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The End of Sex in Japan

yukio_michael

後輩
8 Mar 2005
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The year is 2022, Kuboshima, Bunko, (names have been changed to protect the innocent), gets off the Toei Shinjuku Line. She's tired. Very tired, she's worked very long and very hard today, from 8:00 this morning, until now, a little after 7:30, excluding transit.

This isn't her normal stop, Kuboshima-san, her friends at work call her Kubo-kun because of her hard working ethics, lives in Chiba prefecture, a little more than an hour away. Tonight she is traveling close to work on personal business to a shop, almost the decor of a loan agency that specializes in 「恋商売 」(こいしょうばい), or "Love Trade".

It's been 2 years, and 17 months since she married her husband, a successful media developer for a division of Avex, his name, Saitou. In that time, they have approximately, shared two dinners out together, and very little time alone at home, together.

Kuboshima-san feels not just that time is running out on her biological clock, she's getting old, at age 26 she can feel it, but that she is missing out on something. Her husband Saitou spends a good deal of time at mizu shoubai entertaining new up-and-comming artists, most nights he does not return home. His work is important and it affords them the flat where they live , located within an upperclass neighborhood between Setagaya-ku and Meguro-ku, (prices skyrocketed after the Nikkei crash of 2015). It's very comfortable, but the sound of construction has been getting to Kuboshima-san, more lately than ever.

Tonight she is seeing a 「恋先生」 or love-doctor, to translate it roughly. Her sensei is more like a friend to her, someone to talk to, the plan she has payed for has each week provided her with gradually increasing intamacies, exactly as she had wanted it. Tonight is the big night, it serves two purposes: Kuboshima-san will be having sex again for the first time since highschool, an awful event, if you really want to know, but most importantly, she hopes, she will become pregnant, (hopefully with a boy--- whom she plans to name Yui, or if a girl... maybe Yuki); it was the best White Day present that her husband had given her in ages.

The End...

An exageration maybe... But, with the cost of living, the cost of raising a family, of getting a home, one that stays in your family from generation to generation, many Japanese are 'just saying no', to sex (not so, says Area magazine... a magazine who also portend that Japan loves poor people, and how great binbo life must be due to the lack of complexities...), unchecked social anxieties, the labour crisis exhibiting additional stress on those who are not friita or neets... The increased need to exhibit social awareness through product purchases drive the birthrate, marriage, and the act of sex between married couples down to epidemic levels as Japan's population plumets.

•Marriage. Japanese are postponing marriage or avoiding it altogether. Weddings dropped last year for the second straight year. Fifty-four percent of Japanese women in their late 20s are single, up from 30.6% in 1985. About half of single Japanese women ages 35 to 54 have no intention to marry, according to a survey in January by the Japan Institute of Life Insurance.

•Births. Just 1.1 million babies were born in Japan last year, the third straight decline. The average Japanese couple now produces just 1.32 children, well below the minimum 2.08 needed to compensate for deaths. As a result of plummeting birth rates, Japan's population is expected to peak in 2006, and then decline rapidly.

Sex. In a 2001 survey, condom maker Durex found that Japan ranked dead last among 28 countries in the frequency of sex: The average Japanese had sex just 36 times a year. Hong Kong was next to last with 63. (Americans ranked No. 1 at 124 times a year.)

AERA reports that condom shipments are down 40% since 1993 (probably in part because Japan finally legalized birth-control pills in 1999) and love-hotel check-ins are off at least 20% over the past five years. What's more, an increasing number of those visiting love hotels aren't there for romance, AERA says; they've found that love hotels offer the cheapest access to karaoke machines and video games.

Tokyo, May. 27, 2005 (LifesiteNews.com/CWN) - Japan's birthrate continues to fall, with a record low of 1.28 in 2004, according to a report released Wednesday. The birthrate, which has been falling for decades, now ranks among the lowest in the world. It dropped 0.01 points from the previous low of 1.29 in 2003, making it the lowest recorded number of births in a year since records began there in 1899.

The country's population will begin its decline next year, dropping from its current 128 million to 126 million by 2015, and to 101 million by 2050, bringing with it catastrophic effects. Most fear the economic repercussions.

Maybe a bit of science fiction, but a lot of truth in the way that future generations of Japanese will deal with sex, marriage, employment, money, and the way all these things intertwine in a country so attached to the "traditional values" inherant to these types of things.
 
That's a scary story there yukio_michael. Still, sounds more like post-marital sex rather than casual sex you are describing there. I wouldn't believe condom manufacturers stats either-I don't think Japanese use them a lot. It's true though that Japanese society is in for some rude awakenings-lack of social cohesion due to crazy work and study demands, low birth rate and aging population which may eventually lead to more labour flows and immigration changes which should REALLY shake things up...
 
Index said:
I wouldn't believe condom manufacturers stats either-I don't think Japanese use them a lot.
It's hard to base the ammount of sex being had on the number of condom sales, but I've heard differently from a few people in Japan as regards to condoms, which they said was the right thing to do..., it all depends though... I'm sure it depends on the class of society you are talking about.
 
yukio_michael said:
I'm sure it depends on the class of society you are talking about.
Yes you are right. I personally only spend time with the gutter side, you know, the scum and villiany. They aren't expected to use condoms...:D

Of course you have brought up some interesting issues. I have heard anecdotaly that a lot of married couples do not have sex with each other, but that doens't mean they don't do it at all. It's just a matter of finding yourself a suitably young high school girl, hostess or office lady (for men-the choice depends on your income), or a NOVA teacher willing to act as a pseudo gigolo (for women) who will do anything for a bit of money and the chance to think of himself as a playboy :D. In a bizarre, somewhat seedy way, all these different classes interact with each other quite smoothly. Perhaps you could call it the 'swingin' class society' :nuts:
 
Marie Claire has an article in the May 2006 issue concerning a pay-for-sex service in Japan that apparently is doing a very brisk business for women who want to be more experienced for their men, or who are living in a sexless marriage.

I haven't read it... the purfume inserts are overwhelming me.
 
What's more, an increasing number of those visiting love hotels aren't there for romance, AERA says; they've found that love hotels offer the cheapest access to karaoke machines and video games.

I think that could easily be the most pathetic thing I've ever heard.
 
It also doesnt help us foreigners are snatching away young promising family inclined Japanese! :p
 
nurizeko said:
It also doesnt help us foreigners are snatching away young promising family inclined Japanese! :p
As long as you can combine the breadwinning of the salaryman, with the sensitivity of a french poet, you're in!
 
Hideki_Matsui_Beast said:
ツ"What's more, an increasing number of those visiting love hotels aren't there for romance, AERA says; they've found that love hotels offer the cheapest access to karaoke machines and video games.ツ"

I think that could easily be the most pathetic thing I've ever heard.

And also the most inaccurate. Going off the price of a love hotel, all night karaoke, and talking to friends noone i know has done that.
 
This is an area that I have looked into a little bit, I have whatever data I have found over at the uni, so I may add something later, but for now, I do feel that it's a social problem in the waiting--not something on the forefront for now, so much.

I plan on coming back here...
 
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