HONG KONG - The practice of an older man
taking a young, school-aged Japanese girl out on a
"date" in exchange for money in Japan is referred
to as enjo kosai, or "compensated dating".
To say that enjo kosai is prostitution or -
in a Western view - child prostitution, may not
always be accurate. The date may not necessarily
include sex, and the inherent cultural
complexities can strain perceptions of the
practice.
Enjo kosai does not
automatically imply that sex is on offer. In some
cases it is just dinner, some conversation and
perhaps a walk holding hands. All too often,
however, it does involve some sort of sexual
interaction; maybe limited to fondling and
groping, or even oral sex and intercourse. This
sets off alarms about child
prostitution, at least in
the eyes of the international community, as the
schoolgirls can be as young as 12.
A
20-year-old Japanese girl named Aiko whom I met
while she was working at the bars in Hong Kong "on
a lark" while on "holiday", as she put it, said
she had done enjo kosai since she was 14.
"Why not, it's there. There are Japanese men
willing to pay good money for nothing more than a
tease. I could make huge money and get designer
brands just for having dinner at a five-star
restaurant and being his date," Aiko said. "If
they later wanted sex, which in Japan is all about
the tease and being unattainable, then that just
makes the man invest more money in the
relationship."
Japan has one of the lowest
ages of sexual consent in the world; it's as low
as 13 in metro Tokyo and the national age of
consent ranges between 13 and 18 depending on the
province. In fact, in Japan, the practice of
having sex with teenage girls is not prosecutable
if the young woman says "yes". This is where
enjo kosai acts a loophole; any girl saying
"yes, but for 50,000 yen" (US$495)immediately
renders the situation illegal. The brunt of
punishment, however, falls on the male customer,
generally for solicitation and prostitution. Such
cases can be aggravated by the fact the female is
a minor, or under 18 in terms of recent
legislation.
This is where the loophole
becomes a pedophile's dream scenario. If he
"dates" the underage woman, buys her gifts and
occasionally provides her with cash ostensibly for
shopping, buying books or spending time with
friends, then the money or gifts were not
technically provided on a sex-for-money
transaction. Otherwise, this would equal
prostitution and be punishable by law. The
young women practicing enjo kosai usually
expect to be taken shopping and lavished in gifts,
especially by men they "date" repeatedly.
Some of the girls working the enjo
kosai trade are referred to as "kogals", which
is an amalgam of the Japanese terms kou,
meaning "high", and gyaru, which translates
as "gal" or "girl". Adorned in schoolgirl
uniforms, hip designer goods, top-of-the-line
mobile phones, the young women are stereotyped as
drug using, promiscuous, greedy and stupid. They
like trendy hangouts, such as Tokyo's Ikebukuro
district, where they dine, shop, sing karaoke and,
when possible, land an older man for a date.
Kogals are not the only subculture
participating in enjo kosai, but they make
up a significant portion and are certainly the
"poster girls" of the practice. Still any teenage
girl participating in the trade is practicing
enjo kosai. There are no pimps or mamasans
setting up the liaisons, but Japan has a host of
pay-to-play phone and Internet matchmaking
services that facilitate the "hook ups" of
like-minded individuals.
Unless they speak
fluent Japanese and are familiar with the cultural
nuances the relationship requires, foreigners are
extremely unlikely to have an enjo kosai
experience. For foreigners, sex-for-hire in Japan
is limited to paying imported Thai and Filipino
girls at inflated Japanese rates; most Japanese
clubs with Japanese girls do not permit
foreigners.
As noted, prostitution is
illegal in Tokyo, and in 2005 the city moved to
make enjo kosai illegal as well. Penalties
were established that could land the man in jail
for up to a year. However, gathering the evidence
necessary to successfully prosecute is dicey and
few reports suggest that the ban is being
vigorously enforced.
Even now, enjo
kosai is common. A decade ago, the Tokyo
Weekender reported, "According to a recent survey
of junior high school students in their final
year, 17% thought there is nothing wrong with
enjo kosai and 13% replied that they felt
no reluctance in practicing it."
At the
same time, the daily newspaper Mainichi reported,
"Despite extravagant media attention on what many
had perceived to be a widespread phenomenon, only
5% of high school girls admitted taking part in
enjo kosai - accepting money from
middle-aged men for dates that sometimes include
having sexual intercourse."
These numbers
can only have increased in past decade. The media
and the Internet have led to a more open view of
sex and sexuality among youths throughout the
world. Also, another problem with the enjo
kosai industry is that the number of
prospective punters far outnumbers the amount of
willing schoolgirls. Some estimates have put the
number of school-aged girls practicing enjo
kosai at about 13%, and a Tokyo survey by
Friday magazine found that an astonishing 75% of
schoolgirls reported that they had been solicited
by older seeking an enjo kosai
relationship.
For non-Japanese observers
understanding the cultural context of enjo
kosai can be challenging.
Asahi
Shimbun newspaper found that many girls in the
enjo kosai trade do so out of spite caused
by their own father's behavior. Many of whom are
slavishly devoted to long working hours and spend
time drinking at hostess clubs, having
extramarital affairs and turning up late and drunk
at home. Many of these girls think their fathers
have their own kogals for enjo kosai, so
why shouldn't they reap some reward from the
practice?
Societies all over the world
struggle with the issues of prostitution and
under-aged sex. In the US, a country that had a
sexual revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, rather
puritan and conservative laws still seem to rule
the day. Many countries' laws somewhat arbitrarily
define an adult as being over age 18, and anyone
below 18 as a minor; sex is prohibited between
these two age groups and violations are vigorously
enforced.
With all the debate over
"victims" and "predators" one must wonder which of
these societies are really enlightened. Is it the
US and Western countries that criminalize sex, or
is it a country like Japan which does not
prosecute when there are not clear victims? Of
course, in any situation where there is no
consent, or there is an abuse of authority or
coercion, the case should be prosecuted.
Certainly, any sexual contact with a person under
12 years old should be vigorously prosecuted as
pedophilia.
But, considering that Japan
had its so-called sexual revolution during the
17th century's Edo period, one can only wonder
what the sexual "evolution" now sweeping across
Asia will hold. As a leading industrialized
nation, Japan has bent to the will of the
international community: it has updated its laws,
mostly concerning child pornography, but also
those governing the realm of under-aged sex,
though enforcement for both is lax.
Will
Japan's neighbors adopt similar views on youth
sex, or will they bend to the influence of the
West? We can only wait and see ... and hope that
creating legally defined victims and predators is
limited to situations where victims actually
exist.
William Sparrow
has been an occasional contributor to Asia Times
Online and now joins Asia Times Online with a
weekly column. Sparrow is editor in chief of Asian
Sex Gazette and has reported on sex in Asia for
over five years. To contact him send question or
comments to Letters@atimes.com.
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