Here’s a paradox: though the sex industry still thrives in Kyushu, the bumps and grinds of burlesque may soon be extinct. The city fathers—and mothers—in Saga are holding hearings to determine the fate of the city’s lone strip club, DX Saga. (The DX stands for “deluxe”.)

City officials are using the recent amendment of a law on public morality to force the club to close its doors. The law now enables officials to shut down offensive establishments located within a certain distance from schools, and DX Saga is too close to a kindergarten to continue in business.

The club owners are objecting based on the grandfather clause concept—they were operating long before the law was amended. But local media sources suggest the result is a foregone conclusion, and DX will be Xed out of existence. If that happens, only one strip joint will remain in Kyushu, an island populated by 40 million people. That club also happens to be in Saga Prefecture, in the small town of Ureshino, known more for tea plantations than for ecdysiasts.

I doubt that folks in Saga and Kyushu have suddenly been converted to crusading moralists, however. While the location of DX Saga is the problem, I don’t think the proximity to a kindergarten has anything to do with it. It’s in a small building with a hidden entrance and no suggestive photographs or pictures on the exterior, so it’s unlikely young children will be adversely affected if they happen to walk by in the daytime.

DX Saga also happens to be located on prime urban real estate just a five-minute walk from one end of the city’s busiest commercial street and the prefectural government offices (the Japanese equivalent of an American State House). The shabby little area that the club calls home is the remnant of a black market that sprung up at the end of the Second World War. It later morphed into a seedy nightclub and restaurant district, but with urban development and increasing prosperity over the years, it came to resemble a decayed tooth in an otherwise healthy mouth. It seems that the objective in removing the club is not to protect impressionable children, but to continue the process of redeveloping the site. For example, another condominium—there are two across the street—would benefit the city (and its fathers and mothers) financially as well as aesthetically.

And it’s not as if the two prominent Shinto shrines adjoining the club have had a problem with strippers as neighbors. Or that kids won’t eventually figure out the purpose of establishments in other neighborhoods with flashing neon signs identifying themselves by such names as “Hotel Lipstick”.

I do have one lasting memory of DX Saga, and no, I never set foot inside the place. Years ago they advertised using posters attached to telephone and light poles. In my early days in Japan, I made a point of reading all the signs around town to augment my language studies. I carried a little notebook and wrote down unfamiliar words and phrases to look up later.

One DX Saga poster had an intriguing kanji that I had never seen before. One element was created with the kanji for “woman” repeated three times. I wrote the word down and broke out the dictionary when I got home. It turned out to be the word for “bestiality”.

I guess there was more happening at DX Saga than exotic dancing.

Sorry for the lack of links, but the story comes from a local paper and the article isn’t online.