If laws and cultural practices to curb obscenity are so strong then somebody would object to nipples in porn too, right? Well. But why aren't breasts pixelated in Japanese porn? In fact, Japan's most popular export, tentacle porn, is thought to have originated in Hokusai's classic depiction of a woman's octopus fetish. A single look at any of the raciest manga comics today will reveal the influence shunga has had on the art of the island nation. Though shunga has been outlawed for almost 300 years now, it has left an unparalleled legacy. However, a few paintings have been found depicting Dutch or Portuguese characters and sometimes (as seen in Hokusai's now iconic The Dream of the Fisheman's Wife) non-human creatures as well. It depicted largely heterosexual, ethnic Japanese couples with enlarged genitals engaging in intercourse. Sold either as single scrolls or more popularly in the form of enpon, or a book, shunga was produced by artists in the block print format of traditional Chinese medicine scrolls. But crackdowns on the art form and those who produced and procured it did not begin until the country first begrudgingly allowed the visit of Western powers. Though once considered to be as just another genre of art, shunga was first officially banned by the Shogunate, or the military dictatorship of Japan, in 1722. One of the practices that faced the wrath of the law was shunga, or traditional Japanese erotica. As Western morality took root in the upper echelons of Japanese society, the government began to outlaw traditional Japanese practices that were perfectly normal to the people but appeared uncultured or strange to foreigners all this, in order to prove to an increasingly curious Western gaze that Japan was just as civilised a society as them. With the arrival of Westerners on the island nation, which had remained closed off from the rest of the world until then, everything changed.