Getting Your Panties in a Wad
Japan has just made it illegal to sell dirty panties from girls under 18. Soiled underwear selling is pretty common in Japan, where men are apparently turned on by this kind of thing. They like it so much, it seems, that the ban has shot the black-market price up to five times what it used to be. As Glen Whitman, guest-blogging at The Volokh Conspiracy, points out:
In other words, the market has gone underground. Girls used to sell their (under)wares to dealers with established businesses, whose primary interest was in making money. They never even had to meet the adult male buyers. But now, under the wise new policy, young girls are arranging clandestine meetings in dark venues with men who are turned on by girls' underpants. Does anyone else see a disaster in the making?
No kidding.
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I count myself as a pretty open-minded guy, but I find it hard to object strenuously about Japan's new policy, as long as it doesn't restrict the freedom of adults. Does anyone else feel my lack of outrage at this particular government interference in the marketplace?
Well, in Japan it is still basically legal for adults to have sex with very young girls--so long as they don't exchange money. So what happens? The customers buy them the stuff that the girls would have bought with the money anyway. It's a well-known practice and basically tolerated by the authorities. I don't see how this will work out to be terribly different.
Personally, I wish *I* could score $100 for a pair of my drawers.
I love how they have vending machines with beer in them in Japan. 🙂
Larry,
It's true that we generally consider underagers to not have the same rights as adults. But if this law creates more problems than it solves, so what?
I was just reading an article in my local paper talking about how Japanese people are not having enough sex. There are actual public service announcements telling people to have more sex.
I know where I'm going for my next vacation...
Soiled underwear selling is pretty common in Japan, where men are apparently turned on by this kind of thing.
Oh Hanah, you sound as if you've never done anything remotely naughty to help pay for schoolbooks. Not *everyone* has a Reason internship to get by on, you know.
Do you know how long it took me to try and buy used girls' panties over the internet? About 7.4 seconds.
Ebay is awesome.
Ebay is awesome.
Read the fine print:
All items are 100% un-WORN and brand new to comply with ebay regulations.
I find it disturbing that certain men in Japan get off on the used underwear of little girls, but I also find it disturbing that meep is offering to sell his underwear for a hundred bucks, it only takes Pavel 7.4 seconds to find out if he can buy used underwear on EBay and Patrick's overriding concern is with authenticity.
Larry,
You are a prude who has lost his sense of smell.
Otherwise, you have a great personality.
Larry,
I'm not particularly outraged over the inconvenience to the guys who want to buy teenage girls' panties, no. But I am dismayed at the obliviousness of politicians to the law of unintended consequences, and their belief in the talismanic qualities of A LAW (trumpet fanfare) with "Prevention of [insert your favorite evil here]" in the title.
I am concerned with ebay's authenticity only to the point where it refutes Pavel's claim that it took him 7.4 seconds to find USED underwear. Of course, she could be lying, in which case my concern is moot.
That's what they all say.
Carbon-dating.
Ha!
In empathy with cash-hungry meep, what am I bid for a pair of Ruthless' very personal skivvies with distinctive indelible hash mark?
Minimum bid: $100.
Should I also post this on Victoria's Secret site?
Authenticity is indeed the catch. One of my room mates in college used to sell soiled panties through an ad in the back of the local weekly. He'd buy the panties at kmart for 2 bucks, add skid marks (his own) and other soils (think drainings from his tuna sandwich) and sell them for thirty bucks. He did about 10 pairs a month and had repeat customers.
Faith and self-delusion are integral to perversion. It doesn't matter where the underwear really comes from. All that matters is that the pervs believe it comes from teenage girls. Similarly, guys choose to believe that those women on film actually enjoy sticking large objects up their ass, and that strippers actually enjoy their company. The best example is probably incest porn (which I've never seen, BTW). I don't think there's any way to prove that the actors are really related, but it doesn't matter so long as the viewer believes it. Scat porn is almost universally fake, too.
So remember that the next time you hear the religious right praise the virtue of faith. No one has more faith than perverts.
Gee Xavier,
May I touch the hem of your skivvies?
Kevin,
The only word that gets a louder fanfare then LAW appears to be...
MARKET (cue angelic choir)
As I had Badnarik say in my pre-pre-teen-panties "interview": "Most people find some of our positions morally abhorrent. It helps if you just turn off that part of your brain that deals with morality. Every time you think one of our positions is morally abhorrent, just think about Ayn instead. It takes time and practice, but it works.".
Actually, the LAW doesn't seem to arouse that much awe anymore, but people still go through the motions.
As for the term MARKETS, it is more akin to gravity while LAW is more akin to deus ex machina.
Do they have to be Japanese girl panties, or will they accept Chinese & Korean?
As I said earlier in another forum, "When used panties are outlawed, only outlaws will have used panties."
Love it or leave it.
I am concerned with ebay's authenticity only to the point where it refutes Pavel's claim that it took him 7.4 seconds to find USED underwear. Of course, she could be lying, in which case my concern is moot.
"Could be lying"?
I'm sure "CuteTootsiesUK@hotmail" is selling those "100% un -WORN and brand new to comply with ebay regulations" panties legitimately. I wish there a picture of them so I could pick out a style...but all I see is a closeup of her barely post-pubescent face in makeup...that's odd.
Anyway, I said it took me 7.4 seconds to find used underwear on ebay. I didn't say I searched for "used underwear" on ebay. I actually searched for "student panties."
What can I say? When it comes to navigating my way through the dregs of the internet I'm a natural. How do you think I found this place?
joe,
How about RANDOLPH SCOTT?
Seriously, at least the market has a plausible mechanism.
Government solutions are built on the highly implausible assumption that some administrative mechanism can be found that outweighs perceived self-interest. For example, that dirty old men with a thing for panties and avaricious schoolgirls with a hankering for extra disposable income can be prevented from making a deal by a magical incantation of "thou shalt not" on a piece of paper.
Of course, the penalties for transgression can be set high enough to make a significant dent in the soiled panty trade.
But the law of unintended consequences, like the wrath of a jealous God, will assert itself with a vengeance: in the form of rape during riskier, now-illegal back alley transactions; organized crime seeking to control the lucrative black market; the inevitable corruption of government by payoffs from panties kingpins; and creeping police statism as ever more intrusive forms of surveillance and scalebacks of due process are required to cope with preventing voluntary transactions. And you can be pretty confident that a large portion of the campagaign funds of the most hard-core Panty Warriors will be laundered money from the panty trade.
Wow--deja vu, all over again!
For those who have never made it to the 'pink' sections of a Shotengai (shopping street) in Osaka or Tokyo, you would be truly astounded at what you can get in vending machines.
It has to be seen to be believed.
There was a big scandal a few years ago about 'arranged dating' services in Japan. The highschool girls at the time had an obsession with designer handbags, and it turns out that there were some prostitution rings operating out of the schools that traded sex for Louis Vuitton.
For weeks, I got vaguely ill every time I saw a 15 year old with a beeper.
For the record, I was just kidding guy.
OOOH I love this thread, but I don't want to get overfamiliar with my kinky side this morning. Don't tell me Japan is getting down with Shinto family values? It seems like they have some vague desire to protect underage females (from exactly what I don't think they even know), but as a piece of legislation is sounds very sloppy and well thought out. By the way, I know for sure that no one (in their right mind that is) would pay even a nickel for my drawers.
The other Larry said:
{I count myself as a pretty open-minded guy, but I find it hard to object strenuously about Japan's new policy, as long as it doesn't restrict the freedom of adults.}
So how does prohibiting the sale of allegedly used undergarments not restrict the freedom of the adult distributors and purchasers?
NOTE: No government in the history of the world has shut down a black market by interdicting supply.
het is zinvol