Why Are Japanese Men Paying Ordinary School Girls to Date Them?

One of the most visible results of an ever-changing Japan is enjo kosai, or 'dating for assistance'. The practice cannot truly be called prostitution because sexual intercourse does not necessarily occur. Nevertheless, this is a sex trade and the teenage girls who participate are sex workers. No wonder older Japanese are shocked and confused by the way young people are responding to the new environment. They're not alone, as every major newspaper in the world has seen opportunities to cover this eyeball-catching story on taboo sex. But every major newspaper has missed the truth of what is happening and what is necessary to stop it.

What IS happening? A student revealed to her English teacher (a friend of mine) that she was dating her juku (cram school) teacher. It isn't clear if she received money from this man, or if the two had intercourse. As in many cases, the relationship may have been based on trading the girl's company at a commercial area for purchases made during the 'date'. The irony of having her juku tuition partly refunded was apparently lost on her. She did not express guilt or shame at this 'secret' relationship. She told her teacher this fact, simply to share a personal part of her life or to boast playfully as she would with a close friend. This exchange, which may or may not include actual sex, has been completely normalized for those who practice it. It's as if girls were selling dates in order to seem normal. The relationship with the juku teacher might be taboo to foreigners or to her elders, but it validates her amongst her school mates.

Enjo kosai did not simply appear out of nowhere. Two unprecedented conditions arose within isolated Japan. First, the post-war industrial cartels had fully matured and unleashed their profit making enterprises on the rest of the world. The economic picture is complex, but it suffices to say that there was a bubble with rises prices all around.

The second cause of enjo kosai was the dominance of sexual imagery in marketing virtually all domestic products. In particular demand were images of young school aged girls. In concert with the inflationary pressures of the time, the messages to impressionable youth are clear: 1. Products (esp. luxury products) have growing value AND 2. Teenage sexuality is a product. Any impressionable young girl concludes that society values only one thing that she has. To throw that away or leave it unsold on the shelf, madness.

With the ebb of the bubble, there was complete resistance to falling prices. Though this would happen in any capitalist society, slow and even negative growth of the national economy would mean that for many years, ordinary Japanese found it difficult to spend money on luxuries. To spit in the eye of the Japanese consumer, this all happened even as amazing (and expensive) new products were becoming seen as commonplace. Even families that had earned great wealth from the bubble knew that this wealth was temporary and tried to constrain their spending. Result: materialistic girls everywhere have their allowances cut.

In the United States and other wealthy capitalist nations, we have seen the same materialism and commodification of sex - so why hasn't dating for assistance appeared elsewhere? It is best to remember that traditional roles ascribed in post-Meiji Japan are extremely rigid and not even traditional. They were created through propaganda and solidified by the war effort. These roles have done little to adapt to reality, even as the country left the industrial and post-industrial eras behind. It is individuals that have done all the adapting.

It is quite usual for individuals to develop a second identities. The wearing of masks is a human trait, but only in conformist Japan is the mask worn so often that it completely reforms the face underneath. At school, girls must wear a mask of innocence, a mask that defers to all others, that is never selfish or outspoken. It is only after the system is nearly done with them that the mask of the schoolgirl prostitute is born.