I saw the post below on Reddit which suggests that Japanese women are ok with their men being with prostitutes. They would not be ok with them being with any woman but a prostitute seems ok with them.
I get that these “interview a few people on the street” kind of things are fraught with problems and to be distrusted. Still, unless these women are actresses I cannot believe they’d find any to say such things. I’d be shocked if you could manage to get the same opinions out of any American woman.
The responses along the lines of “it’s not cheating if he tells me about it” kind of surprised me. I thought “don’t ask, don’t tell” would be the more common viewpoint.
I’m not condoning it, but maybe the attitude is if he has sex with a prostitute, it’s only sex. If he has sex with anyone else, it could lead to a relationship and/or a breakup of the marriage?
That kinda seems to be the women’s opinion when asked. Prostitutes are just sex. There is no emotional connection. So that makes it ok (in these women’s view).
Attitudes towards sex among Japanese people can be difficult for non-Japanese people to figure out, and I think it’s because many or most of the parameters are different from what they are familiar with. Religion, morality and shame don’t seem to enter into it. Neither do the principles of romantic love, for that matter. So the whole framework on which we in the US generally base marriages doesn’t apply much in Japan. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the survey, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they pretty much nailed it.
There are certainly American women who stick with their husbands despite his prostitute habit. Their judgement is that he, and his support, are worth the insult his habit implies. I know a few such couples although I’ve never been one myself.
I suspect darn few American women would go through with marrying a guy who included that reservation in his marriage proposal. But once married, and perhaps with a couple kids, the boundaries of what is beyond tolerability can shift. For reasons that are perfectly rational at the time.
Publicly tell their friends and neighbors? I doubt it but can’t say for sure.
Publicly answer some internet celeb’s question where the women are effectively anonymous except if a friend happens to watch that vid and happens to recognize them? Maybe some. Lotta people love being on TV even if they’re knowingly doing something dumb to be camera-worthy.
Note there’s also a difference between a married woman answering in the theoretical about her believed-to-be-faithful husband versus a married woman answering in the concrete about her known prostitute-using husband. And different yet from a single woman answering the abstract question with only her own idea of the rest of the set-up.
My impression with most of these folks I know personally is that it’s a don’t ask don’t tell situation. The evidence is obvious enough, but the woman finds that pushing the point to an admission isn’t worth the problems it triggers. Best to look the other way, even if you have to try real hard to keep up the charade. They’re knowingly lying to themselves, but as cognitively dissonant as that is, it’s a common human behavior.
I am quite ignorant of Japanese culture. I have the impression they’re rather more matter-of-fact about sex than Americans are. I think it’s an article of faith in American culture that men are more interested in sex than women are. Not all, just most on a population-level average. And this holds true at all ages, but the men-are-hornier imbalance gets a lot more lopsided at/after menopause. Putting all that together I could imagine married women in a culture for which sex is just sex being somewhere between content and actively happy to subcontract some / most of that work to outsiders. Much as people subcontract gardening or housecleaning to outsiders.
I strongly agree with parts of this but I’m not sure that you mean by others and possibly disagree depending on what you mean.
I will have to note that Japanese have a hard time understanding American attitudes towards sex as well.
Back to the OP.
Traditionally there has been a much stronger religious moral taboo concerning prostitution in America where they hasn’t been the same sense in Japan.
It needs to be noted that certain types of acts are not illegal in Japan. Only actual penetration is classified as prostitution so other forms are legal. There are many clubs for hand jobs or oral sex. Years and years ago, such institutes were called “soap land” but now they seem to be called “fashion health” and there is “delivery health” which is someone bring a person to your location.
Because of that, it’s not illegal so there isn’t the shame of criminal acts. I asked a Japanese friend about this question, and mentioned that 風俗 is illegal in America, and her reply was “Why?”
There are a lot of men who never would use those services and a lot of women who would never forgive their husband, boyfriend, partner for doing so.
Compared to American, there are probably a higher number of women here who have a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, and feel that while it’s not great, it’s better than having an affair and falling in love with someone. My friend says she wouldn’t be happy about it, but it wouldn’t be bad if he were discreet.
A couple of experiences.
I had an American friend who used to visit such services. Stupidly, he left the business cards in his shirt pocket where his wife discovered them when she did the laundry. Even worse, it was when she was pregnant and feeling insecure about her body. In return, she stopped having any sex with him after that. They eventually got a divorce over a number of issues, including his use of those places.
I had a customer whose wife told him, after his kids were bor, to not bring his sex life home . She was focused on raising them and didn’t have the energy for any nightly activities.
As far as the interviews go, it looks like they are being conducted on a “girls’ night out”, as they say here and some alcohol may be talking. You can see that when one of the women says it’s not cheating, the other has a reaction.
I realize that Google Translate is far from perfect … but it rendered the Japanese text quoted as “customs, manners, behavior”. Is 風俗 (romanization given is ‘fūzoku’) a euphemism?
“I’m not paying them for sex, I’m paying them to go away.” Allegedly some popular actor when asked why he went to prostitutes when he could have almost any woman he wanted.
Just a quick note to say the guy doing the interview is pretty legit. He has a channel with many Japanese culture videos on Youtube. His other stuff is interesting too.
One thing to keep in mind is that there is no such thing as “Christian guilt” in Japan. Nor for that matter in China.
Of course, there is a broad spectrum. From automatic divorce to don’t ask don’t tell. IMHO with internet dating in my 60’s in the US, pretty much every woman I’ve met on dating sites (mainly Chinese but Americans and multiple other countries), got divorced because hubby was cheating on them. And the ones that didn’t share that were widows. YMMV.
I dunno. Seems we are projecting a lot here with not a lot behind it.
There is a much, MUCH simpler explanation.
There’s a general cultural expectation in Japan (and broadly in much of East Asia) of being generally agreeable in public. So, if a random man (and yeah, it would have to be a man - the responses would likely be different if the question was asked by a woman) on the street stops you, and especially if you are a woman, you are more likely to pick the less confrontational option, no matter what you personally believe.
This is straight up an issue with being recorded publicly. Given the same question in an anonymous written quiz, I have no doubt the responses would be different.
So, yeah, I think there’s a cultural difference at play but not the one people seem to think there is.