raccoon

If you were to conduct a survey study of a particular (eastern) nation's public opinion toward:
1) child sexuality (its nature)
2) adult-child sexual activities
3) literatures featuring use of child as sexual object (purely fantasy, no real child involved)
4) governmental implimentation of control over child sexuality and adult-child sexual activities

What questions will you ask? The survey will be conducted in bubble sheet and will be conducted in batches in institutions (such as company office, college, school, etc).

Keep in mind you have to get through the University ethic commitee before you can go ahead to do it. Also, minors will also be asked, though it is possible to conduct two seperate set of questions (for adult group and youth group).

Thanx for the suggestions!

-raccoon

99Percent

Why would you even want to conduct such a survey, and why eastern nations?

raccoon

It's a survey + case studies that I will hopefully be doing in Japan, it is because of a rising sense of crisis concerning teen prostitution (enjo kousai) and conflicting discourse regarding literatures containing fantasy child pornography.

Japan has a very long history of tolerance toward sexual diversity, including sexual practices between adults and minor (among other things, such as abortion). Age of consent according to the Constitution is 13 (though some independent prefecture set it higher, but even so, the law is rarely enforced, and if they do, they usually have ulterior motive to persecute the convict), and the only way to persecute adult having sex with anyone above age of 13 is either through explicit prove of lack of consent (i.e. rape) or if the sexual service is paid for (prostitution act).

The project will not address whether it is moral for adults to have sexual activities with minor, it simply looks at how institutions acquire power over different sectors and how certain population within the society is targeted using this new recognition of child sexuality as a "ever present social threat." Since there is no academic literature published concerning Japanese public opinion regarding child sexuality and their reaction towards the direct import of United State discourse of child sexuality (scientific discourse, American Medical Association definition of child abuse, response to direct pressure from U.N., sending staff for child-protection training in the U.S. etc). I will hopefully be able to draw link between the deployment of this moral panic (if I can indeed establish that there is a moral panic concerning minor sexuality in Japan right now) to governmental establishment of new regime of state control.

The panic over teen sexuality has already resulted many recent change of Japanese law regarding age of consent, child protection, technologies, etc. Very specific population is also targeted. Even though preliminary studies shows opinion that the most common patrons are the bowing, polite, conforming salaryman, people working in the anime and manga industry are repeatedly used as scapegoat and placed under the spotlight as monstrous pedophilic who buy teen sexuality.

So basically I am trying to address the use of a rising moral panic as a tool to establish regime of social regulations, such as hegemonic discourse (scientific discourse over child/ youth's volition), such as constructing an image of a certain group in society as "especially dangerous" or "prone to this kind of pleasure," etc.

That's the tip of it anyway, I am still working on my first draft.

But, the point is, I need to establish the contemporary public opinion before I can draw any conclusion or make any analysis. Sooo.... what would you ask?

-raccoon

Tom Sawyer

There's probably a few good questions to ask:

If a 6 year old child plays with somebody else's genitals, is the child trying to be sexual?
- Has to do with their understanding of how children view sexual activity

About what age do you think someone should be able to legally consent to having sex?
- Has to do with their view of a child's developing understanding of sexuality

Do you see a difference between a 30 year old man having sex with a 14 year old and the same man having sex with an 8 year old?
- Has to do with their view of pedophilia vs statuatory rape

Do you see a difference between a 30 year old having sex with a 13 year old and two 13 year olds having sex with each other?
- Has to do with their view of the power balance issue

Would your view of somebody who reads pornography featuring children as sexual objects (with no real children involved), or someone who owns virtual pictures of child pornography (fake pictures, no real children used) be positive or negative?
- Has to do with the issue of whether it's OK even if no children are involved

Do you see a difference between people who use virtual child pornography and real child pronography?
- Has to do with the issue of whether it's OK even if no children are involved

Should child molesters be forgiven of their crimes after they have served their sentence?
- Has to do with the legal issues

If a convicted child molester moved into your neighbourhood after he had served the full sentence for his crime and you had small children, would you try and get him to move?
- Has to do with whether or not they should be forgiven

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. It's a bit difficult using the bubble-sheets, since without their being able to explain the why behind the answers the questions have to be phrased very carefully so that the respondents aren't answering something other than the actual question due to their misinterpreting it. That's probably one of the most important things to consider, especially if you'll be asking these question in a different language. Make sure you get a really good interpreter to translate it for you and have someone else reinterpret what they've done so that you don't get any confusion over what each question is asking.

raccoon

Thanx a lot Tom, sorry I have been neglecting the activities on this board because school has been busy, but I appreciate your inputs.

yours sincerely,
-raccoon