1st point - I think pretty much every human being is guilty of saying one thing in private and another in public, but some things are best left there in the private domain.
I don't think it's a good line of reasoning because those things *won't* stay in the private domain. You most likely saw a porn magazine as a kid. So did I and so did everyone. If we were younger, we would have seen porn on the Internet as kids. The idea that it does lasting harm to children just doesn't very likely in light of the evidence.
I think society has to rethink its approach to face this inevitability. For instance sex ed is terrible. It's either "abstinence only" bollocks or it's about the dangers of sex (pregnancy! STDs! HIV! Here's how to put a condom on a banana!). The latter doesn't lie like the former but it doesn't answer most questions kids and teens have and they'll get the rest from porn because we don't want to educate them.
2nd point - Parents can use software and parental controls to limit TV and internet access to adult material.
That's a cute little fiction but it doesn't hold up in reality.
A pair of investigative journalists put that idea to the test. They gave kids computers with Internet access and parental control software and timed how long it took for them to bypass them and being able to access porn. At most, it took minutes.
You might think that not all kids are tech saavy enough to figure out how to bypass that kind of software but they don't have to, only one has to find out to teach the others and the techniques turn into common knowledge quickly.
The fact they are on view in a newsagents is something that a lot of parents are not happy with, even if they are out of reach of young children.
I assume that in most of the world, it's a non-issue. We're not surrounded by prudes everywhere. I've yet to see a parent take offense to it around here.
Equally a lot of women find it offensive and I don't blame them really.
I find the porn women read disturbing and I wouldn't advocate hiding it. Heck, it's prominent in any bookstore and not hidden on top shelves.
which would be a good thing offering an alternative to the airbrushed perfection seen in some magazines, which just gives more people insecurities about their bodies.
I wouldn't be too quick to blame the magazines for that. A popular magazine sold in Quebec tried for one issue not to rely on that kind of techniques and women refused to buy it, then went back to airbrusing the next months. Magazines give people what they want.
3rd point - censorship. If a magazine is publishing pornographic material likely to be accessed by persons under a certain age, then yes maybe it should be sold in a plastic wrap and in line with that cultures customs and values. As mentioned some cultures are perfectly comfortable with nudity and sex being in the open. We Brits just aren't at the moment.
Don't you think that having a culture that's too prude hurts the nudist movement?
It doesn't affect the decision to buy it, just restricts the exposure. I don't think explicit adult mags can be compared to other publications such as the Economist, Cosmo, or PC Gamer.
Well, I did compare Playboy once by sheer curiosity and it does have one or two good articles per issue (the rest is on par with Cosmo).
I think basic economics will actually decide if we have either naturist or adult mags in our newsagents.
And will mandate continued airbrushing.
4rd - Japan is a land of very strange contradictions!
Maybe, but easy access to pornographic material is not one of them.