Quote:This fantasy of an erotically permissive East has endured in Western media, from period films to adult videos. A review of Pornhub, an adult entertainment website, cited "hentai"— a word meaning “abnormal” and “perverted” that denotes erotic manga and anime — as the most popular global search term last year, with “Japanese” ranking fourth.

This fantasized image of Japanese women stems not only from a history of Orientalist views but Japan's own prolific sex and adult content industries. A former Japanese porn actress once told me that Japan produces approximately 60% of the world’s porn. While this seems excessive and accurate statistics are hard to come by, estimates by The Economist put Japan’s output at 4,500 adult videos monthly and around ¥55 billion ($350 million) annually.