Judge says hostess club mama-san having sex with customers “the same as prostitution”… but that’s okay

A judge has made a ruling which should mean hostesses and hostess club mama-san’s (the older ladies who own and/or manage the club) can rest easy.

The wife of a CEO who spent around seven years having an affair with the mama of a Ginza hostess club sued her husband’s sexual partner for “mental suffering” she had caused. She wanted compensation of ¥4 million ($32,000).

The judge said that the Ginza mama-san was just doing makura eigyo (“pillow business”), the euphemism for when people have sex to further their career or do business. In other words, the Ginza hostess mama-san only had sexual relations with the man to retain him as a customer. (In fact, though, famously, hostess tend to lose their customers after they relent and have sex with them. The men often stopping having an interest in the “untouchable” hostess and paying crazy bills to drink with them once they have had what they desired.)

But the judge in the case ruled that the mama-san did not damage the “peace of marital life” and was “merely having sexual relations as a business, in the same way as prostitution”. While his comparison may be legally very curious — and we’d love to have heard the words come out of the judge’s mouth — it essentially means the wife has no legal grounds for her claim.

The ruling actually came in April last year but has only now been reported, for some reason.

The judge also helpfully pointed out that it is a public fact that there are people who do makura eigyo in order to retain their customers. Thanks for clearing that up. The difference in the value paid between prostitution and makura eigyo is simply one of whether it is direct or indirect.

The CEO and the mama-san would eat lunch once or twice a month on Saturdays, after which they would visit a love hotel for some “dessert”. In the evening they would go their separate ways. This continued from 2005 until 2012. During this period the man was also visiting the club at about the same rate so the judge declared it was “classic case of makura eigyo“, not adultery.

Actually, neither the wife nor the mama-san had brought up the argument of makura eigyo. She had denied there had been sexual relations entirely. The judge had come to the conclusion and used the argument in his ruling. Now that’s innovative legalese.