In Japanese society, prostitution is commonly framed as a essential evil – a solution to preserve social concord by offering males with an outlet for his or her pent-up sexual needs.
Whereas there are a variety of points with this view – such because the implication that males are inherently unable to regulate their sexual impulses – it additionally has a crucial flaw: It frames prostitution as one thing that solely males need or want.
In Japan, feminine sexuality is commonly seen by way of the slim lens of heterosexual romance and motherhood.
“Rezu fūzoku” upends this view.
Rezu fūzoku, which roughly interprets to “lesbian sexual entertainment,” refers to businesses the place feminine intercourse staff present intercourse to feminine purchasers. And in Japan, it’s solely authorized. I started investigating female-to-female business intercourse and escort companies in 2023. After initially finding out the phenomenon of female-to-male crossdressers providing nonsexual, romantic dates to feminine purchasers, I made a decision to increase the investigation to concentrate on purchasers looking for intercourse and romance. The names of the intercourse staff and purchasers I interviewed in my analysis have been modified on this article to guard their anonymity.
Tapping into a distinct segment market
In contrast to in lots of international locations that traditionally criminalized gay acts, Japan solely briefly outlawed them within the 1870s, throughout an period of speedy Western-inspired authorized reforms.
After that interval, the nation didn’t reintroduce legal guidelines criminalizing gay acts, permitting same-sex relationships to exist largely with out authorized interference – even when they remained frowned upon in Japanese society.
Moreover, gay prostitution has by no means been unlawful. Japan did enact a strict anti-prostitution regulation in 1956 that bans the apply, which it solely defines as penetrative, paid intercourse between a person and a lady. Because of this, any paid-for exercise that falls exterior of this definition – similar to gay intercourse – just isn’t thought-about unlawful.
For my analysis, I interviewed a person named Obō, the founding father of the Lesbian Ladies Membership, an company with branches in Osaka and Tokyo offering feminine intercourse staff for feminine purchasers.
Obō began out his profession as an online developer however quickly grew to become burned out and disillusioned.
“I wanted to start my own business, and since I was building websites for several adult entertainment shops, I decided to try something similar. It quickly became clear that while the market was flooded with services for men, there were almost none for women.”
So Obō opened Lesbian Ladies Membership in 2007, an company arranging meetups between intercourse staff and feminine purchasers in inns, relatively than at a brothel. Since then, it’s change into an establishment in Japan, with a few of his unique intercourse staff nonetheless working for Obō.
A various clientele
Initially a distinct segment market, rezu fūzoku gained wider consideration when the manga artist Nagata Kabi used Obō’s company and later chronicled her expertise in her work “My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness.”
Nagata Kabi created ‘My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness’ after frequenting a Lesbian Ladies Membership.
Wikimedia Commons
The award-winning manga, which was additionally launched within the U.S. and Europe, launched the service to many Japanese ladies who hadn’t beforehand identified about it.
Regardless of the time period “rezu” – lesbian – within the identify, Obō’s company welcomes ladies of all sexual orientations.
“Some of our clients are lesbians,” he advised me. “But many are straight, also married. Most are between 26 and 35 years old, though we also have clients in their 60s and 70s.”
Many Japanese ladies nonetheless discover it troublesome to discover their sexuality and specific their sexual needs, even with their companions. This typically results in unsatisfactory sexual experiences, which may pave the way in which for sexless relationships– one thing which is more and more commonplace in Japan and a state of affairs that many customers of rezu fūzoku companies shared with me.
As Yuriko, a 35-year-old heterosexual consumer of rezu fūzoku, defined, “For the very first time I really enjoyed sex! Rezu fūzoku gave me the chance to try new things and to feel good.”
Intercourse is wellness
In my interviews, the time period “iyashi” typically popped up.
It means “healing” and refers to actions or companies that present aid from day by day stress and unfavourable emotions. Simply as yoga courses or massages are seen as types of iyashi, intercourse – particularly business intercourse – can be branded this manner in Japan.
“Men do not understand women and their bodies,” Yuriko mentioned. “But sexuality is a fundamental part of life, and ignoring it only leads to frustration and dissatisfaction. Sex is iyashi.”
Using this phrase exhibits how prostitution in Japan just isn’t all the time seen as one thing to be ashamed of however may also be seen as a type of self-care.
As an example, the apply of dispatching a intercourse employee to a resort the place she meets the consumer is known as in Japanese “deriheru,” or supply well being, stressing the reference to the iyashi realm. Additionally, a 90-minute session with knowledgeable intercourse employee for girls is commonly referred to as “wellness course,” which ties intercourse to bodily and psychological well-being.
Intercourse staff themselves additionally emphasize the connection between their occupation and iyashi practices, typically referring to themselves as “therapists” or “cast” and downplaying the sexual points of their work, as an alternative highlighting the wellness-related ones. Conscious of the constructive affect their companies have on ladies, a lot of them expressed pleasure of their work throughout our interviews.
“It’s rewarding,” Moe, who has been within the trade for six years, advised me. “When a customer tells me she was really struggling but now feels she can try a little harder because we met, I feel glad I chose this job.”
Her colleague, Makiko, agreed. “I am proud of this job. It’s very important to me, and I believe it’s quite needed in society.”
Regardless of the widespread stigma in opposition to intercourse staff in Japanese society, the authorized standing of rezu fūzoku companies provides workers better safety and ensures clear working situations.
And as a marker of how the trade has grown, Tokyo alone is at the moment dwelling to over 10 rezu fūzoku businesses, in response to my analysis.
‘A refuge for the heart’
But, regardless of the existence of companies geared toward ladies’s sexual well-being, gender inequality stays rampant in Japan.
Ladies nonetheless face vital social and financial obstacles. Based on the World Financial Discussion board’s 2024 World Gender Hole Report, Japan ranks 118th out of 146 international locations for gender equality and holds the bottom place amongst G7 nations.
Lots of the ladies who use the companies are heterosexual – and are merely in search of a secure place to speak and discover their sexuality.
Yuki Kondo/DigitalVision through Getty Photographs
By catering to ladies’s sexual needs exterior of the normal heterosexual framework, rezu fūzoku challenges typical narratives about ladies’s sexuality. In a rustic that has been experiencing falling marriage and delivery charges, listening to ladies and understanding their wants has change into more and more necessary.
This authorized type of intercourse work clearly fills a necessity, providing ladies a secure place to strive new issues and entrust their sexual pleasure to an knowledgeable – who occurs to be one other girl. One factor that stood out in my analysis was how fashionable the service was amongst ladies in heterosexual relationships who appeared wanting to discover needs which may be troublesome to share with a companion.
However what feminine purchasers search typically goes past intercourse itself. Many ladies merely need intimacy – being hugged, cuddled and cared for in a method that’s lacking not solely within the lives of single ladies but additionally in these of ladies in relationships.
“I use this service for comfort and healing,” mentioned Sachi, a 42-year-old girl who’s married to a person. “It is a kind of refuge for the heart offering emotional richness.”
