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Japan: Moral (and other) problems with enjo kosai
By William Sparrow
December 16, 2002
Enjo kosai is the practice among a certain social class of school aged Japanese
girls of dating older men in exchange for money. Sometimes that dating includes
sexual intercourse. Sometimes it is limited to sexual activity that does not
include intercourse. Sometimes it is limited to dinner and (perhaps) holding
hands.
The cultural complexity of enjo kosai is what makes a translation of
"prostitution" less than accurate. There is usually nothing resembling a pimp.
And sexual intercourse isn't always (maybe even usually) part of the deal.
Neither is the transaction as commercially straightforward as in Bangkok or
Manila, where you can pay by the hour for sex even if you and your hired
partner don't share a language.
Enjo kosai doesn't really work with people outside Japanese culture. As a
foreign visitor Tokyo or Osaka, your chances of negotiating the cultural
nuances required to enter into an enjo kosai relationship are close to nil.
Is it legal? In some places; but in Tokyo itself if you manage to negotiate
enjo kosai with a 15-year-old girl, you've broken the law. If you're prosecuted
in Japan, there's a possibility that you'll be prosecuted again when you arrive
home. May Western countries have laws that prosecute sexual predators even when
the crime occurred overseas, and prosecute them under the much more stringent
Western laws on pedophilia and child molestation.
Sadly, Japan has one of the lowest ages of consent in the civilized world. A
girl can legally say "yes" at age 12 in much of Tokyo. Nationally, 14 is the
common age of consent. In a few locations it is higher. If a girl that age says
"yes" in a language you can understand, you might be okay, legally -- though
many people would later have problems living with themselves. But if she says
"yes, for $200 U.S." and you both agree, in Tokyo you could now go to jail for
up to a year. And she is breaking the city's laws against prostitution.
But again let em stress, enjo kosai is rarely that straightforward a financial
transaction. And breaking Japanese law on enjo kosai probably makes you
technically a child sex offender in your home country.
Most non-Japanese are oblivious to the cultural context of enjo kosai. One
source, in interviewing Japanese school girls, discovered that many who engage
in enjo kosai do it out of something akin to spite over the behavior of their
own fathers -- fathers who are slaves to a salaryman's job, leave early and
come home late, drink too much at home, and going out looking for enjo kosai.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander (or in this case the gosling).
The school girl/lolitas of Japan are probably not as common as the media hype
would have you believe. And as a foreigner you are extremely unlikely to have
an enjo kosai experience. Sex with a Japanese school girls is likely to remain
simply a twisted fantasy for most visitors to Japan. Sex-for-money in Japan is
going to be limited to paying imported Thai and Filipino girls Japanese rates
that you likely can't afford...
Enjo kosai is the practice among a certain social class of school aged Japanese
girls of dating older men in exchange for money. Sometimes that dating includes
sexual intercourse. Sometimes it is limited to sexual activity that DOES NOT
include intercourse. Sometimes it is limited to dinner and (perhaps) holding
hands.
Some Japanese vocabulary:
Kogal - From the Japanese roots kou, meaning "high,"
and "gyaru," meaning "gal" or girl. These "High-gals" are perhaps the
equivalent of the Valley Girls of the 1980's in America. When not at school,
they wear Calvin Klein clothes and keep their cellphones in a Gucci handbag.
They are promiscuous -- at least in the public mind, and maybe in reality. The
stereotype involves some drug use. And their uniform is the Japanese school
uniform: plaid skirt and white socks. Besides being promiscuous, the stereotype
would have you believe that they are both greedy and stupid. Whether they are
greedy or not, kogals definitely exist and many hang out in Tokyo's Ikebukuro
area where they can find low cost karaoke, plenty of fast food, shopping
glamour, and a university crowd to mix with.
Yarinige - is a Japanese term that describes the
refusal of a Japanese man to pay for the services a Kogal has rendered. Japan
has hit hard economic times. Sometimes the men don't pay up.
Oyaji-gari - is the Japanese term for the
scenario in which a kogal makes an arrangement to meet with an older man and
leads him into a situation where her friends can rob him. Oyaji-gari is the
kogal response to yarinige.
Tamaranai - Literally, this translates as "an
uncontrollable attraction." It is the excuse fifty-year-old Japanese men give
for why they feel so drawn to fifteen-year-old Japanese girls.
Many sources on Japanese culture promote the idea that Japan sees sex as
amoral. It is just an appetite. Satisfy it, if you can afford to. And if you
want to eat at home tonight and eat out tomorrow night, whose business is that
but yours?
The problem with this view is that the Japanese infatuation with the kogal and
with enjo kosai clearly involves a fetish (preoccupation with "an object of
abnormal love or passion," according to Webster) and a taboo (something
prohibited by social custom). "Abnormal" and "prohibited" are moral concepts...
Taking money in exchange for sex was already illegal in Tokyo; but now the city
has acted to make it possibly to punish men engaging in enjo kosai -- with up
to one year in jail.
How common is enjo kosai? This from the 1998 editorial in the Tokyo Weekender:
"According to a recent survey of junior high school students in their final
year, 17 percent thought there is nothing wrong with enjo kosai and 13 percent
replied that they felt no reluctance in practicing it." (Emphasis added.)
Another Japan-based paper had said this a few months earlier, in April of 1998:
"Despite extravagant media attention on what many had perceived to be a
widespread phenomenon, only 5 percent of high school girls admitted taking part
in enjo-kosai--accepting money from middle-aged men for dates that sometimes
include having sexual intercourse--according to a survey." (Again, emphasis
added.)
The moral problem is partially one of clients outnumbering willing kogals.
While even the most liberal estimates limit enjo kosai to 13 percent of
school-aged girls, a Tokyo survey found that an amazing 75 percent of girls
responding had been solicited by older men interested in enjo kosai.
The cultural complexity of enjo kosai is what makes a translation of
"prostitution" less than accurate. There is usually nothing resembling a pimp.
And sexual intercourse isn't always (maybe even usually) part of the deal.
Neither is the transaction as commercially straightforward as in Bangkok or
Manila, where you can pay by the hour for sex even if you and your hired
partner don't share a language.
Enjo kosai doesn't really work with people outside Japanese culture. As a
foreign visitor Tokyo or Osaka, your chances of negotiating the cultural
nuances required to enter into an enjo kosai relationship are close to nil.
Is it legal? In some places; but in Tokyo itself if you manage to negotiate
enjo kosai with a 15-year-old girl, you've broken the law. If you're prosecuted
in Japan, there's a possibility that you'll be prosecuted again when you arrive
home. May Western countries have laws that prosecute sexual predators even when
the crime occurred overseas, and prosecute them under the much more stringent
Western laws on pedophilia and child molestation.
Sadly, Japan has one of the lowest ages of consent in the civilized world. A
girl can legally say "yes" at age 12 in much of Tokyo. Nationally, 14 is the
common age of consent. In a few locations it is higher. If a girl that age says
"yes" in a language you can understand, you might be okay, legally -- though
many people would later have problems living with themselves. But if she says
"yes, for $200 U.S." and you both agree, in Tokyo you could now go to jail for
up to a year. And she is breaking the city's laws against prostitution.
But again let em stress, enjo kosai is rarely that straightforward a financial
transaction. And breaking Japanese law on enjo kosai probably makes you
technically a child sex offender in your home country.
Most non-Japanese are oblivious to the cultural context of enjo kosai. One
source, in interviewing Japanese school girls, discovered that many who engage
in enjo kosai do it out of something akin to spite over the behavior of their
own fathers -- fathers who are slaves to a salaryman's job, leave early and
come home late, drink too much at home, and going out looking for enjo kosai.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander (or in this case the gosling).
The school girl/lolitas of Japan are probably not as common as the media hype
would have you believe. And as a foreigner you are extremely unlikely to have
an enjo kosai experience. Sex with a Japanese school girls is likely to remain
simply a twisted fantasy for most visitors to Japan. Sex-for-money in Japan is
going to be limited to paying imported Thai and Filipino girls Japanese rates
that you likely can't afford.
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