The Institute for Japanese Studies presents:
Akiko Takeyama
Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
University of Kansas
Title: Sexual Self-Determinism in Japanese Adult Videos in the Age of the Internet
Flyer: Takeyama Flyer
Abstract: This presentation will be coming from part of my second book project, entitled Contract-Based Sex Work: Gender, Labor, and Justice in Japan’s Adult Video Industry. In the book, I examine the interrelation among politico-legal systems, information technology, and sexual labor to investigate Japan’s adult entertainment video industry. Recently the industry has drawn greater public attention because of so-called forced performance legal challenges and technologically facilitated sexual violence. I ask: What do adult video performers consent to when they make a contract? To what extent do they have control over their performances and video products in the digital age? Based on ethnographic fieldwork I conducted in 2017-2018, I will shed light on the tension between consent and coercion and open to question the legitimacy of laws pertaining to individual consent when sexual and economic exploitation are carried out in the name of individual freedom of choice.
Akiko Takeyama is an associate professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Kansas. Her research interests lie in changing gender, sexuality, and class dynamics in contemporary Japan. Her first book, Staged Seduction: Selling Dreams in a Tokyo Host Club (2016 Stanford University Press), theorizes the commercialization of feelings, emotions, and intimate relationships in Japan’s service-centered economy. The book was a finalist for the 2017 Michelle Rosaldo Book Prize (Association of Feminist Anthropology). Her second book project, tentatively entitled “Affect Economy of Japan’s Adult Video Industry,” will explore human affect ―hope, vulnerability, and sense of self-worth― in the Information Age. She is a recipient of numerous research grants and fellowships including Japan Foundation Fellowship, SSRC-JSPS (Social Science Research Council-Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) Fellowship, and Wenner-Gren Hunter Postdoctoral Fellowship. Most recently, she was awarded an SSRC-Abe Fellowship for her second book project. Her publications appear in Japanese Studies (2010), Sexualities (forthcoming), Genders, Transgenders, and Sexualities in Japan (2005 Routledge, McLelland and Dasgupta eds) and Feminist and Queer Theories: A Transnational Reader (forthcoming Oxford University Press, Saraswati and Shaw eds).
Free and Open to the Public
This event is supported by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant to The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center.
