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Asia Buzz: Sex in Japan
Warning: this article may offend me
By ADI IGNATIUS
May
15, 2000
Web posted at 12:00 p.m. Hong Kong time, 12:00 a.m. EDT
"Disgusting," my colleague exclaimed as we stood side-by-side watching a live-sex performance in a seedy Tokyo nightclub. "Just disgusting." This was several years ago and, as a visiting foreign correspondent, I had asked my journalistic associates to take me out to see some "interesting" nightlife.
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I was reminded of this encounter during a trip to Tokyo this past weekend. Through friends, my colleague had found the address of a suitably disreputable establishment. We headed off into the night. I had forgotten that my colleague also happened to be the son of Christian missionaries in Japan. Oops. We found the place and stood in the back.
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Act 1 involved a Japanese woman on a catwalk who took off all her clothes. She also did some things with props that I don't need to detail now. Let's just say she had impressive lower-body strength. Then she sat on the edge of the stage and gave the first row a particularly close encounter with her most private possessions. In the West, this surely would have elicited giggles and hoots. Not so in Japan. The crowd appeared mesmerized, as if puzzling over rare rock specimens brought back from Mars. One man used a flashlight.
Act 2 was interactive. By then there were two women, who called out for volunteers from the audience. Exactly two men raised their hands. Supply and demand. They came on stage, disrobed and became very intimate with the women. One couple showed their love for each other on stage; the other was suspended in an overgrown fish tank overhead. The guy with the flashlight didn't know where to focus.
I couldn't watch the aquarium show. But I admit to checking out the couple on stage. Here was a stranger performing for us with gusto, wearing nothing but a pair of dark socks. Then I remembered by colleague standing beside me, the missionaries' kid. How was he taking it all? "Disgusting," he kept saying. I worried that I had corrupted him. And I wasn't even enjoying myself.
Then he elaborated. "This is disgusting," he said. "I can't believe the guy is wearing his socks." Oh, that. In fact, my friend, the missionaries' kid, had pinpointed exactly what was wrong. If two people want to flagrantly display their sexuality in public, that's fine. If people want to leer voyeuristically at such intimacy, that's their business. But the guy simply shouldn't have been doing what he was doing with his socks on.
There have to be limits to free expression. Otherwise, how can a society function? It's a lesson worth remembering.
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