Scandal, Sukyandaru, and Chouwen
Secrets, Sex and Spectacle: The Rules of Scandal in Japan and the United States. By Mark D. West. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. 2006. Pp. v, 404. $45.
Jose Canseco’s use of steroids, the sale of used girls’ underwear in Japan, penile mutilation, and the moral failings of both Bill Clinton and former Japanese Prime Minister Sosuke Uno are not topics that often appear side by side, much less in a scholarly work of comparative law. And few law professors have the chance to publish a book whose jacket features a picture of a scantily clad woman. In Secrets, Sex and Spectacle, Mark West does both. He also does much more, unraveling the interplay of social and legal rules that influence the formation of scandal and spectacle in Japan and the United States.