Discussions are underway regarding a review of the Prostitution Prevention Law, including the possibility of penalties for those who pay for sex services. According to a report in the Asahi Shimbun on March 31, the discussions draw on data from a large-scale survey of 8,000 people revealing that approximately 48% of men living in Japan have used sex industry services at least once in their lives.
The survey was undertaken by a team including researchers from the University of Tokyo. It was conducted online in July 2022, targeting 8,000 people (4,000 men and 4,000 women) aged 20-49. Its main ...
We recently reported about the large-scale closure of soaplands around Japan following the shuttering of a major chain, possibly to avoid a police crackdown in the wake of the investigation into a major scouting operation that has had far-reaching consequences for the Japanese adult entertainment industry.
And with the closures, it brings to mind a peculiar legal situation for soaplands in Tokyo: according to the regulations governing sex services, you are not allowed to open an establishment in the city, with the exception of a few blocks near Yoshiwara, the old red-light district of Tokyo. ...
In Japan, it is currently illegal to receive money for sex, but not to pay for sex. In other words, a sex worker's customer is not doing anything wrong in the eyes of the law, though the sex worker and the service she works for may well be in breach of the law.
A way around this is that sex workers may not always provide full service, at least nominally.
But in the wake of the moral and media panic over increased visible signs of prostitution in places like Okubo Park on the outskirts of Kabukicho, Tokyo, there are now motions in the government to redress the imbalance in the legal ...
In November, Bunshun published a two-part report about an elderly female prostitute, based on a book by Mizuho Takagi about street prostitution in the Kabukicho district of Shinjuku, Tokyo. The same book included an interview with a teen prostitute in Kabukicho, previously introduced in October.
One morning in Kabukicho, Takagi called out to an elderly woman crouching on the asphalt and got to know her. Kumi (not her real name) was standing on the street, working as an elderly streetwalker for ¥3,000 a session. She looked to be over 60 years old. He gradually came to learn her story.
Born ...
On December 5, Tokushima Prefectural Assembly approved the resignation of assemblymember Hiroshi Furukawa, who was arrested at a Tokyo hotel on suspicion of secretly filming a woman working at a delivery health (outcall) adult entertainment establishment.
He is a representative of the prefectural headquarters for Komeito, known as the "clean government" party and affiliated with the Buddhist religious movement Soka Gakkai.
He was arrested on the night of November 28 at a hotel in Akasaka, Tokyo, on suspicion of violating the Act on Punishment of Sexual Photography, for secretly filming the ...
Does regular sex with a prostitute count as adultery? It's not just a moral question, but a legal one, because it could be grounds for divorce and a lawsuit, since an aggrieved spouse can sue the lover in Japan for damages if it can be proved they knew the man or woman was married.
FNN recently reported on a father of four married for 24 years who had a secret. He was secretly meeting a woman he met at a brothel at a love hotel once a month, paying her ¥30,000 each time. Upon learning of his betrayal, his wife directed her anger at the other woman, and sued her for ¥3.3 million.
All three ...
According to an article in Weekly Women Prime, Japan is seeing a rapid rise in the number of establishments offering sexual services to women from male "therapists."
The claim is based on extensive research by a manga artist, Yachinatsu (pictured), who has published on the topic of sexual services for women. Her manga Do Women Need Sex Entertainment Prostitution? has sold over 300,000 in Japan and been translated into English.
While the industry has become accessible enough that married people and those even in their sixties and seventies are using the services she says various risks must ...
The tabloid Spa! recently ran an interview with a 33-year-old, heavily tattooed employee in the construction industry who goes by the online name Cyber Lisapi.
Lisapi did compensated dating from junior high school and has also worked at a brothel (fuzoku). Her colorful past also includes addiction to illegal drugs.
In the interview, she shares more about her turbulent life. We've shared some edited highlights below.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, her childhood was unsettled.
"My parents divorced when I was about six years old. My mother worked as a hostess at a club, so I don't think she had ...
Just yesterday we posted about the gang of eight thieves who allegedly beat and robbed a foreign man who had picked up a streetwalker. The issue of young streetwalkers, known as tachinbo in Japanese, in the Kabukicho area of Shinjuku, especially around Okubo Park, has become a huge social panic, with media reports and police crackdowns appearing almost weekly, along with the Toyoko kids delinquency problem.
To help explain the tachinbo issue, the manga artist Sugimura (also known as Sugiyan) created a short comic in English as part of the This Is Japan! series. It was published online on ...
A gang has been arrested for robbing and assaulting a foreign man as he exited a love hotel with a prostitute he had picked up in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
The eight people allegedly surrounded the man in his fifties, taunted him for his actions and threatened to tell others, and then beat and robbed him of the cash he was carrying -- ¥1.1 million -- in a rucksack. With that much cash on his person, he was either a bit naive or planning to have a lot of fun in Kabukicho.
The incident took place back in February this year and the victim required a month to recover from his injuries. Earlier in ...
