Tokyo court rules that student turned university professor into sex slave

Sadly, we are now quite used to tales of sexual harassment in Japan and most other countries. These cases crop up a lot in the workplace, though also often in education, where there is a clear imbalance of power between the teacher and students, who are generally young and vulnerable.

And so we were both amused and confused when we read about a harassment case at a university that very much did not adhere to this format.

According to a March 21 report in the Mainichi Shimbun, Tokyo District Court ruled that the forced resignation of a university professor over alleged sexual misconduct toward a female student must be reversed.

The court also ordered the college to pay him his unpaid salary.

The ruling on March 19 took into consideration that the former Tokyo Kasei University professor was not the aggressor. In fact, though the teacher had indeed hugged the student, “lied down with her” (which might be a euphemism), and took her genitals inside her underwear while in the university lab, the student forced him to do it.

The incidents took place between April and August 2022. Tokyo Kasei University took disciplinary action against the professor in December 2022, which resulted in a “recommended” resignation. He then dutifully submitted his resignation, though subsequently filed a lawsuit of unfair dismissal.

Tokyo District Court noted that the former professor “should have handled the situation more resolutely,” but agreed that he was acting under duress.

The student, whose age at the time or gender is not stated in the report but is presumed to be female, sent messages to the professor that included such demands as “Be my slave forever.” She also essentially blackmailed him, threatening to report the professor to the university unless he did submitted to her demands for physical contact.

The student was nothing less than formal and organized. She put together a document with her demands that included “hugging and lying together in the lab once a month” and “going on a date outdoors every two months.” She then forced her former professor to sign it.

On paper, it reads like a plot setting from a porn movie or hentai manga. If you think this all sounds like a fantasy scenario for the man, it seems the situation was anything but, since the teacher ultimately tried to end the relationship. This prompted the student to send a message demanding that the prof be her “slave.”

It is not clear what led to the discovery of the relationship, but perhaps the professor fessed up as the only means of escaping his student’s clutches.