We’ve got sad news for folks headed to Japan for the Rugby World Cup this September, or the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo next year: It’s going to be a lot harder to get smut. Far from the easily-accessible-porn mecca that pervy tourists have long come to expect of Japan, the country’s ubiquitous 24-hour convenience stores will bereft of porn magazines.
This massive bummer comes courtesy of Japan’s two biggest convenience store chains—7-Eleven and Lawson’s—who have directed their combined 34,000-plus locations to scrub their shelves of adult material by August. That will clean up the stores’ image by the time that thousands of tourists descend on the archipelago for the two major upcoming sporting events. Kyodo News, which broke the story last week, reported, “The move is aimed at avoiding giving a bad impression as Japan is expected to see a surge of foreign visitors during the events.”
At most of these one-stop-shops, shoppers can grab anything from a ready-made meal to a toothbrush to parcel shipping services. And, for decades, they’ve also been a go-to for adult magazines from real-world porn to illustrated smut known as “manga.” But now the long-standing availability of dirty pictures on store shelves is nearing an end.
The crackdown is part of a long-term, large-scale effort by Japan’s convenience store industry to tone down the smut as consumer demographics change.
“In the past, 7-Eleven was mostly used by male customers to buy beverages and fast food, and our product assortment was designed accordingly,” a spokesman for the chain told Reuters. “However, as the role and usage of 7-Eleven stores has changed in recent years, 7-Eleven became an important shopping destination for families, children and elder people as well.” The spokesman continued, “In order to create a proper shopping environment for all our customers, we decided to stop handling sales of adult magazines.”
And they don’t want to scare off international sports fans when they descend upon the country later this year, either. According to the Telegraph, “foreign tourists are sometimes shocked at the ready availability of pornography in Japan.”
We suppose kids being able to see porno mags in their local 7-Eleven isn’t ideal, but we do have to raise an eyebrow at the claims that rugby fans might be offended. Have these folks ever seen the crowd at a rugby match? If anything, we here at YNOT think that Rugby World Cup tourists will be more offended that they can’t get porn on every corner in Japan.
