When all is said and done, the human race is driven by some pretty basic urges: eat, sleep, and fuck. Everything else is ultimately just window dressing for what we have come to call civilization and society.
But of the three, which is the most important for people today in our nominally sophisticated age? Specifically, which do Japanese people value the most?
Japanese survey site Sirabee set out to find the answer to this question by asking 1,781 men and women in Japan, aged between their teens and sixties.
Which could you not live without? Food, sleep, or sex?
Almost 54% of those ...
We think we probably do more than enough damage to Brand Japan by our daily blog posts without perpetuating media myths about "sexless Japan." We see a lot of articles and coverage of this topic, which we feel is a real problem but nonetheless also exaggerated by sensational, mostly foreign reporting.
Nonetheless, we like to share interesting twists on this familiar trope.
Something like half of married couples are no longer having sex, the studies would have us believe. But this may start younger, since one survey apparently claimed the majority of college students are virgins.
This is ...
Oh, dear, another silly headline to start our day. Please indulge us once again...
This time it's a survey by the Japanese Association for Sex Education, using 2017 data collected from Japanese college and university students that has been (no doubt selectively) parsed to produce a clickbaity sensational find.
We first stumbled upon this in English on SoraNews24, though the original source is the Japanese news.
Yes, most colleges kids are still virgins.
Well, college starts at 18 (same age as the lovely Nana Asakawa, pictured above), so is it a particular shock? Let's take a ...
The results are predictable and messy. Along comes a journalist in the West who fancies tackleing the thorny old saw that is sexlessness in Japan, or a perceived problem of sexlessness, and blunders around making generalizations based on some Google searches.
This time it's well-known writer Julie Burchill in the British right-leaning weekly magazine The Spectator, who provocatively asks "Why do the Japanese despise sex?"
Her rationale seems to be that it all comes down to hikikomori -- acute social withdrawal syndrome -- which affects, the article claims, some half a million male ...
We stumbled upon a report of yet another survey that basically claims that many young Japanese no longer want romance in their lives.
One in four young Japanese people apparently claim that "love is a pain in the butt".
Japanese matchmaking service Partner Agent recently polled a total of 1,960 men and women between the ages and 20 and 29 or 40 and 49. Among the questions asked were "Do you want to have a romantic relationship, or do you think that romance is an inconvenient pain?" Among the 20-29 demographic, 24.5 percent were of the latter opinion.
Almost half of the young ...
Every few months along comes another one: a sensationalist English-language news wire article about Japanese sex dolls that appears everywhere, eager for clicks and comments.
This time it's an article with the very sensitively headline "Silicone Sally: Japanese men find true love with sex dolls". It comes courtesy of AFP, about physiotherapist Masayuki Ozaki turning to a silicone sex doll, Mayu, when romance in his marriage dried up.
Lonely guy buys sex doll. Hardly news. Goodness knows how AFP found this story or if it's even true. We are naturally somewhat suspicious of someone who ...
Another week and another survey brings grim news about sex in Japan.
Following the news wire article a few days ago about 26.9% of idols being sexually harassed that has been making the rounds of various English-language publications, now comes another one about that perennial favorite: sexless Japan.
Japan seems to be, if we believe the media, a sexless and barren land -- or a hyper-sexualised place of weird fetishes and mountains of porn. What is the truth? Both at the same time? Neither? Or something more nuanced in between?
Needless to say, a blog like this hardly paints the best ...
Half of Japanese married couples sleep separately, according to a survey by VenusTrap.
The online magazine asked 400 married men if they slept in the same room as their wives.
50.2% of men said they haven't slept in the same room as their wives since getting married.
The top reason for this was that the couple were now "sexless". 40.8% of the men who said "no" to the first question gave this as the cause for sleeping separately. "It is tough to sleep next to a woman you can't have sex with," some men said. Others were told by their wives, "If we're not going to do it, then we don't ...
Yet another article is claiming Japan is a sexless wasteland of virgins and singletons.
In this case, the bold claim is that "almost half of young men and women are virgins".
These articles are perennials, loved by editors and journalists -- but treated with some disdain by old hands. The other common trope is that is a kinky wonderland, full of very fetish and craziness imaginable. Perhaps the two myths are not as incompatible as they sound.
Personally, we sit on the fence with this one.
A survey of Japanese people aged 18 to 34 found that almost 70% of unmarried men and ...
More moaning and groaning about "sexless Japan" in the Japan Times, this time in a piece titled For many young Japanese, marriage — and sex — are low priorities.
It highlights an 18-year-old who "winces whenever he imagines himself dating a girl".
Stats maketh the truth. The article has a nice survey to back up its theory of under-sexed youngsters: 74.3% of people in their twenties are not in a relationship, compared to 50% in 1996.
Another poll found that 40% of people in their twenties are "not looking for a relationship". Meanwhile, yet another study by the Japan Family ...
