Commitment to physical media apparently stronger than concern for consent for the women shown in videos.

Generally, generosity is considered a virtue. An active willingness to give something of value to others, without any expectation of compensation or reward in return, is, all else equal, the sort of mentality that would make our world a better place if more people had it.

However, all else has not been equal in the town of Komatsushima, Tokushima Prefecture. At around 3 a.m. on December 9, a laundromat worker discovered that someone had left a DVD on a counter within the facility, with the following message written on the disc’s otherwise blank surface:

“For healthy men: Feel free to take this.”

It’s not clear whether the laundromat worker personally checked the disc’s contents or if that was done by police, but in any case the disc turned out to contain “indecent” videos and still photos of women. As this term is generally not applied, in criminal proceedings, to professionally produced pornography, the insinuation is that the disc showed women either engaged in sexual acts or in compromising situations taken by upskirt or hidden restroom cameras, either without consent to be filmed or for the images to be distributed. Local media reports that the women shown in the images are residents of Tokushima, and with the prefecture being one of Japan’s least populous and not known for having an especially outsized amateur porn community, that would make it all the more likely that the images were voyeuristic in nature and taken without consent.

Somewhat ironically, unobtrusive recording may also have led the police to the person responsible. A similar DVD was left in a convenience store near the laundromat on the same night, and after examining in-store security from the two locations, investigators say they were able to identify a 67-year-old construction company executive from Mima, a few towns over.

The man has since been placed under arrest on suspicion of distribution of distributing obscene recorded media. The construction executive is denying the charges, saying that “I did not leave obscene DVDs in the stores.” However, several other incidents of obscene DVDs being left in places where they could be found by the general public have recently taken place in Komatsushima, and investigators are looking into whether there is evidence in those cases that also point to the suspect.

Source: JRT Shikoku Housou via Yahoo! Japan News via Jin, Yomiuri Shimbun
Top image: Pakutaso
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