By: Pia'Sharn
When I was an innocent little girl, I went browsing on the great and wonderful World Wide Web, searching for Sailor Moon pictures. Having found my way to the AniPike database, I excitedly clicked on the name of my favorite anime and scrolled through until I found a site that looked promising. What I found was a cute little page that gave every morsel of information that an otaku could wish for. Seeing a sub-directory labeled 'Pictures', I was hardly able to contain my enthusiasm at the prospect of all the goodies that I imagined lied within. I clicked on the link.
Suddenly, straps flew out from the arms and legs of my chair, binding me forcibly to the spot. A metal headpiece clamped around my skull, preventing any motion, and tiny clips even held my eyes open. The computer screen grew in size until it filled my entire field of vision. Horrified, I could do nothing but watch as images began to flash across its surface.
The images were not what that innocent seeming Sailor Moon site had made them out to be. Instead, they were the most horrific pictures imaginable: hentai. I cried out in terror, but was unable to look away. The images continued to flash over the screen, every minute detail painfully obvious. As these perverted scenes were forced upon my pure mind, something awful began to happen. With each picture, part of my very soul was twisted and corrupted. I screamed in agony, doing my best to escape, but to no avail.
After hours of slanderous, nasty images, the screen finally went blank and shrunk down to its normal size. The bonds holding me were released and vanished back into oblivion. I ran out of the room and curled up in my bed shaking. For days afterwards I tried to forget that the event had ever happened. I went about my daily business, never telling anyone of the incident. However, I was not the same person that I was before. My soul was stained and twisted.
I began to lure little children into my house and tortured them mercilessly. I sneaked out at night and committed every black act you can imagine (and a few you couldn't). I stalked the back allies with a knife and a thirst for blood. I stole candy from little kids. I drank milk directly from the carton. I started worshiping the Devil. I played with fire. I read banned books. I tore off the tags on mattresses that state 'Do Not Remove'. I signed up for AOL.
In short, I had become a creature of Pure Evil.
I also went back to that site to look at more hentai and feed my cravings. With each viewing, I became even more hideous. Animals began to flee my presence out of pure terror. Strangely enough, I was able to appear normal to my neighbors. The fools never suspected a thing. To them, I was still the friendly young girl down the street. They never realized the perverted creature that lurked within their very midst…
All right, enough of that. If, by chance, you haven't gotten the point I've been trying to make, I suggest you look up the meaning of the word 'sarcasm' before you start flaming me (or not, I can always use a good laugh). This whole story seems (or should seem) quite preposterous, doesn't it? However, this is precisely what a lot of anti-hentai and anti-porn campaigns would like you to believe. However, hentai is not as dangerous as it is made out to be.
First and foremost, if you are not looking for it, you will not find it. Oh, if you type "Sailor Moon pictures" into a search engine, there is a chance some hentai sites will come up in the results. However, they are always labeled as hentai in the description. If you ignore the description of the site and just click on the link, then it's your own fault if you find yourself at a site you don't like. Also, if your search engine doesn't offer site descriptions in the results, then I would suggest that you start using a different one. Google and Dogpile are a couple of my favorites.
Many search engines will let you customize your search as well. Then when you go to look up "Sailor Moon pictures" you also tell the search engine to not show any sites that also contain certain words (such as "hentai", "porn", "XXX", etcetera). Look around on the website for specific details. This will reduce the number of hentai sites that show up in the results.
Let's say that the site description was vague and didn't hint at adult material. Well, every single adult site I've seen either has a warning page or is password protected. If you ignore the big sign that states 'You must be 18 or over!' then you are a moron, plain and simple. The people of the U.S. are sue-happy. Porn and hentai companies don't want to get slapped with a big lawsuit. Thus, they cover their own butts. If they marked it as an adult site, then you have nothing to cry about.
Also, you will never come across a site that appears to be a perfectly innocent Sailor Moon shrine, but will turn out to be a hentai site. It just doesn't happen (at least not that I've ever seen, and I've been online since '95). See my above message about the legal and financial problems as to why. Companies are out for a profit, and they aren't about to risk that profit on a whim.
Let's take a hypothetical situation here, and pretend that there really is a hentai site out there that looks normal and offers no warning. What should you do if you come across a site like this? Now then, look up near the top of your browser. You should see several buttons. One is labeled 'Back' and works wonders when you find yourself at a site you don't like. There is another button labeled 'Home' which shall whisk you away to your designated site. There's also the ever-useful 'Bookmarks' (or 'Favorites', depending on what browser you are using), where you can mark pages to get back to them later. Quite simply, if you ever stumble across a site you don't like, no one is forcing you to look at it.
Besides all that, hentai and porn is not as harmful as many people make it out to be. Dear gods, all of my guy friends, and most of my girl friends have seen porn at some point in time (many even look at it on a regular basis!). They don't molest children, rob banks, commit murder, or any other heinous acts. As a person who hangs around some hentai mailing lists and message boards, I know for a fact that a lot of the people (not all, unfortunately) who enjoy this material are actually very mature and fun to hang around with. They have no wish to harm children or force unwanted material on anyone.
Yes, hentai and porn exist online as in the Real World. Yes, there really are people who look at and enjoy it. However, sex is part of life. If it wasn't, the human race would have died off a long time ago. There are a lot of adults out there who enjoy Sailor Moon and whose taste is different from the kids who watch the show. Just as children and uninterested adults have the right not to have hentai forced on them, the consenting adults have the right to create, distribute and enjoy this material. To try and force hentai and porn off of the Internet denies us our rights.
Hentai is like food; not everyone has the same taste. There's nothing wrong with not liking hentai, just like there is nothing wrong with not liking broccoli. It's a personal taste. No one is saying you have to like it but please don't condemn those of us who do have adult interests. We're not bad people; we just have different tastes.
Comments on this article can be sent to: Pia'Sharn.
