well here it’s not a grey area since 2012. it’s explicitly a different thing according to our supreme court.

to your last point, i think there’s research that shows that people tend to act less on their urges when given an outlet. same as with violence. in fact i think that there’s even some that says that people who commit the acts do it because what they get off on is the sense of control rather than the characteristics of the victim.

that said, yeah we obviously shouldn’t be encouraging creeps to act on their urges. i also don’t know what the situation is in japan but it’s possible that in their “shame-based society” as someone put it in the thread, calling someone out on it is enough to discourage it in a way that doesn’t translate. in that case the translation is also wrong, but in the other direction; it should be harsher.