The character for katsu (activity) is generating a host of neologisms. Konkatsu means “marriage activity” – spouse-hunting. Papa-katsu is something some teenage girls do – offering themselves as companions, sexual or not, to older men in return for pocket money. Weekly Playboy (Dec 3) introduces a newer variant: mama-katsu. If young girls can do it, why not young boys?

A seasoned mama-katsu pro the magazine speaks to, a young man in his early 20s, seems evidence that a direct approach, nuance-free, is the key to an older woman’s heart. “I don’t have enough money,” he broadcasts on social media. “I’d like some help.” Responding are women in their 30s and 40s. Give the young man credit where it’s due. He aims to please. When one woman he’d yet to meet mentioned in her messages a partiality for 27-year-old actor-model Kentaro Sakaguchi, he promptly began his research. He saw some movies in which Sakaguchi appeared, studied the actor’s gestures and copied his hairstyle. Only then did he feel ready to meet the woman face to face.

It went well. Over dinner at an expensive restaurant (her treat), she talked, he listened. After an hour or so he ventured, “I like your earrings.” She removed one to show him. He stroked her ear.

It ended sexually, but it doesn’t always. One of his other “mamas” is ultra-generous with money and gifts, but draws the line at light kissing. It’s fine with him.

What’s in it for mama? Company first and foremost, it seems. Conspicuous among them are childless divorcees and singles in their 40s, bar hostesses who now and then like to be receiving attention rather than giving it, and career women – one of whom, a modeling agency executive in her 50s, pays, says Playboy, up to 100,000 yen for “physical relations” with a boy young enough to be her son.

Why, the question naturally arises, wouldn’t she and others like her turn to host clubs, as they did as a matter of course before the rise of mama-katsu? One answer turns out to be an unexpected evolution within the hosting industry – a shying away from sex in favor of attentive, but non-sexual, companionship. And the reason for this? “It’s because,” says writer Ayumi Kawano, who has researched the issue, “many women have taken lately to photographing their bedroom adventures and posting them on social media.”

Hosts don’t need that kind of notoriety. “It drives their popularity down,” says Kawano.

Mama-katsu is not illegal – as long as the boy is of age, which means 18 or over. Otherwise, mama is liable to find herself imprisoned for up to five years, or fined up to 3 million yen, under laws pertaining to child prostitution. The boy will get off easier but not scot free. Playboy cites a recent case of a 17-year-old boy taken briefly into police custody and warned after allegedly posting on Twitter, “Two hours of talk in a café for 7,000 yen.”

© Japan Today