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Love Hotels: Lost in translation
Janury 28, 2005
The prevalence of love hotels in Japan, Korea, China, etc. is an intricate (and
dare I say institutionalized) part of Far Eastern society, But are there any
such establishments in West?
Nothing engages my interest more as a sex columnist than researching Asian
sexual traditions, particularly Japan's. Really, all cultures have eccentric
and convoluted sexual histories, but the manifestation of that in Japan,
particularly from a Western perspective (and undoubtedly, because of it), is at
once gorgeously kooky and totally practical. Prostitutes use nationality in a
derisively wholesale way to denote sexual acts. For example, Greek is anal,
French is oral, and English is spanking. I cannot even begin to speculate what
Japanese would entail.
I was aware of the existence of love hotels, and why they are so popular
(extended families living in tiny apartments with flimsy walls, the obsession
with schoolgirls and the desire for an appropriate place to take them at recess
that has Hello Kitty shaped beds), but I had no idea that so many exist --
37,000 in Japan, with over a million couples using them every day. For people
who don't know about love hotels, I urge them to go online and look at some.
Many feature outrageous theme rooms (caves, bumper cars, Roman-style) and some
leave little notebooks so that clients can log the details of their trysts, a
charming way for people to share their intimate histories.
The bad news is, my current intern Stephanie and I combed the internet
(admittedly, not the best source for something that may rely on discreet word
of mouth and have fuzzy legal parameters) for something similar in locally here
in Toronto and found nothing. Curator Rafi Ghanaghounian, who was inspired by
the culture of love hotels during visits to Japan, was interested in opening
one in Toronto, but found the legal ramifications and details too overwhelming.
Although there is nothing criminal about couples using hotels for sex (outside
of a few archaic prostitution laws, which Clayton Ruby once explained at a
meeting I attended and which are ridiculous), you can see people here getting
ruffled about the concept. Is it a brothel? And what about the children?!
Still, I am surprised that nothing remotely similar has opened in Toronto -- a
city I have grown to adore but one that seems given to fads. Perhaps some
snazzy and enterprising developer will buy up an old hotel in Toronto's east
end and turn it into a quasi-love hotel, and to add to the titillating ghetto
chic, have a whore-in-residence each month.
Of course, North Americans do have similar lodgings -- simple drab hotels and
motels, places actually more in keeping with the original Japanese love hotels,
which only in the '70s and '80s started becoming more gimmicky. My best
suggestion would be to visit Niagara Falls to duplicate the kitsch aspect,
where many motels have heart-shaped tubs and other such amenities. As for
Toronto, I know of one place that offers an overnight S/M theme room. The
proprietress, a dominatrix, is very careful about clients, though, renting only
to people she has met personally.
Another tip: if you happen to go to Montreal, look up a place on St. Jacques
West called Le Chablis. Just like the love hotels in Japan, Le Chablis features
a lit-up menu board in the lobby listing the various rooms available: most with
hot tubs, some with novelty beds, mirrored ceilings and steam rooms. The last
time I stayed overnight with some Toronto friends, a local pal came by to drop
something off. "Oh," she remarked casually, "I filmed a porn in here once."
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