CARNAL NATION

In the aftermath of the controversy over a Japanese video game called RapeLay, the Japanese software industry has decided to take the easy way out and go for censorship. RapeLay, a game in which players scored points by stalking and raping a woman and her two daughters, created an international controversy when Equality Now discovered it being sold on Amazon. As a result of the outcry, the Ethics Organization of Computer Software, a software industry group,  has said that they will no longer approve games that combine sex and violence.Specifically, the group says that it will ban "sexual torture software" and set clear guidelines for its members.

The EOCS has no governmental regulatory power, but like the Motion Picture Production Code or the Comics Code Authority, the EOCS has a great deal of practical power over what makes it to market and what doesn't. Almost 90 percent of Japanese video game makers are members of the group and submit their games to the EOCS for approval and rating. Much like the Motion Picture of America, the EOCS has guidelines for acceptable content and assigns ratings to games that are displayed on the boxes. Many distributors in Japan will not accept games that haven't been approved by the EOCS; with or without governmental authority, the decision of the 100 members who gathered at the recent emergency meeting has functionally censored Rapelay and games like it without ever addressing the much more uncomfortable question of why there's a market for them in the first place.