Comments on: Fuzoku Friday: The Alibi

By: Jake Adelstein

Jake Adelstein — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:28:54 +0000

Scott,
You are correct. I see a lot of girls with no homes to go home to drift into the business. Sometimes, coerced, sometimes, tricked, sometimes, merely because there are no other choices that they can see. I wish that the problem were treated more seriously by the media and the government.

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:57:39 +0000

Most of the girls in this industry have been semi-abandoned by their parents since childhood. A lot of fathers, many quite successful, never come home and have little responsibility in the house and there is little respect between the parents in a lot of families. So even if the girls could get by with less money doing other jobs there is a often times not much natural instinct for them that life is better or safer on the cleaner side of things. In Hong Kong and Taiwan young girls are more desperately in need of money but less likely to be involved in these types of risky behaviour because of positive feedback from their families.

I think only education of the risks involved and less normalization of these types of activities in the media and tv dramas could help in Japan. Western cultures could probably be accused of the same things but I think there is a lot more coverage of the crime and violence involved and very few people would view Paris Hilton as a role model.

By: Daruma

Daruma — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 02:46:10 +0000

I feel sympathetic that those women had to go into the fuuzoku trade because they were having problems with their marriages or debts…etc but on the other hand it is alarming to see if young girls take this as something perfectly fine and acceptable to make money on.
Myself surely don’t want my children (I haven’t had any yet) to grow up in the future thinking that it is fine and acceptable to become a soapgirl or baishuun is an ordinary way of making money.

By: Sarah Noorbakhsh

Sarah Noorbakhsh — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:00:47 +0000

Rin: Your guess is as good as mine, but I’d reckon that debts or desire for more disposal income are likely the two main reasons many women go into the business.

By: Rin

Rin — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:42:40 +0000

Maybe this has been covered elsewhere, but I’m curious about why this woman has to work in that kind of job, when she is married to a working husband who obviously earns enough for their child to go to kindergarten. In other words, she’s not a desperate single mother, so why do such degrading work? What’s the back-story? Debts?

By: Jake Adelstein

Jake Adelstein — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:07:57 +0000

I think you’re right. You have a good point.

By: Andrei

Andrei — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:54:05 +0000

I think she should quit, obviously she’s very concerned about her partner finding out. I would think it wouldn’t end well if he does and he probably will. It’s so easy to slip on lies, especially lies that are as huge as this one.
I hope she doesn’t own the Manual to Suicide when he finds out.

Quit.

By: Jake Adelstein

Jake Adelstein — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:34:06 +0000

I don’t think that love and sex are always the same and I don’t look down on women working in the sex industry but it’s manual labor and the health risks are high. However, I don’t think there’s any reason a woman can’t be a mother and a wife while doing the job. However, she should consider the health risks to her partner. In the same way, the men frequenting these places should be using condoms as well and telling their partners. Maybe the world isn’t ready for that kind of openness about sexuality. The ideal of sex between two partners who love each other and aren’t requiring payment for services rendered is not obsolete but not everyone has that relationship. People have needs; the market provides.
At least in Japan, it is semi-legitimate so the sex-workers have rights–including the right to be paid.
It also says a lot about Japan that women earn so much more working in the sex industry than they can at legitimate jobs and that the sex shops often offer better day care than corporations. The sexual inequality here is astounding.

By: Lou

Lou — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 06:23:30 +0000

I think she should just become a full time sex worker and not dilute herself to think being a sex worker while a wife and mother is anything but unhealthy both physically (stress) and mentally.