Jim Jefferies asks why Japanese millennials aren’t having sex

The comedian Jim Jefferies recently came to Japan for his weekly Comedy Central show and made a clickbaity segment called “Japanese Millennials Aren’t Having Sex?” (or, uncensored, “Why Aren’t Japanese Millennials Fucking?”).

We’ll let you be the judge of how much this is just a case of “laughing at strange Asians” or taking a genuine if comic look at a social phenomenon.

One of the interviewees included a maid, whose line of work was suggested as a reason that men don’t want to have sex because the experience of a maid cafe and other fantasy-fulfillment services suppress actual desire. Hmm… We’re not sure about that! (It might also be added that the maid cafe the show visits is a Digitized Cafe, an atypical technology-centric maid cafe venue in Shibuya created by teamLab.)

Someone working for a marriage agency suggested a more practical reason: driver’s licenses, or the lack thereof. Well, that would certainly prevent millennials in regional and rural areas from having sex, since love hotels are typically accessible only by car, but it has less relevance for people living in large or even medium-sized cities. Nonetheless, the man makes the good point that a car is also a cheap location for couples to have sex, which cash-strapped millennials would certainly appreciate…if they had the funds to get a driver’s license and car in the first place.

Of course, there is no context to this kind of content. The trend is not unique to Japan: millennials are reported to be having less sex in various places around the world, including Britain and the United States.

Readers or viewers with sharp eyes should also be able to spot that one of the Japanese males interviewed is none other than the YouTuber Nobita, a slightly controversial figure who has made some provocative videos about race and gender.