University under fire after student publishes PhD about masturbating to comics of 'young boys'

11 August 2022, 11:09 | Updated: 11 August 2022, 11:14

The University of Manchester has come under fire after a student published a "PhD in masturbation" which documented his experiences of sexually pleasuring himself while looking at comics featuring drawings of "young boys".

Karl Andersson was researching the “shota” genre of Japanese anime which centres around prepubescent or pubescent male characters depicted in a “suggestive or erotic” manner.

The Sweden student's PhD, which was first published by the University of Manchester in April, involved three months of masturbating to the comic books and making notes on each session for "research".

He said he used dōjinshi and commercial volumes that he had bought or been given during fieldwork in Japan.

In the 4,000 word essay, which Mr Andersson says was funded by the university’s School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, he gives graphic accounts of his sexual habits.

In the abstract for his project, Mr Andersson decided he wanted to “understand how [individuals] experience sexual pleasure when reading shota”.

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He said: “It was necessary to be diligent enough to abstain from the ‘milk and muesli’ of porn during this experiment, in order to see what happened to my body on a long diet of ‘fish and miso soup’.

“I happened to live alone during this experiment, and I had newly become single after a long relationship - these factors probably contributed to my willingness and eagerness to explore this method.”

His paper was published in the Journal of Qualitative Research under the title: "I am not alone – we are all alone: Using masturbation as an ethnographic method in research on shota subculture in Japan".

The publishing of Mr Andersson's report has sparked backlash amongst Conservative MPs and members of the public, who branded the research a "PhD on masturabtion".

Conservative MP Neil O’Brien asked: “Why should hard-working taxpayers in my constituency have to pay for an academic to write about his experiences masturbating to Japanese porn?

“The non-STEM side of higher education is just much too big, producing too much that is not socially useful.”

Others claimed the project was "illegal, unethical, and simply not a scientific paper".

"Should be revoked immediately, while you suspended from academia forever," a PhD student wrote.

Another added: "Utterly disgusting."

A spokesman for the university said: “The recent publication in Qualitative Research of the work of a student, now registered for a PhD, has raised significant concerns and complaints which we are taking very seriously.

“We are currently undertaking a detailed investigation into all aspects of their work, the processes around it and other questions raised. It is very important that we look at the issues in-depth.”