Kissin’ cousins keep intimacy all in the family

“I’m having an affair with my cousin,” the anonymous female writer confesses in the reader’s column of the June issue of the woman’s magazine Renai Tengoku, introduced in Shukan Bunshun (July 2) “We know it’s wrong, but have continued the relationship while taking extra precautions.

“When we go out on ordinary dates, I’m excited. But recently when the family got together for memorial rites for our grandfather, we really got it on.”

The passage that follows looks like it was lifted straight out of a Junzo Itami film. Read more

Smutty storytelling shop went from books to bust

In the summer of 1994, Ero Dokusho Fuzoku opened for business in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district. Its methodology was unique: male customers, who paid 20,000 yen for a 60-minute session, were sexually stimulated as they observed expressions of embarrassment or consternation on the faces of a young female as she read aloud to them from a pornographic novel.

One such literary passage, as described in Nikkan Gendai (June 27), might go, “As a single, transparent drop of dew dripped from her petals, he thrust his finger into her vagina, producing a squishing sound.”

Such lurid language was usually sufficient to cause the female staffer to blush hotly. And enough, the article suggests, to give male customers an instant woody. Read more

What’s in a name? Soaplands still going strong 25 years on

This coming December 19 will mark a quarter century since political correctness forced the operators of the erotic bathhouses that used to be known toruko-buro (Turkish baths) to drop that term in favor of “soapland.”

Writing in Shukan Shincho (July 2), Yoshinari Fukafue points out that while facilities referred to as Turkish baths first appeared at the Tokyo Onsen in Ginza in 1951, it was only from 1958, when the anti-prostitution law went into force, that such establishments began adding sex to the menu. Read more

Tour buses make special stops in Tokyo red-light district

Police raids on illegally operating gambling dens are not unusual in Tokyo’s entertainment quarter of Kabukicho, but Friday (July 3) goes behind the scenes to witness arrests carried out with a very special conclusion.

One early morning in May a crowd had gathered beneath a bank of neon lights to snap photos of suspects being hauled out of a basement pachinko-slot club called Rainbow. The establishment was operating without a license and using sixty-seven “No. 4-Yon-Goh-Ki” machines, which were banned in 2007 through a modification to the Law Regulating Adult Entertainment Businesses. Seventeen customers and five employees were arrested.

“This type of machine allows you to win 200,000 to 300,000 yen in one shot, which encourages people to form long lines outside the parlor before the door opens,” says a writer who follows the pachinko underworld. “One coin is usually exchanged at 20 yen, but this parlor exchanged at a rate between 40 and 100 yen. Depending on the outlay, one could win 500,000 to 1,000,000 yen in a day. Needless to say, the parlor could also manipulate the machine to result in loses of similar amounts as well.” Read more

How do I love thee? Let me count the thrusts

In our previous contribution we introduced a high-priced cyber-wanking gizmo called the SOMCON. Another sex aid being sold online, as reported in Nikkan Gendai (June 24), is the Sex Counter.

Fitted onto the phallus, the device features a motion sensor and digital readout. Functioning according to the same principle as a pedometer, the LCD display advances by one digit with each thrust of the hips.

Nikkan Gendai’s reviewer sees all kinds of potential for this puerile plastic purple penometer as a practical implement for keeping count of conjugal performances.

“You can encourage her by saying, ‘This time let’s shoot for a new record,’” smirks a 46-year-old salaryman. “Thanks to the Sex Counter the elapsed time of our intercourse keeps getting longer.” Read more

Punchy posters encourage Tokyo subway etiquette

TOKYO – It doesn’t take a genius to realize that public spaces in Japan are filled with numerous audible and visual reminders about the importance of maintaining personal decorum. Over the past year, some of the catchiest have been the “manner posters,” by graphic artist Bunpei Yorifuji, that appear in the stations and carriages that serve the nine lines of the Tokyo Metro subway system.

Since April of last year, the 35-year-old designer has produced a simple yellow-and-black image each month urging subway travelers to refrain from such generally discomfiting activities as applying makeup, falling down drunk, talking on mobile phones, occupying priority seats for the elderly, infirm or pregnant women or rushing to board as the doors are closing.

“People move at a fast pace through the subway system,” explains Yorifuji as he puffs on a cigarette and reclines on a sofa at Bunpei Ginza, a nine-person operation occupying a fifth-floor office near the Kabuki-za theater in Chuo Ward. “So for the poster to be effective, it needs to have a catchy title, one that can be understood in a second, and contain an illustration that is easy to recognize.” Read more

Look ma, no hands: Japanese cyber wanker makes debut

There was a young man from Racine,

Who invented a f***ing machine.

Concave or convex,

It would fit either sex

And was perfectly easy to clean.

Thanks to the wonders of modern electronics, self-abuse has truly come a long way.

Weekly Playboy (July 6) reports an outfit named SunWorld Inc. has developed what might be described as the ultimate masturbation machine. This amazing device, sold as an ensemble called SOMCON, requires neither physical exertion nor imagination on the part of the practitioner, as both are provided. Read more

Love thy neighbor — stealthfully

“The other day, a neighbor who my husband and I have known for about 20 years dropped by our place for a drink,” writes an anonymous female contributor in the June issue of Takeshobo’s Ai no Taiken Special Deluxe, as introduced in Shukan Bunshun (June 25).

“That day my husband drank too much and passed out. The neighbor and I continued drinking and our conversation turned to sex, such as how many times a week we did it with our partners and more recently how we hadn’t done it for a while.

“Anyway, we began playing footsie under the table. As my husband emitted snores just a few meters away, I was surprised when he suddenly started to finger my crotch. I guess the fact that it was the finger of someone other than my husband was what really turned me on. Read more

Evening tabloid reverts to smut content, holds ‘funeral’ for clean edition

Evening tabloid Naigai Times has reversed a measure put in place by a new management team that removed adult content from its paper — a move reported here on April 13 — and will now resume such coverage, says news site J-cast (June 3).

On the first of this month, the tabloid hosted an unconventional funeral that effectively buried its non-smut, or clean, mandate, with its new intent being to bring back “a paper that is a pleasure to read.”

Real estate firm Arms International purchased Naigai Times in November. The goal of the new ownership was to create a media outlet “like the Nikkei newspaper.” It subsequently pulled all of the paper’s adult coverage — which might have included articles pertaining to gentlemen’s clubs and adult video news — starting from April 6. This coincided with the appointment of new management from the beginning of the fiscal year. Read more

SM excesses lead to tragic consequences

One of the growing pangs of gender equality in the workplace was that quite a few male employees didn’t take kindly to being browbeaten by bossy bitches. In fact they found it humiliating.

In the short term, reports Nikkan Gendai (June 13), that was good news indeed for SM establishments like Itaburi Club, a shop that opened for business in Tokyo’s Gotanda district in January 1995.

The club charged 25,000 yen for a 60-minute session in which male customers could dole out “punishment” to M-jo, as females assuming the role of masochist are termed.

With so many stressed-out salarymen sorely needing to work off steam from their workplace, business boomed. Read more

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