Japanese politicians entertained by scantily clad dancers

While we are well inured to the knowledge that Japanese politicians spend their large salaries and generous expense accounts in hostess clubs (and sometimes get caught doing research on their next visit when they should be working), even this latest scandal raised some eyebrows, perhaps because it was so brazen.

An event organized by the governing Liberal Democratic Party in Wakayama, hired scantily clad dancers to “entertain” the attendees.

The roughly 50 attendees included members of the Diet part of the LDP youth bureau as well as young assembly members from prefectures in Kansai.

A scoop by Sankei is based on a video of dancers at the LDP Youth Bureau reception held last November. The director and deputy director have since resigned to take responsibility.

Dancers sat in the laps of male attendees. Some put banknotes in their mouths to pass to the dancers’ mouths. Other men also got into the spirit of the event by slipping tips into the dancers’ costumes and groping their buttocks.

All harmless fun, right? After all, the dancers weren’t actually strippers, right?

The organizers have tried to defend what is demonstrably not a good look. A representative claimed: “They are world-class dancers. We wanted to add diversity.”

This media illustration of the event makes it look doubly creepy — the men have no eyes!

When confronted by footage of a dancer sitting in his lap as he passed a banknote to her from her mouth, a politician claimed to have no memory of the incident. Clearly, close proximity to a young, scantily clad woman is something that happens so often in his life that he can’t possibly recall such an incident mere weeks ago.

The dancers were paid for by the party, so at least public funds were not wasted to titillate lawmakers (though in Japan, political publics receive a certain amount of subsidy in addition to their own fundraising, which is one reason so many small opposition parties can keep going).

Many also noted the irony that this news broke on International Women’s Day, and that Wakayama is part of the Kansai region — also known as Kinki.