Online Sexualization an Increasing Problem For Female Student Athletes From Junior High to University
The problems of voyeurism and sexual harassment of female athletes reached the mainstream via Kyodo News' reporting in the fall of 2020. KN's Risa Kamata reports, "Just doing track and field is enough to make you a target of sexualization. The live comments on the broadcast site of a national competition were full of obscene comments. When young women see that it can be enough to keep them away from the sport."
Kyodo News' reporting on the damage caused by voyeuristic filming of female athletes and the spread of sexually explicit comments and images of them on social media had a major impact. When the initial reporting on sexualized imagery of female athletes hit the mainstream, a wave of retrospective verification of the reality of the problem hit, and opinions started to fly in the media. "They streamed the National University Track and Field Championships live, right?" said one athlete who had competed in the meet. "There was a lot of obscene stuff in the comments, even though it was an official University Federation broadcast. Maybe they weren't reading the comments."
The National University Track and Field Championships are held in early fall every year. In 2020 they were held without spectators due to the coronavirus pandemic, and instead the National University Federation streamed all three days of the meet live for the benefit of families and fans unable to attend. But the restriction on attendance meant even higher viewership, and for a large part of the broadcast the comments section was a steady stream of sexual comments about athletes competing in the meet. When interviewed later, athletes who had competed said things like, "There were a lot of perverted comments," "It's really humiliating to know my parents had seen it," and, "When a friend told me they'd seen it I realized how much damage it had done."
The Federation said afterward that the comments had been identified as a problem at their post-championships general meeting and had been put on the agenda for discussion. National University Federation chair Megumi Shoji said, "It's very unfortunate that people act in ways that insult athletes and officials. We have a moderator to handle the written comments, but we're aware that the increase in viewership makes it impossible for us to adequately respond to the volume of comments."
The sense of urgency in response to KN's reporting was genuinely surprising. On Oct. 13, 2020, Olympic minister Seiko Hashimoto, a seven-time Olympian in speed skating and cycling, discussed the problem, encouraging cross-sport solutions and saying, "There are athletes who have been harmed by voyeuristic filming. It's critical that we develop an environment in which athletes can dedicate themselves to the competition in a state of peace of mind. I hope that everyone involved can come together for productive discussion and, above all, to work closely with the athletes to prevent this kind of thing from happening."
Yasuhiro Yamashita, president of the JOC, stated his intention to understand the situation and opinions of each national sports organization and to work in cooperation with the Japan Sports Association and National High School Sports Federation. Three days later on Oct. 16, Koji Murofushi, executive director of the JSA, answered questions while he attended the National Junior High School Track and Field Championships at Yokohama's Nissan Stadium. An Olympic gold medalist known as the Iron Man of Japanese athletics, Murofushi said he "had been aware" of the deep-rooted problem over the last 20 years. "It's important to protect our athletes. The JSA is determined to work hard on this."
A month after the initial reporting, seven national organizations including the JOC and JSA issued a joint statement on Nov. 13 on efforts to eliminate the problem. The JOC and others framed the issue as "sexual harassment of female athletes via photos and videos," strongly condemning voyeuristic filming, misuse of photos and videos, and posting to social media with malicious intent, calling them "cowardly actions," and threatening criminal prosecution of perpetrators. The JOC called for public awareness and understanding of the issue and cooperation in maintaining an environment in which anyone could take part in sport with peace of mind. Posters that were produced to raise awareness emphasized the words "voyeurism," "abuse" and "malicious" with red circles and called for "a safe environment for everyone in sports," including the English phrase, "Save athletes, save sport."
Despite efforts by the JOC and others to put cross-sport measures in place, there are legal issues and other barriers to cracking down on social media. There's a limit to what the sports world can do on its own to achieve a drastic solution, so collaboration with government agencies is essential. "In today's world the damage spreads everywhere instantly, so it's more serious than ever," said Murofushi. "For the future of sports we have to make some noise about it now." Facing the prospect of a long-term fight, Murofushi welcomed the JOC's call to work together on solutions.
The reality of harassment in collegiate athletics is serious. Beach volleyball player Kaho Sakaguchi, 24, said that when she first started competing her first year of college, her parents and friends told her they'd seen pictures of her online with sexually explicit text attached. "I think the younger you are the more it affects you," she said. "The hardest thing about it is that seeing that kind of thing makes you not want to compete." A female collegiate athlete who talked to me told me that a picture with her face photoshopped onto a nude woman's body had been circulating online. "That was really hard to take," she said. "If someone at a company I wanted to work for looked me up and found it, they wouldn't know it was fake. I reported it to Twitter, but it just wouldn't go away."
Given the ease with which content can be duplicated and spread through social media, it's not realistic for athletes to go through the complicated procedures required to have other people's posts about them deleted, no matter how bad the content. "It's a total lie and I'll never forgive it. I'll have problems forever." So says one female collegiate athlete whose face was superimposed into a video of a woman having sex. Twitter deleted some posts of the video when asked, but, she said, "No matter how many times I sent requests asking for it to be deleted it would just come back on a different account. It'll never go away."
This issue of voyeurism of female athletes is not just limited to top athletes, and with the spread of social media, the problem has spread to the high school and even junior high school student level across the country. Some athletes say they get DMs on Twitter and Instagram every day with pictures of parts of their bodies and obscene comments. "I get them at least 2 or 3 times a day," said one. Another athlete who has been subjected to this since her second year of high school said, "More than getting used to it, I just try not to look at them." The reality is that it's really hard for people that age to talk about the problem. "How am I supposed to talk about this with my mom?" she said. "It would make her sad. I'd really hate for my parents or teachers to see it."
A male coach spoke emphatically on the subject, saying, "The girls are weak, and they don't speak up. They hate it, but they put up with it. They're not doing track and field so that people can say this kind of terrible shite about them, they're doing it as cool, strong athletes deserving recognition for what they're doing. It would be great if people appreciated them for the right reasons."
A legal expert commented, "Depending on what was written, it may be something that falls under the legal definition of criminal defamation. I believe that there are a lot of people out there who post things carelessly without being aware of the legal system in place for requesting disclosure of the poster's personal information in cases such as this."
In October, 2020 a suspect was indicted on charges of defamation and copyright violation for using AI technology to produce a pornographic video of a female celebrity without permission and posting it online. This kind of video is known as a deep fake. Attorney Sakura Uetani, an expert in cases involving victims of sexual crimes, said, "At the moment deep fakes and other kinds of composite videos can only be prosecuted on defamation charges. We need legislation to clearly define these as a sexual crime. In the area of sports it is a serious problem that student athletes as young as junior high school are targeted for sexual fetishization. Even just the stress of worrying about what their parents might think is enough to leave them crying themselves to sleep at night."
translated and edited by Brett Larner
Comments
For example, maybe I was a replay of the womens 4 x 400 from the championships last weekend. Then youtube will recommend to me some other Japanese womens university track and field race. If I view that, it thinks "ok this person wants to continue to see womens track and field". And a lot of the engagement on womens track videos on youtube tend to be these videos that go viral due to the physical appearance of the women. So then it recommends me like, some thai pole vaulting video, usually with a thumbnail of a woman's butt or the like. If you go look in the comments of those videos you get all these "Ah we meet again men of culture comments".
All that to say, it sucks for fans of track and field too because the algorithm starts recommending videos not because they are interesting competition, but because these freaks have found the videos most appealing to them and their engagement in sexualizing the videos has blown them up.
Youtube has faced criticism for this before, with its algorithm and how it can create this culture and community online through these recommended videos. I know it was a big deal with childrens videos and the weirdos uploading strange things like that. All of these online video hosting and live stream platforms must continue to make strides to fight these types of things from happening. A great step would be to put more effort into automatically turning off comments when certain types of rhetoric or speech becomes common.
As a North-American-born-&-educated male, I know that if the greater part of the West wishes to see a ‘creation story’ worthy as its symbolic source, it can be found in the Book of Genesis of the Holy Bible, where the first female, supposedly, was created as Eve from one of Adam’s ribs, he being the first male. Alas, there was another female before Eve, named Lilith (first wife of Adam), who, disgusted with the unbalanced situation she found herself in, made a quick exit (but if one does a ‘search,’ am sure she’ll turn up for the earnest seeker). Japan, on the other hand, being the ‘land of the rising sun,’ the primary sacred entity is female, whose name is Amaterasu —- the Sun Goddess and first ancestress of the Japanese Imperial House.
All of which is to stress the importance of the female in our society, as she is represented at the mythological, or symbolic, level. And symbols move energy, having strong hold on the unconscious of humanity, whether for the individual or the greater collective.
Unfortunately, we are now into deteriorating times, with so many existing as bottom-crawlers, and disrespect is rife. Granted, there has never been a time when women have not been disrespected. We know, in our current age, of the abuse women have to suffer and endure. But those who care about this injustice can muster power to counter the pernicious trend if they act in concert.
Getting down to specifics, we know in ancient Greece, athletics were often performed in the nude. Due to the flow of history, in our modern era we can never go back to ancient ways in sport. Improvement, however, in our current case is possible, as women can present themselves to be perceived far less sensually / sexually — and men’s distraction will be rendered more or less harmless.
For this to happen, sensitivity & sensibility need heightening. As a commenter on this point, I offer the first concrete suggestion: THAT BIKINI WEAR BE BANNED !!! Sensible runners, such as the rising star Fuwa Seira, or the beautiful, accomplished Honami Maeda, would never care to be seen in the crotch-binding, butt-separating athletic fashion now so prevalent and ‘de rigueur’ (and thus they are spared their constant comfort-seeking adjustment). In short track events, proper shorts can eliminate at the starting blocks any discordant spectacle of butts (with dental-floss-like, partially-disappeared athletic wear) reaching for the sky. (By Anonymous#2)
An overly long draft in the end meant much cropping. Realizing another comment was possible, would like now to restore the original first paragraph, as follows:
“First, as a relatively recent viewer of this blog, for my very first comment, would like to express appreciation for Brett Larner’s efforts and continuing presence. Second, KUDOS for the issue — online sexualization of Japanese female student athletes — being brought into special focus in a dedicated article, with comments allowed.”
Carrying on with my discussion above in the 3rd comment, another suggestion regarding those who contravene moral norms by posting on social media offensive & abusive comments on photos / images that have been taken and/or altered with female athletes as their subjects: Such offenders need to be reprimanded, and then even threatened with the possibility of criminal charges leading to seriously stiff fines and even jail time if caught. Investigators will need to employ smart effective ways of going about their search, short of illegal surveillance and other disreputable methods (albeit used by the CIA, NSA, FBI, CSIS, etc). A certain degree of heavy-handedness will be required IN ORDER THAT MISCREANTS IN QUESTION DO NOT FAIL TO GET THE MESSAGE directed at them. Precautions will be necessary so that their efforts will not backfire to harm the athletes they are trying to protect.
For those who are parents of female athletes, they might dare to ask themselves how they would feel if their daughters were caught up as victims of perverted minds hiding online.
This comment, along with the 3rd above, is A CHALLENGE to those with the capability of organizing an unrelenting group / international campaign to counter the above-discussed abuse of female athletes everywhere who work so hard at their training, yet end up with humiliation from the predator fringe.
It is a comment for the cause of female athletes burdened by such extraneous matters, so that they know that there are people who care for their welfare and want them to be able to compete free from such burdens. (By Anonymous#2)