Ai Aoyama is a sex and relationship counselor
who works out of her narrow three level home on a Tokyo back street. Her first
name means "love" in Japanese, and is a keepsake from her earlier
days as a professional dominatrix. Back then, about 15 years ago, she was Queen
Ai, or Queen Love, and she did "all the usual things" like tying
people up and dripping hot wax on their nipples. Her work today, she says, is
far more challenging.
Aoyama, 52, is trying to cure what Japan's media callssekkusu shinai
shokogun, or "celibacy syndrome".
Japan's under-40s appear to be losing interest in
conventional relationships. Millions aren't even dating, and increasing numbers
can't be bothered with sex. For their government, "celibacy syndrome"
is part of a looming national catastrophe. Japan already has one of the world's
lowest birth rates. Its population of 126 million, which has been shrinking for the
past decade, is projected to plunge a further one-third by 2060. Aoyama believes the country is
experiencing "a flight from human intimacy" – and it's partly the
government's fault.
The sign outside her building says
"Clinic". She greets me in yoga pants and fluffy animal slippers,
cradling a Pekingese dog whom she introduces as Marilyn Monroe. In her business
pamphlet, she offers up the gloriously random confidence that she visited North
Korea in the 1990s' and squeezed the testicles of a top army general. It doesn't
say whether she was invited there specifically for that purpose, but the
message to her clients is clear: she doesn't judge.
Inside, she takes me upstairs to her
"relaxation room" – a bedroom with no furniture except a double
futon. "It will be quiet in here," she says. Aoyama's first task with
most of her clients is encouraging them "to stop apologizing for their own
physical existence".
The number of single people has reached a record
high. A survey in 2011 found that 61% of
unmarried men and 49% of women aged 18-34were not in any kind of romantic
relationship, a rise of almost 10% from five years earlier. Another study found that a third of people under 30 had never dated
at all. (There are no figures for same-sex relationships).
Although there has
long been a pragmatic separation of love and sex in Japan – a country mostly
free of religious morals – sex fares no better. A survey earlier this year by
the Japan Family Planning
Association (JFPA) found that 45% of women aged 16-24 "were not
interested in or despised sexual contact".
More than a quarter of men felt
the same way.
No comments:
Post a Comment