Flying Seoul-o

Writing about foreign stereotypes last week, I made sceptical reference to the popular notion of Japan as a land awash in bizarre pornography, where every other salarymen spends his lunch break hunched over rape manga, downloading bukkake videos, and purchasing schoolgirls' underwear from his office vending machine. Japanese smut is certainly distinctive, I acknowledged, but if it really is more widely consumed than in the rest of the world - show us the evidence.

Committed Asia Exile reader Joseh Miller has taken up the challenge by sending me a link to this fascinating page on the website Internet Filter Review. It goes some way towards answering a profound question: who are the world's biggest wankers?

The answers will amaze and appal you.

It begins with some instructive statistics. Did you know that every second 372 Internet users are typing "adult search terms" into their search engines, 28,258 Internet users are looking at pornography, and $3,075.64 is spent on pornography?

. On average, a new pornographic video is created how frequently in the United States?

A. 3.88 times a day

B. 11.9 times a day

C. Every 72 minutes

D. Every 39 minutes

Answer at the bottom.

There are a series of interesting tables and rankings (that's rankings as pronounced by Roy Jenkins) about Internet porn habits around the world. For example, the biggest seekers of the search term "porn" are, from number one to number ten, South Africa, Ireland, New Zealand, UK, Australia, Estonia,  Norway, Canada, Croatia and Lithuania - all predominantly Christian cultures. Whereas the top searchers for the word "sex" are Pakistan, India, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, Morocco, Indonesia, Vietnam, Iran and Croatia - seven out of ten of them Islamic countries (note, though, the verstaility of the Croatians).

What is that drives Christians to search for porn, while Muslims browse for sex?

Also interesting is the proportion of smut aficionados who are women - 28 per cent of visitors to adult websites. Most pertinent of all to our discussion however is the table of 2006 Worldwide Pornographic Revenues, including per capita porn consumption. Sixteen countries are listed; for the rest data is unavailable.

Cue Top of the Pops countdown theme, and the voice of Jimmy Saville.

Russians comes in at the bottom of the table, with an annual spending of only 250 million dollars a year, a paltry $1.76 a head. Hardly more generous are the Germans, whose expenditure on muck amounts to only $7.77. Filipinos cough up $11.18 a head to chart at number 14, while the Dutch and Italians beat the salami at 13 and 12 respectively. Collectively no one spends more on erotica than the Chinese, a total of $27.4 billion a year - but their vast population gives them an umimpressive per capita figure of $27.41 placing them at number 11.

Canadians are logging an annual $30.21 to squeeze into the Top Ten at number ten, and the Brits are getting handy at number nine. Taiwan, the US and the Czech Republic are neck and neck at eight, seven and six with around $44 dollars a year. And now the big boys in the top five ...

Brazilians are at number five with $53.17, and at number six are Australians, conspicuously failing to tie their kangaroos down, with an annual smut budget of almost $100 a year. Finland is a surprise number three, and at number two . . . it's Japan, failing to match their reputation as all-conquering tossers, with an impressive but inadequate porn bill of $156.75.

But this is less than a third the annual expenditure of our winner, each one of whose citizens spends an annual average of $526.75 on filth. Despite having a population a fraction of its size, they almost match China for total annual expenditure, consuming a full 27 per cent of the world's porn. Ladies and gentlemen, the Golden Merkin Award for number one in the 2006 Worldwide Pornography Revenues Table goes to . . . South Korea!

I asume that these statistics are based on Internet downloads, which probably explains why the exceptionally wired South Koreanscome out on top - if printed and video/DVD porn were included the US might rise up the table.

The answer to the quiz is D.

Comments

[Chen]

Bikkurishimashita! As for China, so far as I know, it's far to say popular using credit card to pay download fee. Are Hongkong and Taiwan included? The statistics is somewhat suspectable, though fairly funny.

[Mark]

bikkurishita indeed Chen. Made me nearly spit my orenji juusu all over the man who sits facing me. At least we all know who the biggest wan|

[Chen]

Is it Twine who sits facing you, Mark? Anyway, I don't like a Ranking World, 'cause I'm afaid of being under-degreed. The Biggest? Maybe. For Mr. Parry, it must be from Hongkong.
Here's some hint: http://timesonline.typepad.com/times_tokyo_weblog/2006/09/shampoo.html#trackback

[Aceface]

Must Korea steal every single globally recognized title Japan had been holding?

Sir,if I may say so,those internet datas are all fishy.I even smell conspiracy here.Just can't believe respectable paper like TIMES is naively trusting it.

I say Japan as NO.1 on this particular title as it ever was and supposed to be!

[Kara]

From my travels, these figures seem pretty close to the impression I've gotten: asians are by far overconsumers of porn. Notice that Japan is right up there, even with a smaller population than China! They are not used to the term 'porn' but refer to porn as 'sex' which explains why this is used in the search so much!
Most people don't even own a credit card in some of the highest asian porn consumer nations and they purchase most videos and music black market. Search statistics are more accurate than actual purchase statistics.

[patricia nakamura]

Greetings from Brazil. I m afraid figures ref. brazilian spendings with porn are wrong. Brazil has 185 million people. If the sex industry had US$ 100 million revenues... well, there s a mistake somewhere.

[Andrew Milner]

Research "Operation Ore", as the UK end of "Operation Landslide" in the US. Note the way it began to be soft-pedalled not just because costs were going into the stratosphere, but also because the "highest in the land" were potentially in the frame (watch this space). Also, authority belatedly realised that credit card evidence was, in and of itself, not sufficient for a conviction. Pete Townshend had a sharp lawyer, witness he requested access to the entire 7,000 plus Operation Ore list, on the grounds that his client was being unfairly singled out because he was a celebrity. Naturally Britain's Keystone Kops refused and scaled it down to a "accepting a caution". Note the indiscriminate use of the term "paedophile" to include not just hands-on child sexual abusers, but also those viewing of pornographic images, mostly on the Internet. Think “tits up” is the expression I’m reaching for. Now conjecture that pornography (along with justification of terrorism) is being promulgated as justification to control of the Internet. The issue here is freedom of speech, not pornography.

[Gilman]

Milner - are you trying to say that the viewing of paedophilic pornography is a freedom of speech issue?

Or what are you trying to say?

[Michael]

I like the throwaway line at the end:
"I asume [sic] that these statistics are based on Internet downloads, which probably explains why the exceptionally wired South Koreans come out on top - if printed and video/DVD porn were included the US might rise up the table."

Why is a British correspondant in Japan speculating about U.S. porn consumption? Wouldn't a normal reader be more interested in either the area of the world the reporter is based in ("If printed/DVD porn were included, Japan might crush Korean in porn consumption") or in his home country ("Not to fear, my British compatriots, with printed and DVD porn included, we might well move several places up the list!")?

[Rachel]

As an American living in South Korea... I have to say, it seems pretty accurate to me...

Of course if you take the female population out of the equation you get the actual numbers.

Korean women and porn? I think not.

Plus the next guy who asks me if I'm Russian is getting smacked.

[Sha]

These stats are remarkably bad and debatable. I have many problems with them.

Firstly, this is described as "revenue", as in how much a company makes. The study does not say "revenue made from country x". Pornography is banned in China; you can't easily track illegal porn sales either.

Recently, South Korea has cracked down on internet porn, especially foreign porn sites, and is filtering sites. The "company" who did this study sells filtering software.

Korea doesn't have a prolific porn industry, so where does this "revenue" come from?

The site says their sources are "Statistics are compiled from the credible sources mentioned..." What kind of BS is that? RED FLAG. This is not a legit study, they MUST accurately cite their sources in detail.

Good Magazine, a more reliable source, states: "89% [of porn is] produced by the US" and US porn revenues for 2006 were "$2.84 Billion"...that's a far cry from the $13.33 the mentioned study says.

No sir, I will not buy this. It is flawed and has holes all over. It'd be interesting to see a study like this in an academic journal. Then I'll believe it more easily.

[Alex]

Sha, have you ever been to South Korea? If you have, go check into a hospital asap. Only a completely blind, deaf and mute person can say that South Korea does not have a prolific porn industry.

[E.L]

alex... have you ever 'lived' in Korea? i was born in Korea, lived in Korea nearly for my whole life except for two years in Australia. if you haven't 'lived' in Korea, i believe i know more about Korea than you do.
Believe me, (I'm not blaming Japan though,)80percent of pornography is from Japan.
Even if you are a Korean or are living in Korea, check all those internet sites again and see if the actors are speaking in Korean
-_-;;
also, if you say those words (that you have just written) in any Korean web page, you will get smashed...not physically, but mentally
you should be thanking that im not one of those people

[Alex]

E.L, I have lived in Korea recently. I did some research on the Japan/Korean porn industry as a part of my job and found that Korea had a prolific sex industry. The pornographic industry, like any other industry has its demand and supply. Let's assume for the moment that your statement is acurate, i.e the supply comes from abroad, the demand is what makes the industry buoyant. In addition the filtering site did not even take into account fraudulent payments on line which a certain country holds record. And about smashing me mentally, I assure you I am not afraid of any backlash. Now your comment actually gives me some more amusing insights. If you post on UK websites saying bad things about the British, whether true or not, such as all British are stupid sex mad etc.., we would only laugh at it. Well, I understand that some countries are protective of its image. I was in the City Hall when a big crowd set up a virgil for the discredited stem cell scientist, claiming that it was some Western conspiracy to disgrace him. So go figure.

Oh, sorry about the deaf mute thing. Probably "devoid of all senses" is more culturally understandable.

[j. lee]

well, i think there's more demand for internet porn in south korea because...
a. they don't really make porn stuff on their own... most of south korean porn are pretty mild... that's why those who seek porn will download foreign, mostly japanese porn via internet because they are simply better...
b. it's been only late 10 years or so people are more open about sexuality... when i was growing up there in the '80s and '90s, even kissing was a taboo... maybe it's still even "illegal" to kiss in public... but with more exposure to foreign culture through the internet affected the younger generation with very different mind setting, and it now seems like whole country went through some kind of sexual revolution... therefore there are more curious customers than ever before and with easy internet excess, why not... not like japan or european countries that sexual desire was accepted as a part of life for some time...
by the way, what did you mean by south korean women don't check out porn stuff...? i certainly check out porn... and i do know that i'm not the only one... also as far as i've heard, korean women are known to be very feisty in bed and i take that as a compliment...