Japan’s sex trade is cleaning up and cleaning house
According to a government survey, there are over one million sex related businesses and websites operating in Japan today. The Tobita Shinchi district of Osaka City is certainly one of the most well known in the country.
A few minutes walk from the Sakaisuji subway line reveals a new world where pleasure is the goal and anything your heart desires is for sales. Here you will find the name brands in sexual services. From Soap Lands and Fashion Massages that provide shower and hand-jobs services to Pink Houses that provide full service sex in any manner you wish to Idol Cafes that provide everything from cosplay and rape fantasies, its all here and its not what you think. Its clean, its not run by the Yakusa, and its big business.
When Japan passed its anti-prostitution law in April of 1958, sex houses became “restaurents” and simply kept on doing business as usual. Japans unspoken rule on this has generally been one of “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t worry”.
These pleasure palaces once run by shady Japanese yakuza are now being run by multi-million dollar corporations and those who have visited in the last couple of years are shocked by the outstanding level of drop-jaw beauties and quality service.
One friend of mine who has recently visited told me how suprised he was mentioning that they are just as beautiful as any idol on television. The girls are tested every week and customer satisfaction is number one. And don’t think that its just for men. Many of the shops are catering to an all female crowd who perhaps have not been satisfied with the level of er, service from their husbands or boyfriends.
But this can be an expensive outting.
For something as “innocent” as spending 20 minutes with a girl dressed as a maid drinking coffee will cost you 11,000 yen. Thats about $120 US. But never the less business is booming and no one is complaining. The girls who work the pink clubs on average will take 60% of the pay at the end of the day and the house will take 40%. The really successfull ones will make an average salary of 10 million yen per year.
Business owners are now trying to cater to new market. Gaijin! Male tourists who have come to Japan from North America or Europe obviously have a language barrier not to mention other obstacles to face if they tried to access the palaces of pink. And so a consortium of owners in the Kansai area are trying to make it easier. They are hiring English speaking girls both as workers and front desk attendents to help ease the curious foriegners into their rooms, and into their pocketbooks.
It is expected that in 2007 the sex industry in Japan will surpass the car manufacturing industry in terms of gross capital net gains.
Poor Mari….she’s my favorite. If I ever become a j-pop singer and part of the...
Shes definitely at the top of my hot list.
perfeckt 10:10
“The really successfull ones will make an average salary of 1 million yen per year.” I hope you don’t mean 1 million yen. That’s less than $10,000 US, right? Did you mean 10 million yen (1000 man yen)?
October 28th, 2006 at 12:52 pm“One friend of mine who has recently visited told me”
yeahuh..
October 28th, 2006 at 3:36 pmQuote: “Its clean, its not run by the Yakusa, and its big business.”
That “clean big business not run by the yakusa” is actually run by the, er, yakusa. Check your sources one more time.
October 28th, 2006 at 6:09 pmRikishi, thanks for that ! Yes I meant 10 million yen…
Danny, I’m sure there are many joints that are still run by the underground. But the sex trade, like Vegas in the US, is being cleaned up big time. Everyone wants the yakusa out because of the money that is available to be made. Its apparently less then one third of Osaka houses are now yakusa tied. But the problem is there’s no way to be sure of these stats, its just going on information from the folks who have been and who are in the know…
October 28th, 2006 at 6:24 pm:\
You are right, Alex, re: “But the problem is there’s no way to be sure of these stats, its just going on information from the folks who have been and who are in the know…”
Keeping sending us reports. My guess is that the yakusa are just cleaning up their act, wearing suits and Bono sunglasses, but if it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, and makes love like a duck, well,….might be a duck. But you may be right, maybe the ownership is changing to some other kind of overworld underworld, maybe even Japan Tobacco is getting in on the act, along with Japan Travel Bureau: sex tours to Japan. the WorldsexGuide already has lots of stuff on the good places to go for BFSTTRW and FSRRTVSDDSS and other kinds of pink acticity, with prices and address and tel numbers…
I think prostitution has entered a new global mindset and is employing a new kind of sex worker. Like your report above said, the girls seem to be a pretty as the TV idols. Might be true.
October 28th, 2006 at 7:19 pm…will cost you 11,000 yen. Thats about $120 US…
Really? Make that US$92.
And alexpappas, quite frankly it sounds like you got a freebee from the girls in return for this gush.
October 28th, 2006 at 10:10 pmSorry if the math is a bit off. Doing it off the top of my head.
And no, no trips to the pink house or anything of the sort… But I promise you should I go, I’ll bring my camera, a pad and pen and do a follow up story!
The fact that sex is soon to be outselling cars, well… Thats just impressive numbers and should be talked about. What I tried to do in this article is give a gushy glimpse of the sexual world in Japan. The entire point of this is that the article is missing the very same thing that I think is missing here in JP. The morality of it. To me, it all seems like its just dollars and sense and morality doesn’t play into it. There is something really off about that. It is after all prostitution isn’t it?
October 28th, 2006 at 11:10 pmCould we all just stop saying gush! Pass the Mind Bleach, mother…
October 29th, 2006 at 12:23 amI knew several people with these kinds of businesses, and none were yakuza. Of course, there are yakuza in the business, but the assumption thay they are all (or even mainly) yakuza is simply wrong.
October 29th, 2006 at 8:08 amAnd this was a few years ago.
RE: “I knew several people with these kinds of businesses, and none were yakuza. Of course, there are yakuza in the business, but the assumption thay they are all (or even mainly) yakuza is simply wrong.
And this was a few years ago.”
I guess things ARE changing. Very interesting.
October 29th, 2006 at 1:56 pmIt’s not mainstream until they hold award shows.
October 29th, 2006 at 2:16 pmBlackbird: http://attu.blogspot.com/2006/03/japanese-porn-awards-go-down-from.html
There you go!! Japanese Porn Awards
October 29th, 2006 at 9:42 pmalexpappas: Oh I don’t mean porn awards – that’s for video and perhaps print media.
I’m talking about Best Brothel awards: Most outstanding sex worker, customer choice award, best worker in their specialty, etc
October 30th, 2006 at 12:51 amAhh ok I gottcha!
That would be something wouldn’t it? 
:shock:
October 30th, 2006 at 12:26 pm[...] “It is expected that in 2007 the sex industry in Japan will surpass the car manufacturing industry in terms of gross capital net gains”, reported by Alexpappas in Japundit. [...]
October 30th, 2006 at 1:10 pmIn Indonesia they have the polygamy awards. I shit you not.
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June 19th, 2008 at 9:37 pmhrey
January 3rd, 2010 at 5:06 pm