diverting him from life tasks including suitable females, and torquing the relation to the male authority to yield an expiatory submission to his command to die in battle. (Adams and Hill, 1987; deMause, 1987; Horney, 1933; Person, 1986.) Maternal sanction is given to anti-social behavior.Sexual misusage traumatizes the boy anew, further shattering his psyche.There is no unambivalent holding by a loving mother to help glue togetherthe ragged bits of experience (cf. Slochower, 1996; Winnicott, 1965). . . .
Adding to the middle class male child's disaffection was anexacting educational system emphasizing routine memory in preparation forcrucial tests, many hours of exam schools, fierce bullying by classmatesoften encouraged by teachers, as well as direct manhandling by the latter(Wolferen, 1987), a severe competition for entry into the best schools with career and desirability of future spouse in the balance, and heavyfinancial investment in schooling by many families -- all underpinned by an obsessed "education mama" making it obvious that her well-being was on the line. It was noted that one incentive for incest was that the boy not be distracted from homework.
Little wonder that there are reputed to be 500 juvenile suicides a year, some as young as 9 years, violent assaults on chiding parents, even murders (Bornoff), and a psychodiagnostic category unique to Japan for children who refuse to attend school (Lock, 1991). Schoolland (1990) vividly portrays drawbacks of Japanese education:a hidebound administration veiled in secrecy; encouraging disciplinederived from WWII's military; unsupervised and unfettered by the political establishment except for waves of student suicides and for scandalous beatings to death of students by teachers often in collusion with bullies; the threatening letters of reproval able to blight a student's future with which teachers browbeat students and parents into silence; any positive values verbally taught undone by corrupt brutal actions of teachers – all leaving disillusioned isolated students unpracticed in the give and take of personal relationships.
Schoolland offers surveys showing parents' approval of the teachers' use of corporal punishment. " |
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