Sex Industry
The purgers and proliferators of Japan's erotica industry
By William Wetherall
A version of this article appeared in
Far Eastern Economic Review, 125(36), 6 September 1984, pages 45-46
Dating clubs are not a new phenomenon in Japan, but to keep one step ahead of the tenacious "clean up" groups which are committed to protecting this society's moral fibre, they are constantly finding new ways to ply their trade. The pink cards, vying for dating-club business, which festoon Tokyo's public telephone kiosks are just one means, albeit high-profile, by which the firms promote their services. Now, merchants around the train stations -- key access points to Japan's major entertainment districts-are beginning to put their muscle behind the clean-up campaign.
One campaign tactic has been to follow the hariya (bill posters), hired by the flourishing sex industry to keep the telephone booths emblazoned with the solicitous business cards, removing them as soon as they are posted. Another vigilante strategy has been to picket the telephone boxes with placards designed to drive away potential dating-club clientele.
The clubs advertise furesshu gyaru (fresh girls), "OL" (office ladies), college co-eds, housewives, and widows -- and also men -- for a wide variety of "escort" services that connote sex. "Love banks" which arrange contracts with "companions" by the month or year, and Torukoburo (Turkish baths) -- a term to which some of Japan's Turkish residents have taken strong exception -- in condominiums, have joined no-pan kissa (no-panty coffee shops) and peep shows on the list of pleasure-for-leisure businesses.
Concerned lawmakers are particularly alarmed by reports of higher rates of sexual promiscuity and drug abuse among teenagers. Debates in parliament on "harmful publications" for adolescent girls put several of the most popular teenage magazines out of business. Some magazines went under when sexless issues failed to sell. Others were voluntarily withdrawn by publishers who wished to impress the government that the industry could regulate itself.
The magazines' sex content ranged from articles on masturbation, petting and intercourse, to letters from readers describing their first sexual experiences. Critics cited such frank materials in commercial magazines as one cause of rising promiscuity, especially among young girls. Editors, however, tended to defend the articles as meeting an educational need for information about a topic of great importance to Japanese youth.
In early March, the National Police Agency (NPA), with the backing of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), announced its intentions to submit a bill for revising the Public Morals Business Control Law (PMBCL), which currently covers bars, cabarets, coffee shops, pachinko (pinball) arcades, and Torukoburo. Game centres, love hotels, sex shops and peep shows do not fall under the PMBCL's jurisdiction. The proposed changes would be the most sweeping since the law was enacted in 1948.
Sex-industry entrepreneurs, who share the worry of publishers that stricter laws might put them out of business, also are making gestures of self-regulation. The film industry is promoting more control of the content and titling of soft-porn, and is reducing nudity on the billboards. Motel and hotel associations are encouraging their members to tone down the facades and furnishings of their properties, and tighten up their guest registration procedures.
All this concern about Japan's changing sexual mores comes at a time when an increasing number of schoolgirls are being arrested in connection with prostitution rings. The "now generation" of college girls and single female office workers are less likely than their mothers to regard "playing for pay" as something degrading or immoral. Yet even married women are attracted by the easy money they can make through part-time sex work.
Apparently unperturbed by the threat of tougher legislation, Tokyo's sprawling Kabukicho entertainment district, near Shinjuku railway station, continues to draw customers. Its main means of promotion is a weekly tabloid, Night Player, distributed indiscriminately to all pedestrians, free of charge by college students who want to earn beer money. A typical issue of Night Player, which is looking forward to its 200th edition, is crammed full of "escort club" ads.
Rates for "dates" run from 9,000 yen (US$36) for one hour to 28,000 yen for 90 minutes. One 24-hour operation called Rippu (Lip) will dispatch the comely "19-year-old Mami-chan" pictured in the photo (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) to the client's home or hotel, for the "sliding" rates of 10,000 yen (30 minutes), 30,000 yen (70 minutes), or 50,000 yen (all night).
The NPA wants new legislation because many establishments offering sexual services under the guise of "companion clubs" operate within the legal framework that has given the present PMBCL the nickname "wicker basket." The loopholes are being blamed for the record-high arrests of minors involved in drugs and prostitution -- the most lucrative rackets in the entertainment quarters, and the main sources of income for the yakuza (gangsters) who control them.
A recent raid of several "bottomless" coffee shops and dating clubs uncovered some junior high school runaways who depended on such work to survive in Tokyo's concrete jungle. According to critics, many of the youths who flock to the widely publicised entertainment areas in search of kicks are the products of broken homes and an examination-oriented education system. Post-World War II parents and educationalists have much to answer for, they believe.
The NPA's move to revise the law naturally has had the backing of the LDP, which shares the conservativism of law-enforcement bureaucrats. It also has had the qualified support of the minority parties, which in principle share the LDP's concern about the untrammelled proliferation and diversification of the sex industry, and the impact the trends in commercial sex may be having on the nation's morals.
But when the NPA's draft bill came out in April, it alarmed the Japan Socialist Party (JSP), the LDP's largest rival. It also aroused the powerful Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA), which has a long history of legal battles with lawmakers who have sought tougher social controls at the expense of constitutional freedoms and human rights.
The draft bill would expand the present 16-article law to a 51-article statute which opponents claim could give the police the kind of authority they had before the war. One controversy centres on a new article which would permit police to interrogate a suspect and examine ledgers and other documents without a warrant: some Japanese still remember the kind of raids and inquisitions conducted, for ideological reasons, by police before the war.
Proprietors of the thousands of food and drink establishments which are not merchandising sex-thought forming an integral part of the entertainment districts where the sex industry thrives-are worried about the definition of "service" which the draft law proposes to use when determining the kind of operations to which it would apply. According to an NPA spokesman, the new law would cover all services which enhance the mood of a place. Fitting this definition, for example, would be: singing or dancing with a customer; sitting beside a customer to pour drinks and engage in conversation; actively encouraging a customer to sing and unduly praising his talents.
The first two examples pertain to the usual bars and cabarets. The third, however, could extend the arm of the law to any place with karaoke (empty orchestra) -- electronic equipment which allows customers to sing their favourite songs to the accompaniment of taped music through a mike and amplifier which vastly improve even the most tone-deaf voice. Come evening, many coffee shops become snack bars which hire an "amateur" singer to run the equipment and prompt customers to contribute tot he "live" entertainment-an easy job in a country where few "salarymen" go home without a song.
Yet not everyone appreciates the karaoke boom. The "noise pollution" created by such sing-along operations in residential areas already has driven neighbours to murder, and has stirred the wrath of the law in regulations which restrict both decibel levels and operating hours. And a recent court decision agreed with the Japanese Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers that karaoke houses should pay royalties to the artists whose "background" music they use for commercial purposes.
So the move towards a new PMBCL is only one pincer in the government's offensive against the dubious forms of entertainment suspected of contributing to an erosion of law and order in Japanese society. There is also a movement to revamp the Criminal Code in such a way that would keep certain kinds of convicted felons in prison: particularly those with histories of mental instability and drug abuse.
Japan's lawmakers believe that unless strong measures are taken immediately, the country will go the way of most other industrialised states which have much higher crime and delinquency rates. But some critics are wondering if the NPA/LDP effort to keep Japan the safest modern nation on earth is either necessary or sufficient.
Both the JSP and JFBA are worried that the proposed revisions infringe on several articles of the post-war constitution, which ostensibly protects individuals against searches and seizures conducted without a warrant (issued by a judicial officer), as well as against forced confessions. But the JSP also argues that the revisions, in effect, would legalise prostitution (which is proscribed by the Anti-Prostitution Act), by allowing the Torukoburo massage parlours and other "body trades" to continue to operate virtually uncontrolled.
Japan has a strong erotic and even pornographic strain in its traditional arts, and earthy sexuality in its native religion, and a noted tendency to deny formally both of these realities which informally tolerating and even nurturing them. Hence sex is ultimately stigmatised by scandal , not morality, in the land which has given us the Shunga (Spring Picture) masterpieces that grace the collections of some of the world's finest art galleries-but which are paradoxically included on the list of items that customs officials are duty-bound to confiscate and airbrush. And so, whatever laws are finally passed, they will probably have only cosmetic effects on Japan's centuries-old institutions.
July 1984 draft before revisions
They may be better than parking tickets, but only because you don't have to pay. At least if you choose not to dial the number printed in huge type on one of the pinku kaado (pink card) sexmate ads in the telephone booth you're calling from -- to tell your wife that you'll be a little late with the boys at the office.
Date clubs are an old game in Japan, but with more new twists than local "clean up" groups can keep up with, even when backed by the police. But merchants around the train stations which provide access to Japan's major entertainment districts are beginning to fight back.
One countermeasure has been to follow the hariya (bill posters) who are hired by the flourishing sex industry to keep the phone booths blitzed with the solicitous business cards -- which are no more pink than purple prose is purple -- and remove them as soon as they are posted. Another vigilante strategy has been to picket the phone booths with placards designed to drive away potential callers.
The paper pimps offer furesshu gyaru (fresh girls), OL (office ladies), college coeds, and housewives and widows -- but also men -- for a wide variety of "escort" services that connote sex. "Love banks" which arrange contracts with "companions" by the month or year, and "Turkish baths" in condominiums, have joined no-pan kissa (no-pantie coffee shops) and peep shows on the list of new businesses that are aimed at relieving the populace of its sexual frustrations and money.
Concerned lawmakers are particularly alarmed by reports of higher rates of sexual activity and drug abuse among teenagers. February debates in parliament about "harmful publications" for adolescent girls put several of the most popular teen magazines out of business by April. Some magazines went under when sexless issues failed to sell. Others were voluntarily withdrawn by publishers who wished to impress the government that the industry could regulate itself.
The sexual content ranged from articles focusing on masturbation, petting, and intercourse to columns featuring letters from readers describing their first experiences. Critics cited such frank sexual materials in commercial magazines as one cause of the rising promiscuity that a recent survey noted especially among young girls. But editors tended to defend the articles as meeting an educational need for information about a topic of great importance for youth.
In early March, the National Police Agency, with the backing of the incumbent Liberal Democratic Party, announced its intentions to submit a bill for revising the Public Morals Business Control Law, which presently covers bars, cabarets, coffee shops, pachinko (pinball) parlors, and so-called torukoburo (Turkish baths) -- an expression which some Turkish residents in Japan have protested -- but not game centers, love hotels, sex shops, or peep shows. The proposed changes would be the most sweeping since the law was enacted in 1948.
Sex-industry entrepreneurs, who share the worry of publishers that stricter laws might put them out of business, are also making gestures of self-regulation. The movie industry is promoting more control of the content and titling of soft-porn theatre films, and is reducing nudity in billboards. Motel and hotel associations are encouraging their members to tame the facades and furnishings of their places, and to tighten up their guest registration procedures.
All this concern about Japan's changing sexual mores comes at a time when an increasing number of school girls are being arrested in connection with prostitution rings that cater to older men with Lolita complexes. The "now generation" of college girls and single female office workers are less likely than their mothers to regard "playing for pay" as something degrading or immoral. Yet even married women, who are more prone than in the past to abuse drugs and alcohol, are attracted by the easy money they can make through part-time sex work.
Apparently unperturbed by the threat of tougher legislation, Tokyo's sprawling Kabukicho district, near Shinjuku station, continues to attract customers through a weekly tabloid distributed freely to all ages of pedestrians by college students who want beer money. A typical issue of Night Player, which is looking forward to its 200th edition, is crammed full of "escort club" ads.
Rates for "dates" run from 9,000 yen ($36) for one hour to 28,000 yen ($112) for 90 minutes. One 24-hour operation will dispatch to your home or hotel the comely "19-year-old Mami-chan" pictured in the photo (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) for the "sliding" rates of 10,000 yen ($40) for 30 minutes, 30,000 yen ($120) for 70 minutes, and 50,000 yen ($200) all night. The club's name is "Rippu" in Japanese, which suckers may take to mean "Lip service" before they bite, but "Rip off" after they are bitten.
"Kurisutaru" (Crystal), a coffee shop-cum-snack bar-cum-escort club, offers an "all-you-can-drink course" for 2,000 yen ($8), a "finger service course" for 7,000 yen ($28), and a "lip service course" for 9,000 yen ($36). This could mean little more than a choice between getting drunk by yourself, versus getting your hand held or being kissed while you work up your courage to go for the "escort service" that requires an additional outlay plus unspecified hotel charges.
As though to redeem itself, the newspaper devotes the most conspicuous corner of the first of its four pages to an apparently serious ad for a 10-AM to 6-PM counselling service called "ASS Kurinikku" -- the acronym was not explained. Readers suffering from a long list of male sexual disorders can call for "free advice" -- or can go in person for "super-effective therapy" guaranteed to cure in one session: "Truly God the savior!" it concludes.
NPA wants new legislation because many of the establishments that offer sexual services in the guise of "companion clubs" operate in the legal interstices that have given the present Public Morals Business Control Law the nickname "wicker basket". The loopholes are being blamed for the record-high arrests of minors involved in drugs and prostitution, the most lucrative rackets in the entertainment quarters, and the main sources of income for the yakuza (gangsters) who control them.
A recent raid of several bottomless coffee shops and date clubs uncovered some junior high school runaways who depended on such work for survival in Tokyo's concrete jungle. Many of the youth who flock to the widely publicized entertainment areas in search of kicks are alienated by broken homes and boring classrooms, according to critics who blame the situation on the postwar family and education systems.
NPA's move to revise the law has naturally had the backing of the LDP, which shares the conservatism of law enforcement bureaucrats. It has also had the qualified support of the minority parties, which in principle share LDP's concern about the untrammeled proliferation and diversification of the sex industry, and the impact that the trends in commercial sex may be having on the nation's mores.
But when NPA's draft bill came out this April, it alarmed the Japan Socialist Party (JSP), LDP's largest rival. It also aroused the powerful Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA), which has a long history of run-ins with lawmakers who have sought tougher social controls at the expense of constitutional freedoms and human rights.
The draft bill would expand the present 16-article law to a 51-article statute that opponents claim could give the police the kind of authority they had before the war. One controversy centers on a new article which would permit police to interrogate a suspect and exam ledgers and other documents without a warrant: some Japanese still remember the kinds of raids and inquisitions that prewar police were able to conduct for purely ideological reasons.
Proprietors of the thousands of food and drink establishments that are not merchants of sex, but which are an integral part of the entertainment districts where the sex-oriented businesses commensally thrive, are worried about the definition of "service" which the draft law proposes to use when determining the kinds of operations it would apply to. According to an NPA spokesman, the new law would cover all services which enhance the mood of a place, for example: singing or dancing with a customer, sitting beside a customer to pour drinks and engage in conversation, or actively encouraging a customer to sing or unduly praising the customer's talent.
The first two examples pertain to the usual bars and cabarets, but the third could extend the arm of the law to any place with karaoke (empty orchestra) -- electronic equipment which allows customers to sing their favorite songs to the accompaniment of taped music through a mike and amplifier that vastly improve even the most tone-deaf voice. Come evening, many coffee shops become snack bars which hire an "amateur" singer to run the equipment and prompt customers to contribute to the "live" entertainment -- an easy job in a country where few "salarymen" go home without a song, and where the willingness to sing (if not the need or ability) may be thicker than blood.
Yet not everyone appreciates the karaoke boom. The "noise pollution" created by such sing-along operations in residential areas has already driven neighbors to murder, and has stirred the wrath of the law in regulations which restrict both decibel levels and operation hours. And a recent court decision agreed with the Japanese Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers that karaoke houses should pay royalties to the artists whose "background" music they use for commercial purposes.
So the movement towards a new Public Morals Business Control Law is only one pincer in the government's offensive against the variety of entertainment forms that it thinks are contributing to an erosion of law and order in Japanese society. There is also a movement to revamp the Criminal Code in such a way that would keep certain kinds of convicted felons in prison: particularly those with histories of mental instability and drug abuse, who have figured in a number of recent slasher rampages.
Japan's lawmakers believe that unless strong measures are taken immediately, the country will go the way of most other industrialized states which have much higher crime and delinquency rates. But some critics are wondering if the NPA/LDP effort to keep Japan the safest modern nation on earth is either necessary or sufficient.
Both JSP and JFBA are worried that the proposed revisions infringe upon several articles of the postwar Constitution, which ostensibly protects individuals against searches and seizures conducted without a warrant issued by a judicial officer, as well as against forced confessions. But JSP also argues that the revisions would in effect legalize prostitution (which is proscribed by the Anti-Prostitution Act), because they would allow the "Turkish bath" massage parlors and other "body trades" to continue to operate virtually uncontrolled.
Herein lies the dilemma of Japanese politicians, who like their counterparts in other countries tend to be males with some need to patronize the entertainment quarters they are supposed to regulate. Namely, how much of a good thing can be so bad?
Deciding whose daughters (and sons) should be allowed to gratify the sexual appetites of their co-patriots (and aliens) will not be easy. For Japan has a strongly erotic and even pornographic strain in its traditional arts, an earthy sexuality in its native religion, and a noted tendency to formally deny both of these realities while informally tolerating and even nurturing them. Hence sex is ultimately stigmatized by scandal, not morality, in the land which has given us the shunga (spring picture) masterpieces that grace the collections of some of the world's finest art galleries -- but which are paradoxically included on the list of items that customs officials are duty-bound to confiscate and airbrush.
So whatever laws are finally passed, they will probably have only cosmetic effects on century-old institutions which, like gonorrhoea, produce super-resistant strains each time a new legal antibiotic is developed. And when the present uproar begins to wane (latest reports anticipate a decline in this year's school violence figures), then the official enemies of sexual delinquency will pat themselves on their backs -- and head for the nearest hostess club to celebrate.