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Burusera (ブルセラ) is a Japanese word, coined by combining burumā (ブルマー), meaning bloomers, as in the bottoms of gym suits, and sērā-fuku (セーラー服), meaning sailor suit, the traditional Japanese school uniforms for schoolgirls. Burusera shops sell girls' used school uniforms, panties and other fetish items.
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History
In the 1990s gravure magazines started to feature photos of girls wearing bloomers and school uniforms, some magazines featuring exclusively those types of clothes. Fetish shops selling these types of clothes also started appearing in Japan. Along with loose socks they became the symbol of high school girls in the 1990s. They are also sometimes worn as cosplay.
Burusera shops
Burusera shops sell used girls' gym suits and school uniforms, including Catholic school uniforms. They also sell other goods procured from schoolgirls, e.g. undergarments, school swimsuits for physical education, socks, stationery, sanitary napkins, tampons and saliva.
The clothes are often accompanied by ostensibly genuine photos of the girls wearing them. The clients are men who smell or otherwise experience the items for sexual stimulation.
Schoolgirls once openly participated in the sale of their used garments, either through burusera shops or using mobile phone sites to sell directly to clients. When laws banning the purchase of used underwear from minors were introduced in Tokyo in 2004, it was reported that some underage girls were instead allowing their clients to sniff their underwear from directly between their legs.
Legal restrictions
In August 1994, a burusera shop manager who made a schoolgirl sell her used underwear was arrested by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department on suspicion of violation of article 34 of the Child Welfare Act and article 175 of the Criminal Code. The police alleged violations of the Secondhand Articles Dealer Act which bans the purchase of secondhand goods without authorization.
Child pornography laws imposed legal control over the burusera industry in 1999. However, burusera goods in themselves are not child pornography, and selling burusera goods is an easy way for schoolgirls to gain extra income. This has been viewed with suspicion as child sexual abuse.
Prefectures in Japan began enforcing regulations in 2004 that restricted purchases and sales of used underwear and saliva of people under 18.