Press "Enter" to skip to content

Tokyo’s ‘Goldilocks’ sex businesses ‘just right’ for today’s working woman

Spa! March 17
Spa! March 17

For potential female employees in Japan’s extensive and multi-layered fuzoku sex trade, there is a conundrum unfolding.

A girl considering taking up employment at a dirt-cheap “delivery health” out-call joint may be faced with unruly customers who make unreasonable requests. Meanwhile, at a high-end hostess club the emphasis on over-the-top hospitality could prove to be overwhelming.

What to do?

Well, reports Spa! (March 17) in a multi-page special on the commercial sex trade in Tokyo, many can turn to middle-of-the-road establishments, which operate like something out of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”

Prices at Tokyo Club Essence, located in Tokyo’s Kabukicho red-light district of Shinjuku Ward, begin at a reasonable 19,000 yen for the first 60 minutes.

“Since the price is neither too high nor too cheap, the club attracts a lot of average customers,” says employee Reina, 18, in describing the “just right” environment. “This provides peace of mind.”

Options at Tokyo Club Essence, which dispatches its female employees to waiting customers, include the use of a vibrator (2,000 yen) and watch the employee masturbate (3,000 yen). Reina is not troubled by such requests; she does, however, have a problem with rich customers.

“From previous experience, those with a lot of money want to do hard-core stuff, such as choking my neck or other types of sexual antics that are just so weird,” she says.

On the contrary, patrons at low-end joints will push for full sex when a mere blow-job is the agreed upon service. “As a means of protecting themselves, many shops are targeting average customers,” she says.

A graphic provided in the magazine shows that the going rate for a hand-job in Tokyo ranges between 2,000 and 4,000 yen. At the upper end, a visit to an elite soapland for full sex could run up to 65,000 yen for 120 minutes of foamy fun.

Reina of Tokyo Club Essence
Reina of Tokyo Club Essence

Reina is happy to be somewhere in the middle. “At a high-end hostess club, the hourly wages are appealing,” she says. “But I do not have a special skill that makes me stand out, which is important. I am average.”

Perhaps “average” but Reina still earns roughly 900,000 yen per month working five days a week at Tokyo Club Essence.

With no hobbies to speak of, Reina also works in her free time.

“But it is not as if I don’t have dreams or goals,” she says. “Since the girls aren’t good at making friends at this shop, we work indifferently. But I sort of like that kind of dry feeling.”

While administering a blow-job, for example, Reina often finds herself distracted, and begins pondering her current situation and future.

“Sometimes I’ll go out with a girlfriend from another shop for a meal to discuss our problems,” she says. “We quarrel about how we can’t go on like this forever. We wonder when we are going to get married, have kids…”

In other words, wouldn’t a “normal life” be nice. For now, though, 900,000 yen per month is “just right.”

Source: “Ni kyoku-ka suru [SEX] sangyo no tadashii aruki-kata,” Spa! (March 17, pages 54-57)