Japan: Sex- and relationship phobia is gripping the country

[Kitteh]

Like your article says, "she did "all the usual things" like tying people up and dripping hot wax on their nipples."  Seriously, how hentai is that?

Dude if you think that's crazy...

btw this is a really interesting discussion that i have nothing to add to pls carry on

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

With 130 million people living on 145 thousand square miles, asexuality isn't a bad option.  The last time the Japs got really horny and started thinking that Japan wasn't large enough for the Japanese, millions of innocent Chinese people were brutally raped and murdered. 

Like your article says, "she did "all the usual things" like tying people up and dripping hot wax on their nipples."  Seriously, how hentai is that?  I say let them leave off it for a while.  I'm really not seeing a problem here.  In fact, it seems to me that the world is a better place when Japanese people stop reproducing and focus on cars, cameras, and electronics.

To be fair, she was speaking of the all the usual things she did as a professional dominatrix, so what was usual for her need not have been usual for ordinary Japanese.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Actually, thinking about Yūbari and Meronguma some more, I feel like the local mascot character from which small children instinctively back away in sheer terror is a pretty good metaphor or synecdoche or symbol for a lot of what's wrong with contemporary Japanese society.

[Lief 🗽]

Also the Guardian totally stole this story from Vice, which has much better coverage of the issue: http://www.vice.com/the-vice-guide-to-travel/the-japanese-love-industry

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Also the Guardian totally stole this story from Vice, which has much better coverage of the issue: http://www.vice.com/the-vice-guide-to-travel/the-japanese-love-industry

Sort of. What Vice is (primarily) discussing is an aspect of this issue where people are turning away from conventional relationship structures in favor of minimal-commitment, often bought-and-paid-for sexual and romantic or pseudo-romantic involvement. What the Guardian is (primarily) discussing is an aspect where people are turning away from love and sex entirely in favor of completely different pursuits. The emphasis is slightly different. --Admittedly that's all that really changes. Insofar as these are different phenomena, I think the difference really just depends on the personalities in question.

[patrick1]

What influence do you think porn and other forms of electronic forms of entertainment are simply sapping the desire for the real  thing? The Japanese blokes snap their twigs to some truly weird stuff and I still cant' understand the panties in vending machine thing.

[Gustaf]

'burdening a man'? I'm really wondering what happened to make you such a bitter misogynist.

Nothing in particular happened, and there's nothing about what I'm saying that is misogynistic, Gustaf.  Just observing the dreary old world around me.  You may see more clearly when you're older (I used to get the stuff thrown at me now and again when I was a youth, and I'll admit it can be confusing).

Most women I know don't want to burden a man, in fact it is rather the opposite. I've even gotten slapped once by a girl when I beat her to paying for our groceries.

[opebo]

In fact, it seems to me that the world is a better place when Japanese people stop reproducing and focus on cars, cameras, and electronics.

There won't be enough of them to focus on anything except running the old folks home if this keeps up angus. 

Sheesh, bad as they are, the Jap..... anese are a useful counterbalance to the Chinese.  We don't want them just dying off into nothing.  What would we do, repopulate the place with Filipinos?  Real useful.

[tik 🪀✨]

In fact, it seems to me that the world is a better place when Japanese people stop reproducing and focus on cars, cameras, and electronics.

There won't be enough of them to focus on anything except running the old folks home if this keeps up angus. 

Sheesh, bad as they are, the Jap..... anese are a useful counterbalance to the Chinese.  We don't want them just dying off into nothing.  What would we do, repopulate the place with Filipinos?  Real useful.

Just letting you know that I find this hilarious.

[angus]

There won't be enough of them to focus on anything except running the old folks home if this keeps up angus. 

Sounds more like the Italian problem.   

True, the rapid progression of an aging society with fewer children will have a huge impact on Japan's society as well, but Japan is wired and well-lit and the Japanese take up very little space.  I'd imagine that they'll perfect ultra-clean, coitus-free reproduction before anyone else does.  In tiny portions with a little bowl miso soup on the side.

[Beet]

Actually, about 11 years ago I remember social conservatives touting the imminent arrival of the so called "artificial womb". The idea is that it would undercut the viability argument for abortion. However, that seems to have fallen off the radar. It appears there is some regulation against scientific growing of fetuses.  I take it you guys all saw Man of Steel? I know that world was supposed to be a dystopia, but it seemed like a utopia to me. The ability for society to reproduce without some of the burden of reproduction.

[angus]

that world was supposed to be a dystopia, but it seemed like a utopia to me...
reproduce without ... reproduction.

creepy.

But then I also think the electronic "little egg friend" and coffin-sized capsule hotel rooms are creepy.

[Cory]

I don't get it. I understand the part about not wanting to marry but why no hookups?

[opebo]

...I'd imagine that they'll perfect ultra-clean, coitus-free reproduction before anyone else does.  In tiny portions with a little bowl miso soup on the side.

The article didn't specify, but I'll wager the male Japanese is still producing his daily 'little bowl of miso soup' same as before, he's just doing it on his own now.

[angus]

...I'd imagine that they'll perfect ultra-clean, coitus-free reproduction before anyone else does.  In tiny portions with a little bowl miso soup on the side.

The article didn't specify, but I'll wager the male Japanese is still producing his daily 'little bowl of miso soup' same as before, he's just doing it on his own now.

I wonder if this isn't a skewed poll.  Or if the conservative Asian culture is causing more false negative responses than you'd get here.  Remember what the Vorlon says:  people lie.  The Ockham's Razor explanation to all this is that these statistics are just bad data.  Still, it's fun to have fun with stereotypes, and this fits in so perfectly that it has been very widely reported in the west.  I googled and found about a thousand recent articles with titles like "No Sex Please, I'm Japanese."

[opebo]

In Bangkok they always say about the Japanese - '3 inches, 3 minutes, 3,000 baht'.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't get it. I understand the part about not wanting to marry but why no hookups?

面倒臭い

[opebo]

I don't get it. I understand the part about not wanting to marry but why no hookups?

面倒臭い

Sheesh, nobody understands that crap, Nathan.

Cory, the women aren't interested in hookups with guys with no future.  There is still a little bit of a prostitution industry in Japan - more anyway than in the Bad Place - but still a shadow of its former self. 

[Cory]

Sheesh, nobody understands that crap, Nathan.

Cory, the women aren't interested in hookups with guys with no future.  There is still a little bit of a prostitution industry in Japan - more anyway than in the Bad Place - but still a shadow of its former self. 

Why not? That seems to defy the norms here, but again I say that from a Western perspective where individualistic temporary pleasure is seen as sacrosanct.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I don't get it. I understand the part about not wanting to marry but why no hookups?

Oral contraceptives were illegal in Japan until 1999 and many women shun them because of concern over side effects and thus prefer contraceptive methods such as the condom that don't require messing with their biochemistry.  Abortion is still technically illegal, tho it can be obtained from "approved doctors" under conditions so liberal that pretty much anyone can get them unless you are of perfect wealth and health.  Altho if you are married, then for that class of abortions we'd generally class as elective abortions, you need your husband to agree.

So while family planning services are available in Japan, they aren't something that people want to avail themselves of.  They see it as simpler to just say no.

Japan is an odd mix of prudery and openness when it comes to sex.

[Cory]

Japan is an odd mix of prudery and openness when it comes to sex.

Isn't it though? It's probably wrong but I can't help but think the strategic bombing of Japan and their WWII experience has "screwed them up" a little. It's like they are a blend of the traditional Asian values with Western post-modernism thrown in. 

[opebo]

Sheesh, nobody understands that crap, Nathan.

Cory, the women aren't interested in hookups with guys with no future.  There is still a little bit of a prostitution industry in Japan - more anyway than in the Bad Place - but still a shadow of its former self. 

Why not? That seems to defy the norms here, but again I say that from a Western perspective where individualistic temporary pleasure is seen as sacrosanct.

I don't know why not, Cory.  I think they may be quite open to such things when they're in college, but other than that one doesn't see much of it.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Sheesh, nobody understands that crap, Nathan.

Cory, the women aren't interested in hookups with guys with no future.  There is still a little bit of a prostitution industry in Japan - more anyway than in the Bad Place - but still a shadow of its former self. 

Why not? That seems to defy the norms here, but again I say that from a Western perspective where individualistic temporary pleasure is seen as sacrosanct.

There's your problem, or at least part of it.

(Not that this sort of thinking doesn't exist at all in Japan--it does, obviously, and has since at least the Edo period (the ukiyo, anyone?)--but it does have to be remembered that despite low reported rates of religious adherence Japan still is in many ways a very Buddhist country. You can find some very young people with some very conservative ideas about pleasure, as a concept, in general, just as you can find much more liberal, hedonistic young people, and young people who juggle both mindsets from moment to moment--a ton of these last, in fact.)

The other thing is that the Guardian article gives a much higher figure for the proportion of unmarried women who see singleness as preferable to marriage than for the proportion of women between sixteen and twenty-four who lack interest in sex. I have doubts about how useful--from the perspective of rigorous social science--it is to compare those statistics against each other since they come from different surveys and aren't of the exact same group but presumably that does communicate a real difference of some degree and I would imagine much of the difference is made up by people who have serial relationships and casual sex in ways that you might consider more normal.

That, and like Ernest says, it's really just too much trouble because of the way the culture around prophylactics is set up. (That's what 面倒臭い means).

What would probably be best for Japan in the long run would be a turn back to the general structure of marriage*, but in a form less heavily predicated (in an ideal world not predicated, but at least less heavily predicated) on strict gender roles. (Some sort of overcorrective 女尊男卑 setup might be fun for a little while, but the novelty would probably wear out fast.) Of course, this is true of a lot of other countries as well, and seems to be pretty difficult to accomplish.

*Those of us who are idealists about the subject would prefer that this be open to same-sex couples as well but certain aspects of existing Japanese law--and politics and civil society in general, really--would make that incredibly, incredibly difficult--though still worth trying, don't get me wrong. Fun fact: The 1947 Constitution bans same-sex marriage completely by accident! Nobody in 1947 foresaw the possibility enough to be interested in banning it, of course, but that's one of the side-effects of the use of language referring to 'both sexes' in the ban on forced marriage.

It's probably wrong but I can't help but think the strategic bombing of Japan and their WWII experience has "screwed them up" a little. It's like they are a blend of the traditional Asian values with Western post-modernism thrown in. 

Both of these sentences are more or less true but I'm not convinced that they're really related to each other. Japan has had a very ambiguous and diffident relationship with the West (as a concept) and for that matter with itself (as a concept) essentially since the Black Ships.

[Mr. Morden]

Turns out that many of these doom and gloom numbers aren't actually that different in other developed countries....including the USA:

link

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[Ban my account ffs!]

Think of American culture like playdough.  It's very easy to manipulate and change into something else... so much so that broad, large changes in our culture have a relatively small impact on things like family life (we take it in stride).

Think of Japanese culture like a pyrex dinner plate.  You drop that bitch on the floor and 9 times out of 10 it won't break... (just like the culture won't change much)... but you drop it hard enough and it'll shatter into a gazillion little shards that you can never quite clean up and you're stuck with little shards of pyrex sticking into your feet for weeks afterward.