ONE said that the United States was less intelligent than Japan because of the number of blacks and hispanics. Another said that old ladies were the bane of civilisation.

Offensive statements of a racist, sexist or chauvinistic character have become so regular among Japanese politicians as to be almost routine. But even by these standards, Seiichi Ota’s remarks were breathtaking.

The former cabinet minister faced unprecedented criticism yesterday after a speech in which he appeared to cheer on rapists for their courage and manliness.

“Gang rape shows that the people who do it are still virile,” Mr Ota said at a public debate on Thursday. “I think that might make them close to normal.”

In a conservative country with no tradition of political correctness, the reaction has been remarkable.

Within hours Mr Ota, 57, a senior member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, was apologising to a succession of outraged colleagues, from the Prime Minister down. “I realise that what I said must have been very disagreeable to women, and especially victims. I apologise deeply,” he said. “I wanted to add that rape is a serious crime and must be severely punished, but I didn’t have time.”

Japanese MPs have a habit of weathering scandals and there was no indication yesterday that Mr Ota would resign from his seat. But the reaction against him suggests that Japan’s attitude towards rape may be changing. The Japanese are justly proud of their low crime rate and if the official figures are to be trusted, the country has one of the lowest rates of sexual crime in the world. But, by most independent reckonings, rape is under-reported, under-prosecuted and misunderstood.

Police and prosecutors are reluctant to press charges in all but the most obvious cases. “Date rapes” and those carried out by friends and family members often never make it to court.

Much Japanese popular culture displays an indulgent attitude towards sexual assault bordering on the jaunty. The image of a helpless woman being born down on by a predatory man is a staple of manga, the comic books consumed by Japanese commuters — one popular manga used to feature the superhero Rapeman.

Slowly, however, attitudes towards sexual crime have been changing. There has been a campaign against the gropers who operate on crowded commuter trains. Women-only carriages have been introduced, as have plainclothes female police officers.

Three years ago the governor of Tokyo, a former comedian named “Knock” Yokoyama, was forced to resign after sexually harassing a young election worker in his campaign bus. This month, a senior official of the Japan Communist Party did the same.

Mr Ota’s remarks were prompted by an incident that happened a week earlier — the arrest of five male students for allegedly raping a female student last month. The men came from Tokyo’s Waseda, Gakushuin and Nihon universities, three of the country’s most prestigious institutions. They were said to be members of a club responsible for a series of gang rapes.

Mr Ota was on a panel discussing Japan’s declining birth rate. He had an explanation for it: young Japanese men “lacked the courage” necessary to get married. From here it was a short step to his eulogy of the rapists. “I know that I will be criticised for saying this sort of thing,” he said afterwards. But he cannot have realised how much.

Political gaffes

‘Japan is becoming a considerably intelligent society, far more so than the US. A large number of blacks, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans live in the US. On average the level is still extremely low’
Yasuhiro Nakasone, former Prime Minister

‘The most harmful thing that civilisation has brought about is baba (old hags). It is sinful for a woman to continue to live after she loses her reproductive capacity’
Shintaro Ishihara, Governor of Tokyo

‘The voters could not have vanished faster if I’d been an Aids patient’
Yoshiro Mori, former Prime Minister, after a poorly attended rally

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