Kelly Shibari writes on www.fleshbot.com – If you’ve ever watched Japanese porn (and I know many of you have, because it’s awesome), you’ll notice that the one thing that makes it Japanese (other than the whimpery sex sounds, the full bushes and, well, Japanese performers) is the mosaic-ing of crotches.

(Yeah, I’m totally gonna rub one out to that TONIGHT!!!)

Pornography, which had been around in Japan since, like, forever (you know, we’re an ancient country and stuff), got censored in the late 1800s after Victorian morals were introduced via trade ships from the West (thanks a lot, guys).

By the start of World War II, all pornographic materials were banned. American soldiers brought pornography with them to Japan during the war, which brought a resurgence of pornography, but even though the US guaranteed freedom of speech and expression in Japan post-World War II, pornography censorship has still stayed intact. To this day, you can’t legally buy porn in Japan that shows full visible penetration.

There are workarounds, though. Behold the amazing mosaic-removal machine!

(Don’t bother going to the website, it’s a dead link.)

Just as you’d probably expect, you have to adjust knobs with one hand while, well, you operate your own knob with the other. It’s ridiculous.

The coolest thing about censorship in Japanese porn is how it’s changed how Japanese porn is presented. “Pink eigas” (pink films) are unregulated, soft-core films that show sexual situations without showing genitalia. Hentai porn was created because the characters aren’t human.

Tentacle porn, which actually has been around since the 1800s, because, you know, island nation – was invented to replace penises. And bukkake and gokkun were devised to show non-penetrative sex scenes, where multiple men deposit their loads on a woman’s face, or into a bowl, which is then drunk by the woman.

So – censorship created even more pervy stuff! Yay Japan!

Perhaps this is a warning to American pornography censors? Censor us, and we’ll just make weirder stuff. Plushies and Furries? That’s nothing! Just you wait…am I the only one looking forward to a re-envisioning of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead, where a tree branches strip and penetrates with a victim? I’m hoping they kept that scene in the remake…