Remember the Oppai Bokin (Boob Aid) event in December?
The annual event is run by a cable television network as part of a weekend of charity shows called ERO24TV (or 24-Hour TV: Eroticism Saves the Earth). This is perhaps the highlight of the event, because it allows ordinary men and women to grope porn stars’ breasts if they make a donation to charity.
This year’s squeeze-a-thon was the most successful Boob Aid yet, with 7,175 men lining up to get their hands on porn stars’ busts for a few seconds each.
Well, Boob Aid has become famous overseas too and is regularly featured in lots of media coverage (in the kind of “wacky Japan” bargain bin of news, it seems).
It seems that not everyone sees this cop-a-feel event as a light-hearted way to raise money for an AIDS-awareness charity.
An online petition has been launched, titled: Stop exploiting women’s bodies while using “fund-raising for AIDS” as an excuse to promote the company and raise profits.
At the time of writing, it has just shy of 9,000 signatories and it aims to get 10,000, whereupon it will be sent in a flurry of moral high-horsing to the network (to be promptly ignored, we expect).
Here are some excerpts from the outraged polemic.
This petition campaign is not criticizing the (legal and consensual) sex/porn industry, nor is it trying to discourage people from expressing their sexuality or being sexually active. That said, this event should not be condoned and continued.
Please stop exploiting women’s body for promotional and commercial aim.
This event hides behind the front of being a “charity event” but in reality, the participants are basically just paying to touch bare breasts. If this is really a charity event, where all involved parties are volunteering (meaning they aren’t financially compensated), then technically, aren’t the real donors the women themselves, who gain little to nothing from this event?
Using the word “donation” makes it seem as if this is a good thing that serves public interests. However, sexualizing female breasts and using it as part of fund-raising is merely a ploy to attract public attention to the program or channel. This entire deal, from the women’s bodies to the fund-raising, is an effort to boost viewership, and in the long run, generate profit for the companies involved.
By catering to men’s desire to touch female breasts under the guise of a charity, treating erotic content as if it were anything but that and making it accessible to the vast public shows a lack of discretion on the part of the event organizers. Despite the blatantly sexist and exploitative nature of the event, they promote it on their website and through social media openly using women’s bodies as an advertisment tool, accessible to the general public, including minors.
And the zinger: “Moreover, what do boobs have to do with AIDS advocacy?”
Well, nothing — but it is a good way to raise money and Boob Aid has raised millions of yen.
There is a version in Japan, suggesting its instigators are not all non-Japanese. Even so, we are not sure if even 10,000 signatures from around the world will mean much to the Japanese organizers when the event has been such a success in terms of funds raised and participants.
