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"We would like to apologise for using sensational language to appeal to readers about how they can become intimate with women and for creating a ranking... with real university names... that resulted in a feature that may have offended readers," the magazine's editorial department said in a statement obtained by AFP.
The article was about what Japanese people call gyanaromi which is the name for drinking parties that men pay women to attend. According to Time, the article also included an interview a person who created an app that men can use to find women to attend these kinds of parties.
The article had also said that most of these women are from college and university. They then went on to rank the women from each university which according to them were the easiest to persuade to get drunk and have sex with.
READ MORE: Girl teens feel more empowered than ever, but they also feel equally objectified
Kazuna Yamamoto, the young women who had started the online petition, told BBC the reason why she felt so strongly about this article and her campaign is that she feels like women in university are being sexualised around Japan. She also pointed out that these women can now become targeted by sexual predators.
In her interview with BBC she also mentions that this was not the first controversial article to come from the tabloid.
"This magazine has had a similar article in the past, they interviewed a guy who had been charged with sexual assault and one of the questions they asked him was what kind of alcohol do you give a girl to be able to rape her" she told BBC.
READ MORE: 16-year-old Zulaikha Patel is still fighting for women’s rights
While they did apologise for the article, the offending article is yet to be removed.
We do however commend young Kazuna for bringing attention to something that other people might simply have shrugged off or didn't have the courage to speak up about.
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