TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains disturbing, graphic titles from violent hentai videos. Obscene or sexual words have been censored but remain readable.
“Hentai.”
It’s a word that you may or may not be familiar with. But for anyone interested in combatting sexual exploitation, it’s a word we should pay attention to.
The term “hentai” originated from the Japanese word for “perverted.” Today, it refers to a type of animated pornography with a Japanese art style, similar to that of anime or manga.
While hentai can be mistaken for a niche subject, the truth is it is astonishingly popular. In fact, hentai has been the #1 most-searched term on Pornhub for several years in a row.
Why does this matter? Because hentai harms.
There’s a common misconception that, since hentai is animated and doesn’t show real people being exploited, it must be harmless. This is not true.
Just like other forms of pornography, hentai fuels sexual violence, misogyny, and exploitation. Further, Hentai can have the same negative impacts on the consumer that photographic pornography does.
Hentai Pornography Fuels Real-Life Sexual Violence
Just like photographic pornography, hentai is littered with violence, rape, child sexual abuse, bestiality and all sorts of exploitation and degradation.
In fact, because hentai is animated and not constrained by what a real person’s body can endure, there is no limit to how much severe violence hentai can depict. One 2023 analysis noted that “the sexual violence in hentai is so extreme that in real life, it would result in the bloody harm and death of the women and children victimized.”
Examples of hentai video titles encountered by NCOSE and allies Dr. Gail Dines and Mandy Sanchez include:
“dark fantasy with sweet girls banged by evil creatures … monsters non-stop f**** innocent babies…”
“stepaunt Caught her stepnephew Jerking Off & Decided To Help Him”
“Demon F***ed Nun in An*l & Hardcore”
“f****ing my student in the bathroom”
“Monster C**k hits Girls Throat Through Her P***y”
“schoolgirl gets it rough for the first time”
And more.
Even though, in hentai, these violent and abusive acts are not inflicted upon actual human beings, it still normalizes this behavior in the physical world. One 2024 study with 906 participants found that frequency of hentai use predicted sexually aggressive behaviors in both male and female participants. This tracks with the numerous scientific studies we have showing pornography fuels sexually violent behaviors and attitudes in real life.
The way to stop abuse is not to make cartoon versions of it. Humans will still consume it, internalize it, and seek it out in the physical world.
Public Health Harms of Pornography
Hentai’s Infinite Novelty is a Risk Factor for Addiction and Sexual Problems
Because Hentai is animated, there are effectively no bounds for what type of content a user could create. This novelty makes hentai ripe for compulsive use and addiction.
Research has repeatedly found that novelty is one of the primary drivers of addiction. Because of the dopamine hit that results with the use of pornography, overtime, a user can become desensitized. They increasingly seek more extreme and novel content to give them that same level of dopamine. And the consequences can become criminal. There are real-world cases of pornography usage leading to serious crimes including child sexual abuse material offenses and even physical sexual abuse.
Hentai takes this thirst for novelty to another level because it often depicts characters engaging in acts that are impossible for humans to physically replicate. Some argue it can be more addictive than live-action pornography because the sexual acts are limited only by the imagination of the creator. This risk of addiction is even higher when someone is exposed during their youth.
Not only does endless novelty make pornography users more apt for addiction, it also can lead to unrealistic expectations about sex, dissatisfaction with real relationships, and even sexual dysfunction. Because hentai shows scenarios which are so extreme and, in some cases, beyond the scope of the human body’s capabilities, real-life sexual encounters may seem to pale by comparison. Research shows that pornography users often experience lower sexual satisfaction or even sexual dysfunction due to the stark difference between pornography and real human intimacy. The limitless novelty in hentai is ripe for such problems.
