What’s the latest news from the commercial sex business? Only a magazine like Spa! (Dec. 16) could touch on such a topic with a headline like “Nookie-pedia 2008.” Well actually it’s “Nuki-pedia,” the term nuki being a slang term akin to “getting off.”
Spa! introduces three shops it says represent the direction the business will be taking in 2009. One is a hote heru, a neologism made from “hotel” and “health.” One, the Ritz in Ikebukuro, is a deri heru (out-call sex) services that allows the customer to “date” the sex worker in a more congenial venue such as a restaurant or karaoke shop before escorting them to a hotel. Prices begin from 25,000 yen for 120 minutes.
“Peach Boys,” another hote heru in Tokyo’s Gotanda district features two girls who energetically suck a man’s nipples — among other things — in tandem. Price is 17,000 for 50 minutes. And for those with a swimsuit and sports costume fetish, the Suku-ran-buru “image club” in Kabukicho allows customers to first pore over its Web site and then preselect from a list of 48 varieties of swimwear. I didn’t believe it either until I checked it out here: http://www.moe-school.com/cos/index.html
“The most impressive thing these days would be the so-called ‘girls’ bars,’ which have been increasing nationwide, to the extent that there are shops in Shinjuku offering all you can drink for 2,000 yen,” says Akira Ikoma, editor of Ore no Tabi (My Journey), a magazine that complies data on the sex business submitted from reporters all round Japan.
“The cabaret club business continues to head towards collapse,” Ikoma continues. “When that happens, where will all those club hostesses go? To the only place they can, sex businesses.”
As one example, he points out that Kakuebi, a soapland (erotic bathhouse) in west Tokyo’s Kichijoji district, charges a “price-busting” 17,000 yen for a 60-minute course, with services dispensed by top-quality dames. Another soapland, Love and Peace, in Omiya City’s Kita Ginza district, charges just 15,000 for a full course — and the course, of course, includes intercourse.
Thanks to their newly affordable rates and high-quality masseuses, says Ikoma, soaplands appear to be making a comeback in Japan’s regional cities as well.
For those content with just dropping in for some in-and-out, Sakura-gumi, a “pink salon” near the north exit of JR Koenji Station, provides a satisfying romp for just 6,000 yen.
“I went last summer when I was all sweaty,” Ikoma recalls. “The girls, who are the sort of quality babes you usually find working in cabaret clubs, don’t let your sweat get in the way of their work. I was deeply touched!”
Ikoma thinks prices for pink services will continue to decline in the year ahead.
“The trend is toward developing a new service paradigm offering cheaper fun over a shorter duration,” he says. “The places that succeed will be those that differentiate themselves by focusing on specific customer targets.”
Source: “2009, hitto ga yoso sarereu shinkijuku fuzoku,” Spa! (Dec. 16, page 73)
