Have young people in Japan given up on sex and relationships? Thomas Pluck wonders.
—-
In Japan young people “have stopped having sex.” At least according to an article for the Guardian, which states that “61% of unmarried men and 49% of women aged 18-34 were not in any kind of romantic relationship.” And worse, 45% of women, and 25% of men “were not interested in or despised sexual contact.” In a country that doesn’t shame sexual behavior, and the “tanuki” raccoon statues outside restaurants have testicles the size of grapefruits, this sounds terrifying. What could be afflicting young people, to bring about such a joyless existence?
When I visited Tokyo and Niigata to train in Shooto, the young men seemed plenty interested in sex. If one in four men despise sexual contact, a bunch of dudes were pretending to point out all the beautiful women to the American as we wandered the city. And the women were very interested in sex. A friend of mine who taught there was never single for long. I got to hear about it every time we talked. So what’s the deal?
When cultural mores are so strict and expectations so high, it’s enough to shrivel even the tanuki’s mighty testicles.
|
As is usually the case, the real story is more complicated than a catchy headline. People in Japan are still having sex. However, young people are finding it more difficult to balance work and relationships. Not every young male is an otaku with a pillow shaped like an anime girl. Despite the stagnant economy and fickle job market, the “salaryman” tradition of a man working to support his family is still strong in the culture. Women who work after getting married are called “devil wives,” and businesses stop promoting them, assuming they will be too busy taking care of a family to work. The economy is so tough that you need two parents working to afford children, but women are punished for working after marriage. Can you blame young people for not wanting to jump into marriage? When cultural mores are so strict and expectations so high, it’s enough to shrivel even the tanuki’s mighty testicles. Hell, mine are ready to crawl into my abdominal cavity, just thinking about it.
Notice that no one asked the unmarried men and women if they were having sex outside of a romantic relationship. The article combines two polls, one that says 25% of men are not interested in sexual contact, and another that says 61% are not in a relationship. The country’s economic stagnation and job insecurity make a long-term relationship difficult. Japan is undergoing a cultural shift, and when the old guard stops punishing women for working after marriage, things might change. When you deify work, play suffers. In the meanwhile, young Japanese will survive. And have plenty of sex. They just won’t date, so their families can’t pressure them into a marriage situation they don’t want.
—-
–Photo spinster cardigan/Flickr
I lived with a Japanese woman for seven years.Over that time I got know her and her family intimately.However,it would be irresponsible of me to project her narrative as gospel for the entire culture.While I was with I was freed of many of the burdens that western culture places on relationships.Her folks were first generation Americans from the California farm belt and are a part of the concentration camp generation.Even though they were American,traditional Japanese mores and values remained very strong in her family.The concentration camp experience encouraged the maintenance of strong family ties. Her folks,married now for over 60… Read more »
Despite the stagnant economy and fickle job market, the “salaryman” tradition of a man working to support his family is still strong in the culture. Women who work after getting married are called “devil wives,” and businesses stop promoting them, assuming they will be too busy taking care of a family to work. The economy is so tough that you need two parents working to afford children, but women are punished for working after marriage. Essentially its the issues that we in America are dealing with. Men are pushed away from child care and women are pushed into it. (On… Read more »
One factor is that Japanese culture has never had the same obsession with “being a couple” or finding your “soulmate” that many Western societies have. There’s never been the same pressure that young Americans face to seek fulfillment as being half of a romantic pair. They just don’t have the same level of “couples culture” as Americans. They don’t have the same neurosis about having a date for major holidays or not going to a wedding by yourself or any of the Hallmark drivel we beat ourselves up with every Valentine’s Day. They don’t have nearly the expectation that your… Read more »
With all due respect,who are we to tell a culture 10x older and more experienced than ours how to live?We have a horrible history of colonialism and of nation building.In 500 years we have raped the land its former caretakers. Furthermore, to cover such a complex issue, from an outsiders point of view, ,and, do it justice would take some expert knowledge and about 1000 pages.What this article really is about is a thinly veiled feminist critique of aspects of Japanese culture such as marriage.Given the status of marriage in the US,i am not so sure we should be giving… Read more »
I don’t get the whole “rape” metaphor for land use policy. How would we go about getting the earth’s consent anyway? Isn’t every use of every natural resource taking without getting consent?
@ wellokthen That’s easy enough. Rape as I am using it is a bit different than how you are supposing.Think strip mining or clear cutting. I am talking about despoiling virgin lands while exploiting natural resources to the point of exhaution.
Japan is about to implode-
the population demographics are older than Boca Raton and they are too poor to hire Korean nurses for the whole damn country…
Oh and they turned off their nukes and will soon have to think about there energy adventures of the mid 20th century to power the elder care robots they are attempting to build..
I’d lie about my sex life too