Do you think Japanese culture promote pornography?

Question:

For several years Japan has been one of the world's biggest source of child pornography, do you think Japanese culture has a role to play here or is it the work of a few individuals?

http://www.economist.com/node/15731382

Answer:

Hah...which country doesn't these days ?
Does Brittney Spears and Aguilera ring a bell ? look at their early stuff, those pictures would fit in any men's magazine.

I agree though that it is a more acceptable fetish in Japan than any other country I've come across, the fact that they had vending machines selling used school-girls' panties illustrates this.

I'm sure that men of a certain age in the West are just as delighted about schoolgirls as those kind of men in Japan, the difference is that in Japan it is perhaps not so much of a taboo.
Look at anime for example, a lot of the mainstream stuff feature schoolgirls looking and dressing like porn-stars.
Japan is also very male-dominated, in countries like that male fantasies are expressed considerably more in the media than women's.
Look at Italy too, italian tv and media is full of scantily clad women.

So the problem is that the culture is too male oriented, the same can be said about all countries in the world, its a question of degree.
Also, we tend to notice these things more when we look at foreign countries, we don't notice it as much in our own countries.
In the US for example there's been complaints about kids' clothes being too sexy, like see-through panties and thongs for 12 year old girls.
From an West European perspective child pornography seems to be promoted just as much in the US as in Japan.