Sex in Japan

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Love Hotels

The words ‘love’ and ‘hotel’ combined in the English language conjure up romantic images of energetic weekends away, breakfast in bed, walks in the woods, dinner by candlelight with champagne - and whatever else springs to mind - by an open fire. In Japan, however, the resultant image of the same combination of words is somewhat different.

The services offered by a ‘love-hotel’ result from necessity. With a population of around twice that of the UK in a similar land-size, 85% of which is mountainous, space is at a premium. Also, until recently, most people lived with their families until marriage, often with three generations under one roof, separated by only paper screens. Without a private space for the most private of acts, the streets wouldn’t be a decent place to walk.

The Japanese are nothing if not a practical people, and in a country where sex is accepted without much of the guilt associated with it in the West, to compete with the highly priced traditional inn, or ryokan, love-hotels began springing up in the 1950s offering an affordable love-nest for rent by the hour.

Originally aping the ryokan they aimed to replace, from the 1960s on love hotels appeared, catering - at least superficially - to modern, Western ideas of love and romance. Many took an individual theme, whether a European-style hotel bedroom, a pleasure den with a rotating bed and ceiling mirror, or a movie such as the eternally popular Roman Holiday or Gone With the Wind, complete with duplicate bed and curtains.

As women gradually came to have more social and financial clout, hotels re-modeled themselves away from typically male themes such as outer space and cars. Porno channels on the TV were out and a ‘come early, stay late’ policy was in, complete with karaoke machines, jacuzzis and even swimming pools. Some love-hotels boast sun-beds for those who like to top up their tan on the job, or adjoining ‘swapping rooms’ for those who prefer to bed hop. Some have CCTV feeds from all the rooms, offering a unique in-house video channel where you can watch others watching you doing what you’re watching them do. A number of hotels provide ‘party rooms’ for groups and even S&M facilities for aficionados.

At others the fare is altogether more 'wholesome'. One hotel famously offered a free trip to Tokyo Disneyland to any couple who stayed in all of their 24 rooms within a six month period, and a free trip to Hong Kong if they did it twice.

To ensure their clients can fully relax, love-hotels are models of discretion. Customers never see the staff and anonymity is assured. Drivers enter underground car parks hidden from view and staff cover their number plates to foil any prying eyes. An empty reception greets customers and a back-lit panel displays photographs of the available rooms. Pressing a button selects the chosen room, the light behind it goes out and lights on the floor act as a guide to the room. The open door closes behind you as you enter.

Inside, the room is fully automated. The TV, radio and lights can be controlled from the headboard of the bed and drinks, snacks and sex-toys can be ordered from room service, all of which can be paid for by credit card via an in-room cash machine.

Dotted along highways and huddled around nightspots, with neon signs flashing names like Châteaux Belle, Paradise and Casablanca, love-hotels are easily to spot and accessible to young couples with or without transport. A married couple wishing to add some spice to their love life, and a ‘salaryman’ (office worker), stumbling out of a bar with his favorite ‘office-lady’ (female office worker) after a night’s team-building karaoke and drinking, have the perfect location for a furtive clinch. Such is the abundance of love-hotels that there is never the need for a ‘Back to mine for a coffee, pet?’ invite as, at the right moment, a love-hotel will come into view.

Patronage is by no means the exclusive domain of the young, married or inebriate, and many customers bring their own entertainment.

Yuki Nishikawa worked in a love hotel in Osaka for over a year and saw many a coming and going.

"People of all ages come. I once found a bag full of sex aids in reception, so I phoned up to the couple that had just checked in. I left the bag where it was and strained over the top of the dividing screen to see who would collect it. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a man in his eighties bounding eagerly out of the elevator."

While most customers could be described as ‘normal’, in a love-hotel the sleazier side of life is never far away. A few well-publicized murders have taken place in love-hotels, they’re frequently used as locations for porno film shoots, pay off locations for gangsters (the yakuza), and they play host to the ubiquitous sex industry.

The manager of Yuki’s hotel paid 200,000 yen (c.USD1,800) a month to the local yakuza and every bedroom in the hotel had a flyer advertising ‘chiropractic’ services. Most afternoons, single men would take a room and several minutes later, a woman in her forties, wearing doctor’s whites, thick make-up, high heels and fish-net stockings would arrive, announcing she had a patient in the recently solo-occupied room. She would leave an hour later with her coat over her arm, her make-up smudged and her hair slightly ruffled, paying the hotel a cut of the bone re-positioning fee.

Whatever activity you have planned, the amount you’ll pay varies. Naturally, the more you pay the more you get, from the number of condoms beside the bed, to the quality of the shag on the floor. Taking a room at ‘rest’ rates will cost 2,000-5,000 yen (c.USD18-45) for two hours, while an overnight stay rises to as much as 13,000 yen (c.USD115).

Though often cheaper than all but the cheapest business hotel, love-hotels do not operate as normal hotels, and once you have left, you have to pay again to get back in. It is highly unlikely that groups of men wearing football shirts would find themselves let in, though at the end of a particularly dazzling, jinky solo-run, a love-hotel is the perfect place for your favorite celebration after you’ve scored.

• Love hotels are a potential source of cheap accommodation during your stay in Japan. Most establishments will accept single guests of either sex though many draw the line at same sex couples. Ask at reception. 

Ogawa visits Kyoto's DX Toji.

A short walk from Kyoto Station, not far from Toji Temple, is a temple of another sort: DX Toji. Located on a residential street in what was once a slum, and today remains a poor and somewhat neglected part of the city where Koreans and Japan’s traditional underclass, the Burakumin, live, is the DX theater dedicated to the fine art of the strip tease.

A “senpai” (superior) from a previous job invited me out for an evening of staring at flesh. He normally goes with his wife — and invited her to join us but she declined — and finds the whole thing "verging on the spiritual."

The theater itself has seen better days, and was closed several years back when a body was found on the stage. The body was male and dead, both of which raised eyebrows.

After paying the 5,000 yen (about $45) for the 9 pm show, we went through a small lobby with vending machines (500 yen for a can of lukewarm beer that costs 210 cold at a convenience store) and posters of the dancers, and then into the theater. The four rows of movie theater seating that surround the stage were nearly empty; in addition to the two employees, who clapped wildly at every gyration and played tambourines to the rhythm of the music, five or six older men sat quietly and alone.

The DX stage juts out into the seating area in the shape of an “8”—both circles of the “eight” are covered with red carpet and rotate—and the dancers start in the back and work their way forward. The front row of the seats is at most 2-3 feet from the edge of the stage, which is at eye level.

The dancers came in various sizes and costumes—Little Bo Peep, faux flamenco dancer, whore—and the performances are vulva-centric. Each performance starts out with a bang—loud music, energetic dancing—that lasts from five-ten minutes. In the second act, though, the tempo would slow, and the girls would start to strip. Some would end up completely nude except for their heels or boots; others remained mostly dressed—but the pudenda were always on display.

Rolling on the red carpet as the stage slowly revolved, the dancers spread their legs for long periods—two to three feet from the men in the front row, at eye level—then crossed and uncrossed their legs as a teaser. Nearly all of the women trimmed, from a neat triangle to the perfect rectangular horizontal patch of black. One woman did an amazing imitation of a woman masturbating and cumming over and over in a strip club in front of 7 half awake customers. For 15 minutes or so, the tiny performer worked herself with her right hand, fingers deep inside, twitching and moaning and probing.

After each of the dancers finished, there was a paid photo op. For 500 yen, you could take a Polaroid of the woman’s nether region—or whatever else you wanted—from 10 inches away. The crowd had its favorites: the masturbator and the final performer had them lining up; the first dancer got only one grizzled old guy who aimed the camera with the patience of an OB-GYN doing a pap smear.

In front of us sat a group of what appeared to be VIPS from China who came in mid-show. A middle-aged woman, who was either a regular or an employee, flitted between the Chinese and the other strip club workers. The Chinese did not react and left early with the attentive and smiling woman.

Finally, at 10, the lights went up after the last performer finished up her photo session, gathered up the camera, and thanked us as she ran offstage. We filed out into the cold night air.

According to my senpai, in the past things were much more ribald. Men would be invited on stage to fuck a dancer; for those without the balls to perform on stage with a performer, there were side rooms where you could meet the girls and pay for services behind closed doors. Because of AIDs, and stricter enforcement of existing laws, the Yakuza bosses have toned down on the content of the shows.

HandMaid Brothel

Ogawa reports…

Osaka has a bit of an image problem. It is the proverbial second city. Everything in Tokyo is bigger, better, and more chic. Osakans reflexively, defensively compare themselves to Tokyo and Tokyoites; people in Tokyo would be hard pressed to say one positive thing about Osaka, if they think about it at all. Worse still, in western Japan, Osaka is sandwiched between the elegant port city Kobe and, to the north, Kyoto, Japan’s cultural and artistic center. And, to be honest, Osaka is a grimy industrial city with virtually no parks and little in the way of tourism.

However, in addition to leading the nation in nearly every crime category, there is one area where the city takes a back seat to none: Osaka is not just on the cutting edge of the sex industry; it is the cutting edge. Anything in the sex industry that becomes a nationwide trend probably started in the brothels and soaplands and blowjob factories of Namba or Umeda or Kyobashi.

The rise of the "Handmaiden"

In keeping with that, there are now several establishments dedicated to a trend known locally as "handmaiden." Many coffee shops in Tokyo's Akihabara or Osaka's Denden Town - neighborhoods with high concentrations of electronics shops and, ergo, geeks - now feature waitresses dressed as "maidens." This is a Japanese nerd’s fantasy of what women in the Middle Ages of Olde England must have looked like. There is however no hanky-panky just coffee and ogling. The look is part goth, part fluffy lace, all cute.

Hands-on handmaidens

However, in other parts of town, it isn't just looking and weak coffee. One brothel with two branches in Osaka is dedicated exclusively to the fine art of the handjob, and is aptly named Hand Maid. On its very professionally designed, Flash-driven, and very pink web site, Johns around the world can learn about the "system" and fee structure, view a profile of each of the maidens, as well as their work schedule, course options, a "play explanation" (with manga renderings of what each "play" involves), events, a blog, live chatting, links, detailed maps to the venues, and a recruiting link (promises of $60/hour, and potential earnings of up to $8000 a month).

The System

As with many things in Japan, the "system" is complicated, perhaps unnecessarily so. People here prefer suffering the confusion of over-planning - hence the love of "systems" and "courses" and "plans" - to the horror of the unknown.

Hand Maid's system consists of three basic courses: the "Roshutsu ([self] exposure) course," the "Handmaid Course," and the "Mixed Course."

1. The Roshutsu Course

The Roshutsu - or "[self] exposure" - Course consists basically of the customer whacking himself off with the girl watching. At the Umeda branch, 20 minutes of it costs 4,000 yen. The course explanation touts as the main point of the self-exposure course as "being lasciviously leered at in reverse."

2. The Maid Course

If you want to be pleasured, for an extra 1,000 yen there is the "Maid Course" in which the hand maid will use her hands and/or feet to "assist" the customer in reaching masturbatory climax. As with the Roshutsu "Exposure" Course, the man has the option of customizing the "play" in that he can specify in advance from a checklist at reception such things as the where the girl should focus her gaze, the way in which she should look on, what facial expression she should assume, etc.

3. The Mixed Course

With the Mixed Course, the customer is free to take in the "full unfolding spectacle" of an "intensely embarrassed" young lady masturbating in front of him. He is then free to bring himself off as a denouement - 5,000 yen for 20 minutes.

Time extensions are possible for each of the three courses up to 120 minutes. For a second woman, you generally are charged slightly less than double.

"Options"

The above three courses all come with options, and this is where the customer's kinkiness and idiosyncrasies are given full play (so to speak). There are no less than 67 different options ranging from free to 4,000 yen to the "VIP options" (e.g. photos--no faces though), all-nude, take-home panties, etc.) which, with no price tag attached, are presumably negotiated with the establishment and/or the girl. The options up to "VIP" level range from dirty talk and scolding, to having one's penis tapped with a metal pointer, having a flashlight shone on it, or being dribbled on, to being handcuffed or blindfolded, stepped on or sat on (her butt, your face), fun with chewing gum, having your anus or nipples stimulated, your penis measured, taking some of her spittle home ... and much, much more!

Maids' Profiles

Each of the maidens has a brief profile with photo (often with the face blocked or pixelated to varying degrees). The format is the same for all of the workers.

For example, a "Yumi" is listed as being a 22-year-old office worker by day who enjoys shopping as her "hobby." She has a petite 82-56-84cm (32-22-33 inches) figure, has blood type A, is originally from nearby Hyogo Prefecture, does not smoke, and had her first sexual experience at 17. Her "charm point" is her eyes, and the type of man she prefers is "serious and upstanding."

There is then a brief message from Yumi (the standard "I'll do my best!"), and a word of recommendation from the manager of the brothel: "Yumi is dazzling and will overwhelm you with her presence. Her charm is sure to please, and you will be besotted. How about a secret rendezvous?"

The last section lists which of the three courses Yumi will and will not perform. She's a sport, so she checked yes to all three.

"Play Explanation"

For the 0.5% of Japan that is illiterate, or completely dim, the site has a mixture of color cartoon-style drawings (of little wide-eyed innocents) or photographs depicting what each course entails.

Ogawa visits a hostess club.

Of all of the “mysteries” of the East and Japan, perhaps none is so puzzling as the institution the hostess bar. In any city in Japan, hundreds if not thousands of hostess bars are open for business every night of the week, all year round. They are usually concentrated in nightlife areas such as Ginza and Shinjuku (Tokyo), Umeda and Namba (Osaka), Kiyamachi and Gion (Kyoto), and so on—but they are literally everywhere.

Like the experience to be had with the more exotic Geisha, the sex is implied but almost never offered at a hostess bar. Another similarity is the scripted feel of the experience. From the time one enters until the time one leaves, all the players know exactly what will happen, which role s/he will play, down to the topics of conversation. And, unless you are in a brothel masquerading as a hostess club, you will not get laid. Ever.

If you go with a regular, the proprietress (“Mama-san”) will be awaiting your arrival since you called ahead. Two young women in low-cut dresses, high heels, and dyed beehive hairstyles will greet you; Mama herself will put on a big display of gratitude and warmth as you enter.

Osaka

Tourist information centres in Kansai International Airport, JR Osaka Station (tel 06-6345-2189), Shin-Osaka Station (tel 06-6305- 3311), JR Namba Station under the OCAT train terminus (tel 06-6643-2125), Tennoji Station (tel 06-6774-3077).

-International ATMs OCAT Building, Namba; OPA Building Shinsaibashi.

See also

Kansai Time Out magazine (English language) www.kto.co.jp 

Kansai Scene magazine (English language) www.kansaiscene.com

Osaka Nagai Stadium

Osaka Nagai Stadium is home to the J-League's Cerezo Osaka. Midosuji Line Subway to Nagai station - more stadium info

Nightlife & Eating Out

Nightlife areas: Umeda, Namba (Nanba), Shinsaibashi and America-mura.

Fine dining, cool bars, jazz and raucous clubbing - Osaka has it all.

Access

Air

9 flights daily from Tokyo (1 hour) to both Osaka Itami Airport and Kansai International. From Kansai International Airport to downtown Osaka in under an hour by JR "Haruka" train, Nankai "rapi:t" train or airport bus. The regular JR kanku kaisoku from Osaka station, Kyobashi, and Namba takes just over an hour and 50 minutes from Tennoji.

Train

Tokyo to Osaka by Tokaido Shinkansen Nozomi super-express (2 hours thirty minutes) or Hikari Shinkansen (2 hours fifty-five minutes) stopping at Kyoto, Nagoya and Hammamatsu. Heading south there are Shinkansen connections to Kobe, Hiroshima, Fukuoka and Okayama.

Other rail connections to Kyoto (JR and Hanyku Lines from Umeda and Keihan Line from Yodoyabashi), Kobe (JR and Hankyu Lines from Umeda), Nagoya (Kintetsu from Namba & Tsuruhashi) and Nara (Kintetsu from Namba & Tsuruhashi).

The JR Osaka Loop Line (kanjo-sen) is one of Osaka's main rail arteries and connects with many subway and suburban lines, as well as being close to many of Osaka's main tourist sights.

Bus

There are day and night connections to most large cities in Japan including Tokyo, Nagoya and Nagasaki.

Ferry

Ferry services to Beppu and Miyazaki in Kyushu and Kochi, Matsuyama, Takamatsu (hydrofoil) and Tokushima (hydrofoil) in Shikoku. There are also ferries to Shanghai leaving Osaka Nanko twice a month.

Tourist Information

Osaka Visitors' Information Center

Tel: 06 6305 3311

JR Shin Osaka Station

Osaka Tourist Information Center

Tel: 0724 56 6025

Kansai International Airport