The construction of "harmful" environments for juveniles using the rhetoric of social problems and geographical scale: A case study of social problems resulting from telephone dating services in Toyama Prefecture, Japan

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explain how rhetorical terms helped to construct social problems concerning the regulation of telephone dating services, which were seen as a new "harmful" environment for juveniles by neighborhood residents in Toyama Prefecture, Japan, during 1993-1998. With the focus on the social constructionism that has recently become prominent in the social sciences, this paper emphasizes how this harmful environment for juveniles was constructed through the rhetoric of social problems in various arenas and simultaneously was made out to be greater than it actually was. As the number of telephone dating services increased, the corresponding number of cases of sexually deviant behavior also increased according to official police statistics during 1993-1994. In addition, the idea that girls participating in telephone dating services were helpless victims who had been irreparably harmed by men who used their services was firmly implanted in the minds of the general public through local media sources. Many forms of rhetorical discourse were employed in various public arenas, but the most influential was the "rhetoric of loss," which in this case was signified the loss of juveniles' sexual innocence. This representation is difficult to refute in Japanese society. The police, a concerned group of parent neighbors, and local newspapers together attempted to uphold the good image of juveniles in Toyama Prefecture. The local community at large was very receptive to this representation, and therefore it was firmly believed that the space (both geographic and virtual) surrounding telephone dating services was harmful to children's general well-being. It was particularly significant that this representation was accompanied by the simultaneous representation of sexual deviancy in the community. This may be connected to the idea that the social and moral "pollution" associated with girls who participated in telephone dating services could spread to otherwise innocent girls. This notion was largely based upon the fear that they could "infect" other girls with their deviancy, thus eliminating the innocence of an entire age group. This depended upon a dual image of juvenile girls as both innocent and criminal. One side of the dichotomy represented girls as sexual victims, and the other as nymph seductresses. Therefore the treatment of their sexual partners could account for the way in which a local community enforces moral boundaries, social order, and contradictory representations of the young. The contradictory representation of the same group of juvenile girls in the local community intensified the policing of men's behavior toward them as well as the policing of the behavior of the girls themselves. It is significant that the activities that distinguished between categories of innocence and impurity, while excluding discussion of the deviancy itself, helped to reinforce the identity of the local community as a place composed only of appropriate spaces and subjects. In this context, the representation of the loss of juvenile sexual innocence could be a powerful rhetorical tool for maintaining local collectivity.