Ecchi (エッチetchi?, pronounced [et.tɕi]) is an often used slang term in the Japanese language for lewd or lascivious conduct.

“So, how many then?”

“Over 300.”

“Really?” I took a sip of my whiskey. “Over a span of…?”

“5 years. I have it all recorded, on a spread sheet. You have to record it all.”

“Jesus, that’s alot, man.”

“Japanese girls, man. Sex. They are fuckin’ obsessed with it.”

I have a theory and it is nothing more than a theory. It’s based on personal experience and on things I have seen and heard about. I am a fairly observant person and I pick up on the things behind what people are saying. I think about these hints and clues and I often wonder what they mean.

Returning to my theory, it is as follows: If we could some how sit down a random selection of foreign men in Japan and then subsequently pump them all full of a suitable amount of Sodium Amytal and then we asked them clearly “During the first 25% of your tenure in Japan, what was your primary motivation for sticking it out?” The over arching theme, I am guessing, would be simply SEX.

It is everywhere all the time and the concept that nearly HALF the female population has “zero interest in it” is laughably absurd.

Sexless Japan?

Everyone has read the reports and heard the statistics: The Japanese are not having sex and the birthrate is plummeting. The younger generations are celibate and they have lost interest in intercourse, relationships and sex in general.

Half the country just stopped getting-it-on.

Or did they?

Viva-La-Prostitution

Prostitution is rampant in Japan. It is simply everywhere. Street workers, clubs, “Compensated dating”, pro-escorts, “delivery health” (Domi-hoes, anyone?) and etc. It is incredibly accessible and is a huge business. The image is different from in other countries as well. To many Japanese it is viewed almost as some sort of “Necessary Evil”. Many Japanese women (many, by no means all and I have no stats on this) have said as long as her man keeps it hush-hush a trip to a love hotel with a hooker is preferable to him dating a woman on the side. In fact, in some families, this money is allotted by the wives (who traditionally manage family expenses) and given out to the husbands monthly; “don’t ask don’t tell” what this extra 25,000 yen is for.

The numbers do not lie either.

As we can see above Japan moves 24 BILLION DOLLARS a year around in prostitution money. That’s a lot. It’s even more when we take a moment and carefully look at these numbers in context. The population of Japan, everyone (mommies, kids, grandaddies, angry salary men, your girlfriend etc) is about 127,650,000 people. That means, based on these numbers, last year everyone one in Japan, everyone, could have spent about 188 dollars on hookers.

China however, although having spent 73 billion on the sex trade has a population of 1,393,783,836 meaning every single person in the country only had about 52 dollars to spend on some ass.

Now, some of you are jumping to conclusions. “But, in China it would be so much cheaper, just like everything else, including human life.”

But would it, really?

In Shanghai an hour with a woman of the night will cost you around 360 USD. Tokyo? 160 USD. What’s more, I know that four blocks from where I am writing this a man can wander into a shop and have inter-course with a woman for less than 100USD; not in an alley full of dirty needles but in a “clean” love hotel. And that is the point:

The population is smaller with an economy allegedly in a recession yet someone, some how is spending nearly DOUBLE what the entire United States does, with a population twice the size and prices twice as high, on sex. That’s big business and that’s big sex. That is really a lot of sex with prostitutes, Japan.

Enter the Porno

Shimiken is the Bruce Lee of Japanese pornography. Details magazine did a piece on him worth reading if you like feeling soiled.

Although the motivations and life style of some guy who makes sex videos does not interest me much, the numbers in the industry matter if anyone is going to spout things such as “The Japanese have lost interest in sex.”

Because, have they, even?

As we see in this KAWAII!!!! infographic, the “average” Japanese consumer spent 157 USD per year on porn. That is TRIPLE what the average American consumer spends. Now, a high-class thought experiment: Are these people buying porno to collect it and let it age aesthetically hoping to slowly appreciate it with snooty friends decades from now? Or, are they buying this material so they can take it home and furiously jack-off to it?

I’m no Noam Chomsky, but I am leaning more toward “furiously jack-off to it”.

The Orgasmic Conclusion

Despite the epidemic of “sexless” marriages and the plunging birthrate the data is clear. The Japanese have not “lost interest in sex” and they have not become “celibate”. They have, likely for a combination of nebulous culture reasons, gradually decided to engage in sexual escapades outside of the “conventional” borders of a “romantic relationship.” This likely goes for men as well as women.

Sex is not broken here, but the traditional Japanese relationship dynamic might be.

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