THE “JŪDŌ SUKEBEI” PHENOMENON: WHEN CROSSING THE LINE MERITS MORE THAN SHIDŌ [MINOR INFRINGEMENT] ― SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR IN JŪDŌ COACHES AND INSTRUCTORS
Journal Title: Problems of Psychology in the 21st Century - Year 2015, Vol 9, Issue 2
Abstract
The sport of jūdō was intended as an activity “for all”. Since in 1996 a major sex abuse scandal broke out that involved a Dutch top jūdō coach and several female elite athletes, international media have identifed many more abuses. To date no scholarly studies exist that have examined the nature, extent, and consequences of these anomalies. We intend in this paper to review and analyze sexual abuses in jūdō. To do so we offer a descriptive jurisprudence overview of relevant court and disciplinary cases, followed by a qualitative-analytical approach looking at the potential factors that prompt jūdō-related bullying and sexual harassment. Sex offenders may be attracted to jūdō because of: 1. the extensive bodily contact during grappling, 2. the easy access to voyeuristic opportunities during contest weigh-ins and showering, 3. Jūdō’s authoritarian and hierarchical structure as basis for ‘grooming’, 4. lack of integration of jūdō’s core moral component in contemporary jūdō coach and instructor education, and 5. its increasing eroticization by elite jūdō athletes posing for nude calendars and media and by specialized pornographic jūdō manga and movies. Cultural conceptions and jurisprudence are factors that affect how people perceive the seriousness and how these offences are dealt with. A survey of 19 cases of abuse in jūdō worldwide shows that cultural conceptions and jurisprudence cause that such cases are handled in a very heterogeneous way by the law and by the jūdō governing bodies. Jūdō clubs and organizations overall suffer from a lack of expertise, intellectual insight, ethical objectivity, and solid procedures of fairness for both victim and accused, in this way often failing in both suffciently protecting the weak from sex offenders, and in educating and reintegrating past offenders through jūdō activities that do not involve their victim target groups. Jūdō’s moral philosophy implicitly attempts to offer a utilitarian answer as to how the jūdō community should deal with serious offences. These incidents, however, continue to show the limitations of jūdō‘s utopian “prosperity for all” objective.
Authors and Affiliations
Carl De Crée
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP32056
- DOI -
- Views 353
- Downloads 0
SIMILARITY, COHESION, DISTANCING AND FRIENDSHIP QUALITY AMONG ITALIAN AND BOLIVIAN BOYS AND GIRLS: A CROSS NATIONAL COMPARISON
This study aimed to contribute at exploring friendship in children from two different countries, Italy and Bolivia, focusing on the association between specific characteristics of children’s friendships, such as similari...
THE EFFECTS OF PARASITES ON HUMAN BEHAVIOUR: AN EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE
Parasites and predators possess serious threats to humans throughout our evolutionary history. Although the impact of predators in modern world is lower than previously, parasites still influence morbidity and mortality...
COMPETITION INFLUENCE ON PERSONALITY VALUES AND INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS
Market economy initiates competition process development as a driving force and as an outcome. Due to increasing economy development pace, one can predict that in the 21st century these processes are going to be more and...
A 2-YEAR PRELIMINARY LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONING IN HASHIMOTO’S THYROIDITIS UNDER LEVOTHYROXINE TREATMENT: ONLY TRAIL MAKING TEST IS MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Few studies have examined longitudinally depression, stress and cognition in Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis (HT) under levothyroxine (LT4) treatment. Although HT is claimed to cause several mood changes and cognitive defcits...
INHIBITION TRAINING AS ONE OF BASIC FACTORS OF THE COMING INTO BEING OF THE PERSON
On the basis of systematization of a number of ideas of philosophers, physiologists, ethologists and the actual material about violation at people of instincts, by origin the general at us with animals, owing to incorrec...