Japanese kids, eyeballs, and a special breed of crazy

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**Breotan**

Okay, what the heck is going on with Japanese kids these days?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2013/jun/14/eyeball-licking-fetish-japanese-teenagers-sick

Eyeball-licking: the fetish that is making Japanese teenagers sick

The popularity of the bizarre practice, sometimes called 'worming', has been blamed for a rise in cases of conjunctivitis. And it freaks us out just to think about it.

Warning: don't read this if you're eating, prone to sudden bouts of queasiness or unable to even think about Un Chien Andalou without simultaneously bursting into tears and dry-heaving. Believe me, I'm speaking from experience here.

Because this is an article about oculolinctus, an eye-licking fetish that is currently sweeping across the schools of Japan like, well, like a great big dirty bacteria-coated tongue sweeping across a horrific number of adolescent eyeballs.

Sometimes known as "worming" – which somehow makes this whole thing worse – oculolinctus is being blamed for a significant rise in Japanese cases of conjunctivitis and eye-chlamydia, which is actually a thing. It's apparently seen as a new second-base; the thing you graduate to when kissing gets boring.

The craze is thought to stem from a music video by Japanese emo band Born (there's a chance that the eyeball-licking scene was only included to distract everyone from the fact that the song sounds like it belongs on a menu screen for an EA Sports game about snowboarding from a decade ago, but at this point that's just speculation).

Tumblr, inevitably, is filling up with drawings and unnecessarily close-up photographs of the act, and YouTube is no stranger either. One theory about why it has taken off so spectacularly is down to the sheer number of nerve endings in the cornea. The eyeballs are incredibly sensitive because they need to detect grit and other small particles, and the sensation of oculolinctus is supposedly akin to that of toesucking.

Unwilling to try it myself – because my tongue isn't long enough, I don't want eye-chlamydia and just writing about this has made me retch uncontrollably – I can't tell you firsthand if that's true. Luckily, one student from the US Virgin Islands with an oculolinctus fetish has explained: "My boyfriend started licking my eyeballs years ago and I just loved it. I'm not with him any more but I still like to ask guys to lick my eyeballs ... it turns me on."

However, the dangers of oculolinctus are very real. As well as spreading pink-eye like nobody's business, there's also a risk of corneal scratching, which can lead to ulcers and blindness. Plus, there's a strong chance that you'll have to go to school the next day in an eye patch. At least with lovebites you could just throw on a poloneck jumper and be done with it.

Hopefully oculolinctus won't catch on here and will remain one of those peculiarly Japanese fads such as bagelheading (injecting saline into your forehead until it swells out of all proportion, yaeba (undergoing dental surgery to give you crooked teeth) and shippo (wearing a neurologically controlled tail that reveals your moods). Because frankly, if oculolinctus does ever make it to these shores, I'm never going to be able to look at a lychee again.

**xole**

And just when I think Japan can't get any weirder, Japan proves me wrong.

Again.

**Frazzled**

remember, if nonJapanese do it while in cosplay outfits, its racist!

**Easy E**

I would really like to see a video of how exactly this works.

Edit: But I'm too lazy to go looking for one.

**Alfndrate**

Wtf Japan...

Also toe sucking? I think there are other things that I would enjoy more than doing that and having that done to me... I guess I'm weird.

**Super Ready**

Waaaaaaait! Before you judge any further - this is a newspaper reporting. And all they've offered in the way of sources is one piece of fan-art, one photograph, and a quote from someone who isn't even in Japan. Or even in the newspaper's country of origin, the UK. To what lengths did they have to go to find a single fetishist?! Or did they just Google it and settle for the first one they found?

I could quite easily create an article claiming that there's a toenail-chewing craze spreading across Texas with the same level of credibility.

**Kilkrazy**

It's bs.

Another lazy, "those wacky Japs" kind of story.

**Cheesecat**

Kilkrazy wrote:
It's bs.

Another lazy, "those wacky Japs" kind of story.

Oh OK, sort of like the vodka tampons and rainbow parties mostly just conjecture.

**Necros**

Rainbow parties? like, when leprechauns count their gold together?

**Cheesecat**

Necros wrote:
Rainbow parties? like, when leprechauns count their gold together?

No it's much more awesome than that, females wear various shades of lipstick and take turns sucking some guy's cock leaving a rainbow like pattern on his penis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_party_%28sexuality%29

**RatBot**

I think some terrible reporter who isn't good at his job just saw that whacky picture from whatever the hell that manga was where the guy sticks his tongue in a chick's eyeball and ran with it. That's my theory, anyway.

**JWhex**

The problem is, its totally believable this would be going on in Japan.

Now say this was reported to be going on in some fundy Muslim country people would be saying, "No fething way".

**Slarg232**

Eye don't see what's so strange about it; Americans do Cornea things.....

**Kilkrazy**

JWhex wrote:
The problem is, its totally believable this would be going on in Japan.

Now say this was reported to be going on in some fundy Muslim country people would be saying, "No fething way".

That's because 90% of the news about Japan is the same kind of "those wacky Japs" stuff churned out by western correspondents who don't speak the language, have no local contacts and just put together these puff pieces to justify the price of their Tokyo apartment between the occasional bit of hard news like Abenomics or Toyota's share price.

Thus the western image of Japan and the Japanese is conditioned by this kind of tabloid reporting.

FWIW a colleague of mine tried eyeball licking in his teens in Newcastle in the 1970s. It's hardly a new thing or a Japanese thing.

**azazel the cat**

Necros wrote:Rainbow parties? like, when leprechauns count their gold together?

It's something that could only be conceived of by a 13-year-old, and believed by a moron.

**KalashnikovMarine**

I saw plenty of of Japanese teenagers making with the PDA while out and about in Japan, (much to the disgust of the obasan next to me on the train usually) and it seemed to be pretty normal make outs to me, and no eyeball licking that I noticed. None of my female companions requested it either, but I suppose with the apparent STD risk you'd want a steady partner for that? XD

**Fafnir**

It's all about the ear sex, guys.

**thenoobbomb**

Kilkrazy wrote:
It's bs.

Another lazy, "those wacky Japs" kind of story.

Eh, it was on a news program here as a rising trend, not only in Japan. With this as picture used as background

Spoiler:

**Kilkrazy**

That shows it is not a special Japanese thing.

**thenoobbomb**

Kilkrazy wrote:
That shows it is not a special Japanese thing.

Exactly what I meant.

**KalashnikovMarine**

You know, I've always said eyes were the most attractive feature on a woman but this type of gak is NOT what I meant.

**Seaward**

Yeah..."eyes" are the most attractive feature. Heh, heh. I see what you did there, you sly dog, you.

I have no idea how this could be appealing. After PRK, I never want anything touching my eyes ever again.

**KalashnikovMarine**

^ I can concur with that Seaward, even on stupid amounts of pain killers, they had to mark on my eye with a washable marker so the surgeon would know where my astigmatism was and be able to correct it (they corrected the astigmatism on the house as part of my PRK, nice of them right?) and it was just... weird.