During the bubble era, the tabloid says, it was not unusual for allowances given to mistresses to be roughly 200,000 yen per encounter or 1 million yen a month.
A-san, a 42-year-old sales rep working at a major manufacturing company, has discovered a much more reasonable option. For a year, he has been seeing an executive secretary, 24, who he met at a club designed for singles.
The initial outlay for registration is 50,000 yen but after that expenses are minimal. “The only money I pay to her is 5,000 yen per meeting for car money,” he says. “The club has a policy that makes the male member pay his female date this transportation fee as a minimum. But this girl is telling me that ‘that’s the only allowance I seek.'”
Indeed, a 5,000-yen mistress.
Shukan Post surmises that even if such a pair were to meet four times a month, the total would come to only 20,000 yen — the perfect price range for a salaryman in these tumultuous economic times.
A-san continues: “I am not the only one receiving the benefits of a 5,000-yen mistress. A girl who used to charge 20,000 yen reduced her rate to 10,000 yen as the number of her encounters with a particular guy increased, and eventually it got down to just him paying for dinner. I feel that many girls are looking for some salvation in sex.”
These types of ladies, described as nikushoku-kei, or colloquially translated to mean aggressive, are flowing into singles clubs of this sort. Piroko Sakuragi, a columnist with knowledge of female psychology, agrees. “Mistress clubs used to attract women who would do it for money,” she says. “Nowadays, it is a place for women seeking sex with men who provide a sense of safety. Plus, an allowance of some sort is not a bad idea. She is more than a mistress, yet less than a friend with benefits. That is the type of relationship that these women find comfortable.” (K.N.)
Source: “Nikushoku-kei jyoshi no taito de ‘O-teate-souba’ daibouraku! 5,000yen Aiji Taiken kokuhaku” Shukan Post (Jan. 15, page 43)
