Now this gets to my very private, very radical view about sex commerce, and laws and regulations on sex. I think sex and sex commerce should not be a strictly legal matter. It is a social and economic matter. Many countries and cultures in the world (in the past) understands this, even in Christian Europe, prostitution was often tolerated. What I mean is we should not draw a line somewhere and say ABC activities are legal and allowed, XYZ activities are illegal and should be stomped out. This is the legalistic way to run society. Often times you end up with some whacked out result. E.g. ABC being so prevalent and extreme, and some benefits of XYZ being removed. My view is, you can say XYZ has some negative effects, so (1) use administrative (not legalistic) methods to limit and reduce XYZ, (2) deal with the negative effects.
Say about abortion. USA, being the most extremely legalistic country, wants to either ban it by law or allow it by law. One side wants to ban abortion even in the cases of r*** and incest, (etc) the other side want to not just allow it, but include it in government- or employer-provided healthcare. IMHO both sides are freaking bonkers. Abortion is a necessary evil. Banning it totally does great harm to the female gender, and increase social misery. BUT we don't want to see a lot of abortions, and government promoting it! It should be a social matter not a legal matter.
So sex trade and porn is the same thing. I don't want to ban it, there are many benefits to society. But it should not be huge and common and accepted with open arms by mainstream society. For many aspects of it, I think Japan sex industry is great and wonderful. Providing sexual entertainment for masturbators all over Japan even the world, and letting many women earn a living when they made bad decisions and/or on bad luck. BUT there's too freaking much of it. As a foreigner, I am, selfishly speaking, very happy for it, for even the strangest and fringe fetish, there are JAV for it. But if I were a Japanese, I would be opposed to having so so damn much of it. Young Japanese men has lost their reproductive instinct, perhaps the most fundamental instinct (even more than the survival instinct) for a biological species to survive. So I sympathize with Abe wanting to tighten JAV and sex trade, but his approach is wrong... but let me hold off on ranting that direction. He has abandoned it anyway, so why waste my breath.