You can always count on the Japanese to find a novel solution to the world’s most pressing problems.

Considering global power shortages and the perceived dangers of pornography – particularly on teenagers – Japan opted for a truly inspired answer: Harnessing that sexual energy for good in the form of literal power generation.

Harnessing “A Spurting Energy”

In Tokyo’s Shibuya district, Japanese porn company Soft On Demand created and installed a display called “White Day Illumination Shining with Virgin-Produced Electricity” in honor of White Day, a romantic holiday celebrated in East Asia. Soft On Demand then placed teenagers — all identified as virgins and “porn addicted” — on recumbent bicycle-powered generators, gave them VR googles showing softcore clips featuring Japanese performers Tina Nanami and Hinata Koizumi and had them publicly pedal to light a giant heart.

Celebrated in Cambodia, China, Japan, Myanmar, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, White Day was started as an “answer day” to give men that were given gifts on Valentine’s Day the opportunity to pay back the gesture. It is tradition that the men’s responses should be twice or three-times that of whatever gift they were given.

Cleverly, the young men manning the “heart” were surrounded by Soft On Demand performers, who were “receiving” their “gratitude.” The scenes the young men were watching were also displayed on a monitor near the illuminated heart.

“We propose the world’s first system for extracting energy from videos,” said Soft On Demand in response to the stunt. Virgins were picked because, according to Soft On Demand, they have “spurting energy that has nowhere else to go.”

They did what in Japan?

Japan has different, if not more progressive, stances on pornography and sexuality than does the United States. While there are more stringent requirements for genitalia censoring in Japanese porn media, there is less public pressure to hide porn and porn use/enjoyment.

With Article 175 of the Criminal Code of Japan being the nation’s only non-child pornography censorship law in effect today, Japanese developed a larger adult video market than the United States. This is due to the larger number of televisions and VCRs. Adult content in video games (bishojo, eroge), comics (manga), cartoons (hentai), videos (JAV) and books (dojinshi) are so commonplace, they largely define Japanese culture. This is, in part, due to Japan’s native religion, Shinto, which has no restrictions against nudity or sexuality.

Concerns about creating a welcoming environment in anticipation of the 2020 Summer Olympics Games, however, has led some convenience stores to stop carrying adult magazines.

Despite this, Japan remains progressive on both porn and porn tech. In 2018, Soft On Demand opened a series of virtual reality porn booths. In 2016, the nation’s first VR porn festival was shut down for over-capacity.

“The [White Day] event didn’t start until 2 PM, so I went there in high spirits an hour before then, but the city was already overflowing with people,” a reporter covering the event explained. “There were so many that it was almost impossible to keep the situation under control.”

“While waiting for my friends, I couldn’t help but think that if they couldn’t control the mass of people, a riot or something similar could happen. The 20 lucky guys closest to the building were let in by the staff. I’m sure there was a line inside the building that rivalled the one outside,” the reporter added.

Image via Pexels.