Young Japanese Women Vie for a Once-Scorned Job

[AsahinaKimi]

By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: July 27, 2009

TOKYO — The women who pour drinks in Japan’s sleek gentlemen’s clubs were once shunned because their duties were considered immodest: lavishing adoring (albeit nonsexual) attention on men for a hefty fee.

But with that line of work, called hostessing, among the most lucrative jobs available to women and with the country neck-deep in a recession, hostess positions are increasingly coveted, and hostesses themselves are gaining respectability and even acclaim. Japan’s worst recession since World War II is changing mores.

“More women from a diversity of backgrounds are looking for hostess work,” said Kentaro Miura, who helps manage seven clubs in Kabuki-cho, Tokyo’s glittering red-light district. “There is less resistance to becoming a hostess. In fact, it’s seen as a glamorous job.”




read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/business/global/28hostess.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

[theoldman]

1. Non sexual my ass.

Most of them will end up having sex with the business men. They are Japanese and that is how it works in their society. Any one who has knowledge of Japanese history knows that this is how is has been for hundreds of years.

[ShamelessHussy]

2. That's how it's been in human history

Though, they certainly don't have to sleep with the patrons eg brothel.

[Hannah Bell]

5. it's not required. that's the difference. and, no, there's also a long tradition of hostesses &

entertainers who *weren't* prostitutes.

geisha, e.g., weren't prostitutes. they might take a sugar daddy, but they didn't routinely sleep with the clients.

it would destroy their cache'.

[undeterred]

3. So times are still good for rich men.

I guess things are the same everywhere.

[Norrin Radd]

4. There is a documentary about the young men who do this, as well,

called The Great Happiness Space: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493420/

Most of their business comes from hostesses or women from other areas of the sex industry looking for emotional attention. Fascinating, and disturbing doc.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

6. I used to be a regular at a Japanese hostess bar in downtown Los Angeles

This was back in around 1990. It was called the Lotus Club and was located at the intersection of Wilshire Blvd. and Normandie. The entrance to the club was through two large red doors bearing Chinese characters and then a winding staircase with plush blue carpeting and blue lights overhead wound down beneath the city streets into a very large room with a horseshoe bar and sofas and coffee tables by the dozen. I always sat at the bar and never sat on the sofas where the hostesses would arrive. I was friends with the bartender, a Chinese lady and we were the only two non-Japanese in the place.

On a Friday or Saturday night, there must have been fifty or sixty or more very young Japanese girls working there, some not looking of legal age. They would sit on the sofas with well-dressed Japanese businessmen from the Los Angeles Japanese business community while tons of food and drink were served by red-vested Japanese male waiters. I never saw any improper touching or other behavior and many times the businessmen didn't even appear to speak to the girls but were laughing and joking among themselves, the girls just functioning as ornaments. I found the vibe of the place and the intense activity level of people coming and going very interesting and something I'd never seen before.

One time, however, when I invited a Vietnamese friend to the place with me, he decided to convince me to sit at a sofa just to see what happened. About eight Japanese girls came by, one after the other, and sat with us during the space of about two hours. Only about two of them spoke any English at all and my Vietnamese friend and I tried but couldn't carry on any kind of a conversation. Two hours and eight successive hostesses ended up costing us about $650, as I recall. Due to the fact that the girls seemed to experience a high turnover rate in the place, their very young-looking appearance, and their inabiilty to speak English, I suspect that these were possibly young high school girls brought over to the U.S. from Japan for just a few weeks or months on B-1 tourist visas and working in this club without legal work status. I really doubt that they were acting as prostitutes and I saw no evidence of it (the club seemed to try to cultivate a high-class business image), although I admit I never went to the VIP room where there were a lot of comings and goings through the entrance.

The club no longer exists and even though it was a very luxurious and beautiful looking place, it probably was closed by the police and the liquor-license authorities which have cracked down on a lot of seedy and not-so-seedy clubs in downtown Los Angeles.