Japan: Sex, Teenage Girls and Consumerism

"ENJO KOSAI"

Enjo kōsai, or "dating for assistance" (usually called an escort service in English), is a practice in Japan where high school-aged girls are paid by older men to accompany them on dates and sometimes to render sexual services.

Most observers, especially overseas, regard it as a form of child prostitution, although it need not involve sexual activities; it often does not even involve kissing or holding hands.

The social network surrounding enjo kōsai is complex. Originally, most initial contacts were made through "telekura" (an abbreviation for "telephone clubs"), where male clients paid a fee to sit in a booth and receive calls from participating women, who could then set up a date if they wished.

These days, telephone clubs simply supply paying customers with a list of mobile phone numbers to call.

Enjo kōsai is linked with the consumerist kogal subculture. It appeared after the end of the 1980s economic boom, and many observers believe that it serves as a way for young girls to preserve the lifestyle of that era, despite their families' more difficult financial situations.

Others, especially within the Japanese academic establishment, see enjo kōsai as a coming-of-age ritual that has naturally developed in Japan's contemporary capitalist society.

With the recent decision to ban vending machines selling used schoolgirl’s panties in Tokyo, many foreigners have been deprived of a chance to purchase that quintessential souvenir of “Crazy Japan”.

More importantly, the decision illuminates changing attitudes towards practices long considered acceptable in Japanese society. Lawmakers have now signalled that they intend to target another uniquely Japanese phenomenon; ‘subsidised dating’.

Japan is justifiably famous for being a place and a people full of vexing contradictions and idiosyncrasies to the western mind. Nowhere is this truer than in matters of sex and sexual politics.

On the streets of the major cities, porn is sold in vending machines and on street corners yet no pubic hair can be shown. While in convenience stores around the country, people casually leaf through manga (comics) depicting gang rape and extreme sexual violence.

The ancient custom of arranged marriages continues while ‘Love Hotels’ flourish, catering for anonymous sexual encounters and ‘office love’.

Buttoned down salary men pay hundreds of dollars at late night ‘Snack Bars’ for the privilege of flirting with a younger woman – the modern day geisha – while others join the ranks of flashers, train gropers and public masturbators who constitute the after dark sleaze of the entertainment district before returning home to their families.

One curious product of the sex life of modern Japan is the practice of enjo kosai, which translates literally as ‘assisted dating’.

In this scenario, school age girls – usually high school but occasionally middle school girls – meet with older men, strangers, and date them in exchange for expensive designer label gifts or the money to buy them.

The dates can consist of anything from a walk in a park or chatting in a coffee shop to drinks, dinner and sex.

Enjo kosai meetings are usually set up using mobile phones, pagers or over the Internet where there are bulletin boards and newsgroups more or less dedicated to facilitating contact between interested parties.

On these Internet boards, an interested man simply types in something like, “$600 for dinner and sex”, leaves a phone number or email address, and waits for a reply.

The practice operates strictly within the closed circle of Japanese culture and off limits to foreigners who would be largely unable to negotiate the finer points of the culture at any rate.

There is no middleman or pimp controlling or exploiting the girls, rather they are willing participants in a transaction in which both parties have something the other wants and a mutual exchange takes place.

While this explanation ignores the morality of the practice, it is the essential fact that both parties who enter into enjo kosai are there by choice.

There are two sides to an enjo kosai meeting. The first is the men who are willing to pay to indulge the schoolgirl fetish that has created a market for the practice in the first place.

While certainly not unique to Japan, the widespread sexualisation of schoolgirls and their ubiquitous ‘sailor suit’ school uniform has deep cultural roots here.

As well as the infamous schoolgirl panty vending machines found in the larger cities, numerous pornographic magazines are devoted entirely to schoolgirl themes and ‘ordinary’ porn routinely features girls as young as 15, fully clothed in school uniform pouting and posing suggestively.

(Nudity is illegal for models under the age of 18, although many pre-18 photo spreads include “coming soon” promises once the girl has come of age.)

The men who participate in enjo kosai are usually in their forties and fifties and are essentially ‘normal’ family men.

They often attribute their urges for encounters with fifteen and sixteen year old girls to ‘tamaranai’, which in this context translates as ‘an uncontrollable attraction’, a justification that is far from incontrovertible to the rest of the nation and foreigners.

This schoolgirl fetish is also exploited by ‘kogal’ (literally ‘high girls’) who wear school uniform on the streets of nightlife districts like Ikebukuro in Tokyo in an effort to exploit the uniform’s visual appeal and attract the attentions of men.

These girls have often graduated from high school and are in their early twenties but utilise the kogal fashion as a badge of membership and a social vehicle. The look is standardised: sailor suit school uniform, short skirts, long, rumpled white socks and heavy make-up.

They are caricatures of what the men they seek are looking for; a walking talking fantasy. These themes and images resonate deeply with the notion of ‘roricon’ - the Lolita complex, a source of obsession for men in a culture that reveres the ingénue, and it is here that a driving force facilitating enjo kosai becomes apparent.

The culture has produced a demand for sexualised school age girls, and in a material world, the girls are simply supplying a commodity that they alone posses to a market more than willing to pay.

In a sense, they are so brand-aware that they have come to understand that for a brief time during their later school years, they become a brand themselves, a saleable and recognizable brand with an established market.

This is the second factor that makes enjo kosai happen – the girls themselves. The motivation of the men, while of dubious morality, can be readily understood - they are in it to fulfil a fantasy, be it innocent companionship or full-blown sex.

But what about the girls? Why do they do it? They are almost always from relatively stable middle class families. They are not selling themselves to survive but to finance shopping sprees. To many in the west it is inconceivable. How is such a thing possible?

The fact of the matter is that today in Japan, most young people pay homage at many altars. As well as the ancient faiths that make up the ‘official’ national religious consciousness, most younger Japanese.

Particularly, those raised during the affluent years of the ‘economic miracle’ also worship at the altar of visible, ostentatious consumerism. Although it is less true in the post-bubble era of economic uncertainty, Japan is truly one of the great consumer paradises on earth.

The deities are familiar – Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Chanel. They are worn like a badge of honour, membership of the “I have” club, a club whose membership denotes forward movement and at least the appearance of ‘global savvy’ in a society where designer labels have truly become a ‘value added’ commodity for the individual.

Modern, designer symbols have replaced the ancient signifiers that traditionally designated a clear and fixed position within the Japanese social order – the two swords and the honour of a surname bestowed upon the samurai class or the fabrics.

Colours and hairstyles reserved exclusively for the aristocracy have been replaced with the latest mobile phone, adorned with Hello Kitty trinkets, encased in a fluffy Gucci case, slipped into a Louis Vuitton handbag.

The juxtaposition is not intended to be ironic, it is merely an example of the Japanese cultural propensity to simultaneously integrate and modify incoming influences and bestow a new cultural meaning upon them.

For some girls it comes down to the fact that enjo kosai is the fastest way to own these status symbols. Put simply, the ends justify the means. Many observers are aghast at the fact that these girls have so little regard for their bodies and their sexuality that they would sell them for such superficial gains.

For the girls themselves however, the gains are far from superficial. In a youth culture and media saturated with unattainable ideals and images that make self esteem conditional and so hopelessly pinned to physical appearance, is enjo kosai any more extreme or abnormal than young girls in the west with eating disorders?

But this may be only part of the picture. In truth, there is no ‘typical’ schoolgirl participant in enjo kosai. The desire to fund a branded lifestyle is undoubtedly the key motivation but there may be other factors in play.

Some observers view enjo kosai as a kind of sexual rite of passage for the girls and argue that as well as the material gains, the girls are selectively exposing themselves to a world of which they will soon be a part.

In effect, they are leaning the rules of the game while making money to fulfil their material needs – a far cry from classroom sex education of old but perhaps more realistic.

Others view assisted dating as exemplifying the superficiality of relationships that has come to characterise modern Japanese society.

They argue that enjo kosai illustrates that young girls are able to detach their sexuality from their self-image and utilise it as a commodity, a useful practical lesson in a male dominated culture that often views sex and female sexuality in exactly this way.

For the girls who offer themselves and the men who pay, enjo kosai thus exists at the apex of two powerful modes of thought that are deeply embedded in the collective consciousness of modern Japan – it is the point at which sexual fetish meets consumerism and they feed off each other.

It is a uniquely Japanese social product, and is truly borne of the modern, materialistic world in which we find ourselves.

But enjo kosai is much more than a simple business transaction. It is also a moral issue and an issue of law. To the Japanese themselves it is also an issue that for many represents the leading edge of a moral decay that is seen as having infected the nation.

When the issue first gained widespread public attention in the late nineties, the ensuing media frenzy quickly gave parents throughout the nation the impression that every schoolgirl in Japan was out selling themselves after school. The nation’s mothers went into a tailspin. Many fathers discreetly excused themselves.

The reality is that despite the media frenzy, the instances of enjo kosai and the prevailing attitudes towards it among school-age girls themselves show it to be the exception rather than the rule.

That it happens at all is nonetheless deeply troubling for a nation that has long thought itself immune from the kind of social malaise that it liked to characterise as a western problem.

In a study conducted in the wake of the issue ‘going public’, an attempt was made to quantify the moral character of Japan’s schoolgirls, in order to get a handle on the problem, a difficult task at the best of times. The study found that only 5 per cent of girls had taken part in assisted dating.

While these figures have been hotly debated, even the most liberal estimates put the number at 13 per cent. These results are rightly the cause of deep concern, but they are far from the ‘every other schoolgirl’ hysteria that gripped Japan at one time.

It must also be remembered that not all of these cases involved sex. What is perhaps more disturbing is that an incredible 75 percent of schoolgirls in one Tokyo based survey admitted to being solicited by older men who were interested in enjo kosai.

Clearly, assisted dating is not only a matter of moribund youth morality. Lawmakers have realised that questions also need to be asked about the ethics of Japan’s older men rather than focusing solely on the state of moral health of it’s teenage girls.

With this in mind, legislation was passed in 1999 making it illegal for a Japanese citizen from “engaging in paid sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 18”.

It is almost inconceivable that such a law could come into existence so late in the day, it is a positive step to shift the locus of attention away from the girls themselves and to attempt to place legal controls on the predatory men who seek them out.

However, the fact remains Japan has one of the lowest ages of consent in the world. At the time of writing, the national age of consent is 14 years old. This is another troubling fact that often makes legal control of enjo kosai extremely complicated.

It also illustrates that tacit acceptance of sex with young girls is deeply embedded in the collective consciousness of the male dominated political and legal system.

What would be clear-cut paedophilia in most other countries is often a grey area at law in Japan although steps continue to be taken to remedy this and pressure for change remains.

While the media has shifted its attention to new topics, notably the economy and the role of Japan’s military, the practice of enjo kosai continues quietly in cities throughout the nation.

With advertisers and marketers continually reinventing ‘cool’ and Japan more and more obsessed with the west but increasingly less able to afford its status symbols, there seems endless motivation for young girls to offer their bodies for a piece of the perceived high-life.

And there is no doubt that there will always be an ample supply of older men more than willing to help them.

Cameron Weston @ Crikey