Michael Fitzpatrick
Body Language
Every weekday, 14-year-old Junko Satoh is forced to wear the clothes that have a nation in sexual and moral turmoil. Cotton socks, loafers and prim navy suits are not the stuff that unbuttons most male libidos, but to Japanese men, wrestling with a Lolita complex, school uniforms have become highly provocative.
Cursing their fate, as Junko does when she is groped by unseen hands on crowded subways, schoolgirls in uniform are becoming a national sexual obsession in Japan. So much so that those aged between 13 and 18 can’t stray far from the school gates without being propositioned, according to a recent survey carried out in Tokyo, in which an astonishing three in four of the girls questioned said that they had experienced solicitation for sex by older men.
The reasons are twofold. First, Japan’s media has turned the once innocuous schoolgirl into a sex object, making largely unsubstantiated claims about the availability of underage sex for cash. Second, a small percentage of schoolgirls, some as young as 12, are said to be cashing in on the media attention by dabbling in prostitution.
”Nowadays, older men seem to think schoolgirls are all prostitutes,” says one student, interviewed in trend-spotting magazine Sapio. ”We were in a shopping centre the other day and a man came up to us and said: ‘I know what kind of girls you are. How much do you want?’ At first we said we were available only for dates, but when he wouldn’t settle for that, we said OK.
”He then took us to a cafe, bought us cake and started making arrangements. I freaked out and said I couldn’t do it that day ‘cos I had my period. He said: ‘That’s OK, I don’t mind periods.’ My friend and I were totally revolted. So I insisted we meet in some faraway suburb another time. When I told him we didn’t have enough money for the train trip, he immediately gave us $350 each. Of course we never turned up.”
Prostitution has long been big business in Japan, but only over the past few years has sex with minors become an issue. In keeping with the curiously genteel argot surrounding Japan’s sex industry, the rather coy moniker for this recent trend is enjo kosai, roughly translated as ”compensated dating”. A more literal interpretation is ”support-exchange”, which also describes the transaction between clients and women who barter sexual favours for financial support in the shape of rent, dinner and presents. It is also how Japan’s legions of hostesses supplement their regular income.
Along with the media’s fixation on schoolgirls as sex goddesses have come magazines devoted to schoolgirl icons, shops specialising in the sale of their used underwear and the notorious telephone clubs, chat lines on which men pay to be connected to potential ”dates”. In Tokyo, more than a third of girls at high school say they have used these clubs. For many, they are just a giggle; for others, they represent the means of gaining cachet among their peers.
The desire for money is paramount in Japan. Despite the recession, the country is buoyant with residual wealth and the need to possess imported brand-named goods has become something of an obsession. The high price of these goods means many girls are tempted into lucrative enjo kosai. In a Tokyo local government survey carried out last year, 38,1% of the students participating in it said they did so for money.
Reiko Shimada (18) is one such enjo girl. So unembarrassed is she about her ”part- time job” that she has even gone on TV to talk about it. Clients, she points out, can be very generous.
An authority on the subject of schoolgirls as sex objects is Shinji Miyadai, a professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University and author of The Choice of Uniformed Schoolgirls. He sees enjo kosai as evidence of a sick society. ”Japanese people today live for money and high-image products. These are their values,” he says. ”What can adults say to these girls? They are just imitating the adults.”
Others point the finger of blame elsewhere. Concerned parents believe the phenomenon highlights inadequacies in the education system, in particular a rigid curriculum which introduced sex education only last month. Educators blame the parents. What kind of guidance can Japan’s young expect, they say, when the typical salaryman spends, on average, fewer than 15 minutes each day talking to his family?
A survey conducted last year revealed that those students who are ”less attached to their family” are more likely to indulge in enjo kosai, while another poll has suggested that girls who have little rapport with their fathers are more likely to sell themselves.
The Egovernment has also been slow to take note. It is only this year that a Bill has been passed in Tokyo prohibiting the procurement of sex from teenagers and younger children. Ironically, one of the first to be arrested turned out to be a senior civil servant. Meanwhile, the nation still can’t decide whether its schoolgirls are victims of a manipulative media or wanton handmaidens of consumerism gone mad.
Maybe when the Japanese media moves on to a new source of titillation, schoolgirls will lose their allure. But it won’t stop the pornography of materialism eating away at Japan