An interview with a soapland worker

Following its recent interview with pink film softcore porn star Chisa Hasegawa, the awesome Substack blog-newsletter Tokyo Calling has put out another cracker — and we are very jealous. We don’t know how Gianni Simone pulled it off but he managed to land an interview with a genuine soapland worker, and it’s a sensitive and enlightening read.

Accompanied by photos by Eric Rechsteiner, the intrepid Simone pays a visit to one of the many soaplands (a kind of bathhouse-style brothel) in Senzoku, the Tokyo area formerly known as Yoshiwara — the city’s most popular and renowned red-light district back in the pre-twentieth-century days when it was known as Edo.

Simone finds the colorful soapland he enters eerily reminiscent of Twin Peaks. It’s a bit impersonal and clinical, he notes, but also “slight naughty.” There are eight “service rooms.”

He meets and interviews Riri, who is 29 years old and one of the oldest at the establishment, just before she starts an eight-hour shift at the soapland. She works 15 days a month and serves three or four customers a day.

She has to get ready for her first client, so she says to follow her to her “workplace.” Her service room is divided into two areas: a bed on one side and a bathtub on the other. There is also a small desk covered with cosmetics, assorted lotions, a box of tissue and a small bottle of mineral water. In the bathroom area, Riri shows me one of the more important tools of her trade: the mat on which her customers lie down after taking the bath and where she uses her lotioned [lubed] body to give them the human-sponge treatment – what used to be called awa odori or “bubble dance.” Another important tool lies in a corner of the room: it’s that oddly shaped stool on which the guys sit to get their body scrubbed. It has an open space in the middle to allow the girls to work their magic on the customers’ nether regions. “After a final rinse, we move to the bed for honban (the real thing),” Riri says.

How do soapland ladies master their incredible technique?

“All newcomers must undergo a formal training period,” she says. “Most of the instruction is given with manuals or DVDs, but sometimes we spend time with veteran sex workers who show us the ropes. Some long-serving ladies eventually become instructors and are able to prolong their careers by passing on their knowledge.”

And why does she think men visit a soapland?

“They often tell me that their wife or girlfriend won’t do this or that. So obviously they look for it somewhere else.”

How did she get started?

“I started when I was in college,” she says. “I was looking for a part-time job but I wasn’t interested in the usual gigs as a waitress or at a convenience store. Then one of my classmates introduced me to the soapland where she was working. After graduation, I found an office job, but it was boring, I didn’t like the long working hours and the constant harassment, and the money was bad, so I returned to the soapland. Here I can choose my own hours, and the pay is great.”

While soaplands are associated with dropouts and women who have fallen in between the gaps, Riri and others from her generation don’t all conform to that label. There are college-educated women actively choosing to work at soaplands for the benefits such sex work offers in terms of flexibility and wages.

For more about how Riri spends a typical shift, what she does on her days off, the sensitive issue of STDs, and what Riri’s family thinks about her job, see the full interview.