Portal:Prostitution in Japan
Portal maintenance status: (October 2018)
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Introduction
Prostitution in Japan has existed throughout the country's history. While the Anti-Prostitution Law of 1956 states that "No person may either do prostitution or become the customer of it," loopholes, liberal interpretations and loose enforcement of the law have allowed the sex industry to prosper and earn an estimated 2.3 trillion yen ($24 billion) per year.
In Japan, the "sex industry" (fūzoku, 風俗, literally "public morals") is not synonymous with prostitution. Since Japanese law defines prostitution as "intercourse with an unspecified person in exchange for payment," most fūzoku offer only non-coital services, such as conversation, dancing, or bathing, to remain legal.
Selected general articles
Prostitutes on display in Yoshiwara during the Meiji period
Yoshiwara (吉原) was a famous yūkaku (red-light district) in Edo, present-day Tōkyō, Japan.
In the early 17th century, there was widespread male and female prostitution throughout the cities of Kyoto, Edo, and Osaka. To counter this, an order of Tokugawa Hidetada of the Tokugawa shogunate restricted prostitution to designated city districts: Shimabara for Kyōto (1640), Shinmachi for Ōsaka (1624–1644), and Yoshiwara for Edo (1617). A leading motive for establishing these districts was the Tokugawa shogunate trying to prevent the nouveau riche chōnin (townspeople) from engaging in political intrigue. Read more...- Soapland (ソープランド, sōpurando), or sōpu, is a Japanglish word constructed from the two English words "soap" and "land" and is part of Japan's nighttime entertainment industry, also known as Mizu shōbai.
There are various kinds of soaplands, and they are usually located in complexes with varying numbers of soaplands. Well-known complexes are located in Susukino in Sapporo, Yoshiwara and Kabukicho in Tokyo, Kawasaki, Kanazuen in Gifu, Ogoto in Shiga, and Fukuhara in Kobe, Sagaminumata in Odawara, and Nakasu in Fukuoka, but there are many other areas, especially in onsen ("hot springs") towns. Although the main clientele for soaplands are males, there are also a few soaplands specifically for female clients. Prices for a session at a soapland vary depending on location, time of day, rank of provider, and length of the session. Read more...
Shimabara (嶋原, often simplified to 島原, sometimes styled 嶌原) was the designated courtesans' district (yūkaku) in Kyoto, from 1640, and later also a geisha district (hanamachi). It is now defunct, both as a courtesans' district (prostitution was outlawed in Japan in 1958) and as a geisha district (since the 1970s), and thus is often excluded from the list of Kyoto hanamachi. It continues to operate as a tourist area, however, and does have one operating ochaya. Read more...- Love hotel in Tokyo, European castle motif
A love hotel is a type of short-stay hotel found around the world operated primarily for the purpose of allowing guests privacy for sexual activities. The name originates from "Hotel Love" in Osaka, which was built in 1968 and had a rotating sign. Read more... - Yamada Waka (山田 わか, 1 December 1879 – 6 September 1957) was a pioneering Japanese feminist and social reformer, active in the late Meiji period, Taishō and Shōwa periods of Japan. Read more...
- Sada Abe (阿部 定, Abe Sada, May 28, 1905 – after 1971) was a Japanese woman, a geisha and sex worker, who is remembered for erotically asphyxiating her lover, Kichizō Ishida (石田 吉蔵), on May 18, 1936, and then cutting off his penis and testicles and carrying them around with her in her kimono. The story became a national sensation in Japan, acquiring mythic overtones, and has been interpreted by artists, philosophers, novelists and filmmakers. Abe was released after having served 5 years in prison and went on to write an autobiography. Read more...
- Sumata (素股, "bare crotch") (sometimes known in the West as a pussyjob) is a Japanese term for a non-penetrative sex act popular in Japanese brothels. It is a form of frottage performed by a female sex worker upon a male client. The sex worker rubs the client's penis with her thighs (intercrural sex) and labia majora. The goal is to stimulate ejaculation without penile-vaginal penetration. This activity circumvents the Anti-Prostitution Law (売春防止法, Baishun-bōshi-hō) of 1956, which prohibits sexual intercourse for money. Read more...
Karayuki-san was the name given to Japanese girls and women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who were trafficked from poverty-stricken agricultural prefectures in Japan to destinations in East Asia, Southeast Asia, Siberia (Russian Far East), Manchuria, and British India to serve as prostitutes. Read more...- Kabukichō (歌舞伎町) is an entertainment and red-light district in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Kabukichō is the location of many host and hostess clubs, love hotels, shops, restaurants, and nightclubs, and is often called the "Sleepless Town" (眠らない街). The district's name comes from late-1940s plans to build a kabuki theater; although the theater was never built, the name stuck.
The area has many movie theaters, and is located near Shinjuku Station, Seibu Shinjuku Station, and several other major railway and subway stations. Read more... - No-pan kissa (ノーパン喫茶, literally "no-panties cafe") is a Japanese term for maid cafés where the waitresses wear short skirts with no underwear. The floors, or sections of the floor, were sometimes mirrored.
Customers order drinks and snacks and generally touch, the staff. The shops otherwise look like normal coffee shops, rather than sex establishments, although they charged a premium price for the coffee. Previously, most sex establishments had been establishments, such as soaplands and pink salons, with professional prostitutes. No-pan kissa were a popular employment choice amongst some women because they paid well and generally required little sexual contact with the customers. Read more...
The Recreation and Amusement Association (特殊慰安施設協会, Tokushu Ian Shisetsu Kyōkai) (Special Comfort Facility Association) (RAA) was the largest of the organizations established by Occupied Japan to provide organized prostitution to prevent rapes and sexual violence by American troops on the general population, and to create other leisure facilities for occupying Allied troops immediately following World War II. The RAA "recruited" 55,000 women and was short-lived, lasting just over four months until January 1946. Read more...- Nakasu (中洲) is the red-light district which exists between the sandbank of the Naka River (那珂川, Nakagawa) and the Hakata River (博多川, Hakatagawa) in Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. It is named after a popular, but very short-lived, entertainment quarter of Edo, which existed in the late 18th century. The name "Nakasu" can be translated as "the island in the middle" as Nakasu is an island between two rivers. Read more...
- Enjo-kōsai (援助交際, compensated dating, shortened form enkō 援交,) is a type of transactional relationship. It is the Japanese language term for the practice of older men giving money and/or luxury gifts to attractive young women for their companionship or possibly for sexual favors. The female participants range from school girls (aka JK business) to housewives. Enjo-kōsai does not always involve some form of sexual activity.
The opposite case of women paying men, gyaku enjo kōsai (逆援助交際, reverse compensated dating), is not a documented social phenomenon, but fraudulent solicitations from fictive women offering to pay for sex is a common tactic in phishing emails. Read more... - Takao II (高尾, 1640 – December 5, 1659), also known as Sendai Takao or Manji Takao, was a tayū (courtesan or oiran) of the Yoshiwara, one of the most famous of Japan's Edo period. She debuted in 1655 as the leading courtesan of the Great Miura, the most prestigious Yoshiwara brothel of the day, and rapidly became the leading courtesan of the entire Yoshiwara. Takao II would be one of between six and eleven courtesans to hold the myōseki (inherited name) of Takao. She is particularly famous for her affair with daimyō Date Tsunamune; some time after her death, her story would be featured in kabuki (in the play titled Meiboku Sendai Hagi), in song and literature, though much of it would be fabricated and fictionalized. Read more...
Onsen geisha Matsuei of Yuzawa, Niigata, upon whom Yasunari Kawabata based one of the main characters in his novel Snow Country (Yuki Guni), in 1934.
Onsen geisha (温泉芸者) is are Japanese geisha, or entertainers, who work in onsen (hot spring) resorts or towns. The term onsen geisha has a negative connotation in that the term has come to be synonymous with prostitute. This is due to several reasons. Read more...
A telekura establishment in Ikebukuro, September 2015
Telekura (テレクラ, Terekura), an abbreviation for "telephone clubs" (テレフォン クラブ, terefon kurabu), are telephone-based dating services originating in Japan.
In the original incarnation of the telephone club, popular in the mid-1990s, a male client would pay a fee to enter a booth with a phone. The phone would then ring with calls from women or girls willing to go on a date – the implicit understanding being that this would lead to paid sex. These clubs have been outlawed as fronts for prostitution in some jurisdictions in Japan. Read more...
Prostitution in modern Japan is made illegal by article 3 of the Anti-Prostitution Law (売春防止法, Baishun Bōshi Hō) of 1956. However, the definition of prostitution is strictly limited to coitus with an 'unspecified person'. This means that the sale of numerous acts such as oral sex, anal sex, mammary intercourse and other non-coital sex acts is legal. The Businesses Affecting Public Morals Regulation Law of 1948 (風俗営業取締法, Fūzoku Eigyō Torishimari Hō), also known as the "Law to Regulate Adult Entertainment Businesses", amended in 1985, 1999 and 2005, regulates these businesses.
Since sexual intercourse for money is officially prohibited, the sex industry in Japan has developed into a variety of forms. Soaplands are bath houses where customers are soaped up and serviced by staff. Fashion health shops and pink salons are notionally massage or esthetic treatment parlors; image clubs are themed versions of the same. Call girls operate via delivery health services. Freelancers can get in contact with potential customers via deai sites (Internet dating sites), and the actual act of prostitution is legally called enjo kōsai or "compensated dating" to avoid legal trouble. Read more...
The Businesses Affecting Public Morals Regulation Law (風俗営業等の規制及び業務の適正化等に関する法律), also known as 風俗営業取締法 (Fūzoku Eigyō Torishimari Hō) or fueiho, is a law that regulates entertainment places in Japan. Read more...- Delivery health (デリバリーヘルス, Deribarii herusu), also known as "shutchō health" (出張ヘルス) or by the abbreviation "deriheru" (デリヘル), is a form of prostitution in Japan similar to fashion health, "health" being a term for sexual services. The difference being that the brothel has no premises and is essentially a call girl (or "escort service") with women being dispatched to their customers' homes or to hotels.
Outcall call girl businesses distribute advertising handouts to home and apartment mailboxes, telephone booths, restrooms and the like in big cities in Japan. There are also numerous websites to find these businesses or other similar businesses. Read more... - An image club (イメージクラブ, imējikurabu), or imekura (イメクラ), is a type of brothel in Japan similar to fashion health parlors. They differ in that image clubs are themed along popular sexual fantasies such as an office, a doctor's surgery, a classroom, or a train carriage. The prostitutes themselves, whose activities are usually limited to oral sex, wear exaggerated costumes appropriate to the setting and the desire of the customer. Image clubs simulating molestation of female train passengers became popular in the wake of stricter enforcement of laws against groping on trains.
Image clubs may offer itemized pricing for particular services such as taking instant photographs, removing a woman's underwear or taking it home. Women working at image clubs are paid around 30,000 to 35,000 yen per day and may make more than 1 million yen per month. Read more... - In Japanese culture, the JK business is the practice of compensated dating with adolescent girls. The abbreviation JK stands for joshi kōsei 女子高生 and means "high school female student". Typical scenario of a JK encounter: a girl gives out leaflets inviting for a "JK walk" (JKお散歩 JK osanpo) or "walking date". Earlier the offered service was known as a "refresh business". When police began investigations into the practice of "JK"; the "sanpo business" arose. This is when a girl is paid for social activities such as walking and talking, and is also sometimes referred to as "fortune telling". Another activity is reflexology ("rifure"). Many of the girls work in Akihabara in Tokyo.
The U.S. State Department has reported that the Government of Japan "does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking," and "continues to facilitate the prostitution of Japanese children." Read more... - The Prostitution Prevention Law Prostitution Prevention Law (売春防止法, Baishun Bōshi Hō) (Law no. 118, May 24, 1956) is a law in Japan that aims to prevent prostitution, punish third parties involved in the trade and to protect and rehabilitate women involved in prostitution. It is also known as the 'Anti-Prostitution Law'. The law came into force on April 1, 1957, and all provisions were fully effective on April 1 of the following year. As the law does not punish prostitution per se, (client and prostitute), it is viewed as a preventative law rather than a prohibition law. Read more...
- Fashion health (ファッションヘルス, fasshon herusu), or health for short, is a form of massage parlor which circumvents Japanese anti-prostitution laws by offering a range of services that stop short of sexual intercourse.
Fashion-health clubs can be found in all large cities in Japan and are easy to spot because of their bright flashing lights and garish decor. Often advertised as "health clubs", they may confuse foreigners unfamiliar with the activities inside. These clubs usually post pictures of their so-called masseuses near the entrance; however, sometimes faces and eyes are censored with pixellation or black strips. Some club entrances feature caricatured depictions of the services provided. Read more... - Hostess clubs are a common feature in the night-time entertainment industry of East Asian countries. They employ primarily female staff and cater to males seeking drinks and attentive conversation. The modern host clubs are similar establishments where primarily male staff adhere to females. Host and hostess clubs are considered part of mizu shōbai (literally "water trade"), the night-time entertainment business in Japan. Read more...
- Oiran (花魁) were courtesans in Japan. The oiran were considered a type of yūjo (遊女) "woman of pleasure" or prostitute. However, they are distinguished from ordinary yūjo in that they were entertainers, and many became celebrities even outside the pleasure districts. Their art and fashions often set trends and, because of this, cultural aspects of oiran traditions continue to be preserved to this day. Read more...
- Mizu-shōbai (水商売), literally the water trade, is the traditional euphemism for the nighttime entertainment business in Japan, provided by hostess or snack bars, bars, and cabarets. Kabuki-chō in Shinjuku, Tokyo is Japan's most famous area where one can patronize the water trade, as well as its more carnal counterpart fūzoku (風俗)—the sex industry composed of soaplands, pink salons, health, and image clubs.
While the actual origin of the term mizu-shōbai is debatable, it is likely the term came into use during the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1868). The Tokugawa period saw the development of large bathhouses and an expansive network of roadside inns offering "hot baths and sexual release", as well as the expansion of geisha districts and courtesan quarters in cities and towns throughout the country. Bearing relation to the pleasure-seeking aspects of ukiyo (浮世, with its antithetical homophone 憂世 "sorrowful cycle of existence"), or "the floating world", mizu-shōbai is a metaphor for floating, drinking, and the impermanence of life, akin to the Western expression: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" (Isaiah 22:13). Read more... - Jūsō (十三, lit. "Thirteen") is an area in Yodogawa-ku in north central Osaka, Japan.
The core of the area is Jūsō Station, the hub station of the Hankyu Railway system. The area typifies the unique culture of Osaka. Situated across the Yodo River from central Osaka, Jūsō is centrally located for easy access by Hankyu Railway lines to other major Kansai cities: 24 minutes to Kobe (Kobe-Sannomiya Station) to the west and 40 minutes to Kyoto (Kawaramachi Station) to the northeast. Read more... - Susukino (すすきの) is a red-light district in Chūō-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaidō, Japan. It is one of the major red-light districts in Japan along with Kabukichō, Tokyo, and Nakasu, Fukuoka. Currently, the district is congested with many restaurants, bars, hotels, and adult-entertainment establishments. Susukino is often noted as "薄野" in kanji, and "ススキノ" in katakana, and directly translated as "zebra grass field". Read more...
The Susukino Crossing at night with the Asahi Super Dry logo on the Susukino Building - A pink salon (ピンクサロン, pinkusaron), or pinsaro (ピンサロ) for short, is a type of brothel in Japan which specialises in oral sex.
Pink salons skirt laws against prostitution by serving food, operating without showers or private rooms, and limiting the services provided to fellatio. There may also be additional activities such as fingering the "companion" and sumata. They exist all over Japan and women who work in them may service a dozen or more men per shift. Read more... - Tobita Shinchi (飛田新地), also known as Tobita Yūkaku (飛田遊廓), is the largest brothel district in western Japan. It is in the Sanno 3-chōme area of Nishinari-ku, Osaka. It was one of the largest police-sanctioned red light districts in Japan until 1958, when anti-prostitution laws went into effect. The laws seem to have had little effect for the brothels in the area, however, as they now operate largely under the guise of being "Japanese-style restaurants."
Tobita brothels, similar to how brothels in Amsterdam have women in the windows, tend to have a young woman kneeling by the genkan (entryway) or in the living room (which is fully open to the street) of the brothel to attract customers—an unusual practice for brothels in Japan. Read more...
A man cavorts with a wakashū (probably a kagema) and a female prostitute. The wakashū (wearing headscarf) sneaks a kiss from the lady behind his patron's back. Nishikawa Sukenobu, ca. 1716–1735. Hand-colored shunga print.
Kagema (陰間) is a historical Japanese term for young male prostitutes. Kagema were often passed off as apprentice kabuki actors (who were themselves often prostitutes on the side) and catered to a mixed male and female clientele. For male clients, the preferred service was anal sex, with the client taking the penetrative role; homosexual fellatio is almost unmentioned in Tokugawa-era documents. The belief that the anus is a center of sexual energy that could be absorbed by the penetrative partner most likely originates within Chinese texts. Kagema who were not affiliated with an actual kabuki theatre could be hired through male brothels or those teahouses specializing in kagema. Such institutions were known as Kagemajaya (ja). Kagema typically charged more than female prostitutes of equivalent status, and did a healthy trade into the mid-19th century, despite increasing legal restrictions that attempted to contain prostitution (both male and female) in specified urban areas and to dissuade class-spanning relationships, which were viewed as potentially disruptive to traditional social organization.
This increased interest in kagema derives in part from the increased presence of samurai-class men within cities. The garrisoning of thousands of male samurai in the major cities in the early 17th century not only brought the male-love tradition of nanshoku to the common people, but also dramatically shifted the ratio of men to women (peaking at 170 men for every 100 women), which limited the sexual possibilities available to young men and encouraged the spread of nanshoku among middle class men. Kagema themselves were immensely popular with the merchant class and wealthy elite of the Edo period. Many such prostitutes, as well as many young kabuki actors, were indentured servants sold as children to the brothel or theatre, typically on a ten-year contract. Kagema could be presented as young men (yarō), wakashū (adolescent boys, about 10–18 years old) or as onnagata (female impersonators). James Neill argues that the increasing commercialization of homosexuality in the form of kagema (in addition to increased western influences) assisted in the moral degradation of nanshoku. He argues that rather than representing a form of masculine selflessness, nanshoku became associated with moral stagnancy caused by urban entertainment districts. Read more...- Akasen (赤線) is Japanese slang and a collective term which was used to identify districts in Japan where prostitution and the sex industry flourished until 1958, specifically during the period of January 1946 through March 1958. Read more...
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