It's always easy to look at the symptoms while ignoring the underlying cause of an issue ("Commuters fight back against groping," July 31).
A flourishing multibillion dollar sex industry, which looks eager to grow till at least 2020, catering to your wildest fantasies. The entire gamut of love hotels to pink saloons to various categories of so-called health services. An increasingly sexless personal life in an ever-graying single-household society packed together like sardines and hooked on high-speed 4G networks beaming anime. Or titillating newspaper centerfolds spread out in crowded public spaces.
These cannot be ignored as the stark naked truth and the real cause of such behavior.
After all, the actions one perpetrates is only a reflection of the collective larger social psyche. Groping alone cannot be and should not be a subject considered in isolation. It's just one of the social indicators of the times we live in.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.