In No. Seven of 10 tidbits termed “the truth behind the rumors of the sex business,” Spa! (Oct. 5) takes a slow boat to a rural island where something fishy is definitely going on. The weekly tabloid calls it “Island W,” notes it is about seven kilometers in circumference, and adds it is situated within the confines of a national park. The island is accessed by a small ferry, at a one-way fare of 150 yen.
Its main attraction are an estimated 200 prostitutes who openly work out of snack clubs.
“To get there, you take a train about two hours from a certain big city, and then it’s about 20 minutes by taxi from the station to the boat landing,” says a local cab driver. “Japanese women are working on the island, but they’re not so young…These days, most of the women are Thai.”
The ferry sails all of 400 meters from the mainland. Upon disembarking at the wharf, a middle-aged woman meeting the boat asks the reporter, “Hey sonny, have you decided where you’ll be staying?”
The woman explains the two choices. A 60-minute romp costs 20,000 yen. Those desiring an all-nighter can procure the services of a lady for the hours of 11:00 p.m. to 7 a.m, for an outlay of 40,000 yen.
Spa’s reporter allowed the procuress to guide him to a snack club where he encountered two Japanese women in their late 30s and six Thai females in their 20s. Unimpressed with the merchandise, he dismissed the procuress with a wave and set off to explore the offerings on his own.
At a second shop, he found three working girls, including one, a Thai-Japanese hybrid with a pixyish face, and two Thais.
Curious to know if it was true what they say about Pixie, he propositioned her, only to be told that she had already been booked for the overnight shift.
“But she’s available right now for a quickie!” he was urged by the proprietor.
It turned out that the shop’s other two girls were also booked until morning. Apparently the only way to ensure overnight company is to make arrangements with a procuress immediately upon arrival.
His options limited, the reporter settled on an hour-long romp with a 25-year-old Thai woman, who escorted him from the snack to a small apartment just behind the snack club.
“She gave off a spicy musk,” he writes. “She told me she’d previously worked at a farm-related job in the Kanto area, but was dissatisfied with the low wages and fled to the island.
“Her tale of woe took all the lust out of me, and I wound up checking into a nearby inn. I decided to spend the night alone.”
Source: “Ima ni nokoru ryugujo. Chizu ni noranai ‘mitto’ to wa?” Spa! (Oct. 5, page 23)
