45% of Japanese women “not interested in or despise sexual contact”

A long article in the Guardian has been published that purports to be sociological and serious, but is actually perpetuating the usual myths we read about our great country — everyone is unhappy, everyone only works, no one has sex.

The sexes, especially in Japan’s giant cities, are “spiralling away from each other”. Lacking long-term shared goals, many are turning to what [a sex therapist] terms “Pot Noodle love” — easy or instant gratification, in the form of casual sex, short-term trysts and the usual technological suspects: online porn, virtual-reality “girlfriends”, anime cartoons. Or else they’re opting out altogether and replacing love and sex with other urban pastimes.

While we love sex dolls and ero games, we would never suggest that the majority of people prefer these to real companions, or that it is replacing regular sex between adult partners.

If anything, trysts and visits to “professionals” might certainly be common among the middle-aged, for whom sex in the marital futon has dried up. But the article is suggesting that young people are the problem.

Full of alarmist and patently inaccurate statistics, it centers around an interview with Ai Aoyama, a former dominatrix and now “sex therapist” who compares herself to Edo era courtesans. Oh, and wears fluffy animal slippers, since the Guardian thought that wouldn’t be a patronizing or demeaning element to include in their serious article.

This lady very much treads a thin line.

Aoyama cites one man in his early 30s, a virgin, who can’t get sexually aroused unless he watches female robots on a game similar to Power Rangers. “I use therapies, such as yoga and hypnosis, to relax him and help him to understand the way that real human bodies work.” Sometimes, for an extra fee, she gets naked with her male clients — “strictly no intercourse” — to physically guide them around the female form.

If the article is to be believed, basically no young people in Japan are having sex or even interested in it. Perhaps they should take a trip to Shibuya? Or take a wander around a love hotel district at night?

The number of single people has reached a record high. A survey in 2011 found that 61% of unmarried men and 49% of women aged 18-34 were not in any kind of romantic relationship, a rise of almost 10% from five years earlier. Another study found that a third of people under 30 had never dated at all. (There are no figures for same-sex relationships.) Although there has long been a pragmatic separation of love and sex in Japan — a country mostly free of religious morals — sex fares no better. A survey earlier this year by the Japan Family Planning Association (JFPA) found that 45% of women aged 16-24 “were not interested in or despised sexual contact”. More than a quarter of men felt the same way.

It also speaks Eri Tomita (32), apparently a typical office lady who chose a career over marriage.

The article says she apparently “sometimes has one-night stands with men she meets in bars, but she says sex is not a priority, either.”

“I often get asked out by married men in the office who want an affair. They assume I’m desperate because I’m single.”

She also speaks French, so no doubt has tried out some French loving at some point.

Oh, and the journo speaks to a very typical girl in her young twenties: “I gave up dating three years ago. I don’t miss boyfriends or sex. I don’t even like holding hands.”

Because every young Japanese girl is like this, right? None of them want a boyfriend or want to hold hands, right?

We can’t imagine how they found these people — or how many regular girls with healthy interests in sex they had to reject until they found the right example to illustrate the article.

And the reason for all this chastity and frigidness?

“Sexual drive comes from males,” said the man who advises the government. “Females do not experience the same levels of desire.”

Aaah! So Japanese women don’t have sex drives! That’s the answer. I had better tell Megumi as she will want to know why she is always seeking out sexual experiences every night of the week.