Nobody else explores the law in Japan quite like Mark West, bringing it to life and close to home. "Lovesick Japan" is an entertaining and insightful examination of the courts, pulling eye-popping gems from judges' opinions that speak volumes about their proclivity for peeping, prodding, moralizing and otherwise creeping into the bedroom in adjudicating marriage, divorce, rape, stalking and pornography. He draws on sex surveys and bizarre rulings to expose judges' warped version of love and their uncommon common sense.
But there is much more to "Lovesick Japan" than a series of absurd rulings; here we are shown how sermonizing judges try to shape society in their own image. It is depressing that these highly educated men are so clueless and yet have so much power over the fate of so many Japanese. Clearly, the judges see themselves as arbiters of emotions and insist that rules trump passion. Often they go well beyond the law to decide cases based on nonfactual, subjective elements, sometimes with unfortunate consequences.
Judges actively promote a staid view of love, sex and marriage that intrudes into the privacy of the bedroom, deciding for example what constitutes normal sex down to the thrust count. Judges are mostly middle-aged men representing the Establishment, so it is not surprising to learn that "normal" sex is male-dominated, dispassionate and reserved. We learn that a woman-on-top is definitely deviant in the eyes of the court and so is a strong libido. Marital rape? According to the patriarchal courts, this has only happened three times since World War II. Statutory rape? A man who was charged with raping a 14-year-old in his car was found not guilty apparently because she had previously kissed someone, had taken a bath before going for a ride with him and didn't shout or resist strongly enough.