When it rains, as the saying goes, it pours. Not only are proper companies backing out of naitei (informal agreements) to hire university grads from this coming April: Due to the repercussions of the financial meltdown, such sex services as fashion health emporiums and deri heru (“delivery health,” i.e., out-call sex) services, are also hurting so badly they’re cutting back on recruitment.
“One thing that owners of sex shops seem to have in common is a love of gambling,” the employee at one such shop confides to Nikkan Gendai (Dec. 17). “They aren’t just satisfied with buying stocks in companies — they also dabble in commodities trading and investment funds in third-world countries, with high-risk high return. When they do well, they plow their profits back into the business.”
But…well, you can imagine the downside. And the flow of customers at their shops has also dried up, which means many are operating deeply in the red. Business has been hurting so badly that at many shops the girls’ cut of the service charges, traditionally 60 percent, has been reduced to 40 percent.
“Massage parlors these days have been interviewing high school girls in their senior year while still in their home towns. They do it via the Internet, using a webcam,” says Yukio Kamimura, a writer who covers the sex trade. “When the girls come up to Tokyo from the countryside to matriculate at universities, they look for lucrative jobs to reduce the financial burden on their parents back home. The girls who make the grade might receive a stipend in the form of ‘preparation money’ — as much as 100,000 yen — and in some cases the sex shop will also agree to pay their travel expenses and even apartment rent, if the girls sign up with them.”
Unfortunately, Kamimura continues, because of the shortfall from their various investments, sex shop owners can no longer afford such acts of generosity, and hence they have cut back drastically on hiring.
“Unlike the students who feel they’ve been stabbed in the back by companies that promised to hire them, girls who work at sex jobs have no means of protesting” says Kamimura.
Without the promise of a lucrative part-time job in the big city, these gals may be left with no choice but to bide their time down home on the farm.
Source: “Daigakusei dake de wa nai: fuzokujo no naijo torikeshi mo hajimatta,” Nikkan Gendai (Dec. 17, page 12)
