Press "Enter" to skip to content

Pitfalls await perverts perusing chikan sites

Wakayama police have arrested a 26-year-old man for groping a woman he thought had given him consent via a Web site
Wakayama police have arrested a 26-year-old man for groping a woman he thought had given him consent via a Web site

Wakayama Prefectural Police last week announced the arrest of a 26-year-old man for groping a woman he thought had given him consent via a Web site.

On April 30, Masaya Ogawa, a former nurse from Osaka, is alleged to have fondled the buttocks and breast of a 23-year-old woman inside the carriage of the JR Wakayama Line.

According to police, Ogawa believed the woman in question had posted a message on an Internet bulletin board that recruits men interested in molesting females inside commuter trains.

Nikkan Gendai (May 11) says sites seeking voyeurs, gropers (chikan) and participants in erotic action may not in actuality be as they appear.

For train molestation, a woman will post a message on a site catering to such interests that specifies a day, time, train line, car number, and a brief description of her appearance, perhaps a mention of a red jacket and black bag. Then, ideally, a man reading the post will appear and carry out the desired “deed.”

Such activities are not limited to the rails. A writer who covers the sex trade, or fuzoku biz, says that posts requesting an audience for a sex session in a public park or a fondling inside a sauna frequented by gay men are also known to exist. “The point is to find sexual stimulation through total strangers,” says the writer.

However, problems can arise. As was reportedly the case with Ogawa, a matter of identity fraud by another user took place. (His victim claims to have not written a post of any kind on a bulletin board.)

Nikkan Gendai says things could be worse should someone, for example, make a similar blunder in the aforementioned gay sauna, whereupon the mistaken molester is then surrounded by a group of young toughs before he makes his first move.

Prior to the arrest of Ogawa, the manager of the molestation site in question says that this happened previously. “But the majority of the users know that 99 percent of the posts are fakes,” says the manager. “That’s the reality.”

The manager adds, “Even with a specific time and her particulars as far as clothing noted, for Ogawa to take that seriously is just stupid.”

The site claims to be more about keeping one’s desire in check than anything else: “This is a bulletin board that serves as a deterrent to crime.”

Nikkan Gendai wonders about the state of humanity.

Source: “Chikan saito narisumashi higai no kofu,” Nikkan Gendai (May 11, page 8)