Tokyo’s dirty old men need love too

About five or six years ago, a male pensioner, while seated in a hospital waiting room to see the doctor, was informed by a fellow retired patient about a third-tier, cheapo erotic bathhouse in Tokyo’s Yoshiwara district where the cost of admission ran only 11,000 yen. He promptly began patronizing it, and never fails to pay a visit every other month after his pension payment arrives at his bank.

Now, reports the writer of the series “Heisei soap-gai onna to kane sugoi hanashi” (Fantastic tales of women and money at Heisei-era soaplands) in Nikkan Gendai (Dec. 21), it’s become quite common for elderly men to drop into Yoshiwara for some tender, loving care.

“Mostly they just talk, complaining to me about stuff like family spats with their sons and daughters in law,” says “Ms. A,” a 35-year-old masseuse at a low-priced soapland. “While they’re pouring out their woes about how their bitchy daughter in law won’t speak to them, they squeeze my hand.

“As far as sex goes, they might stroke my butt for a while. Then when the time’s up they’ll smile on the way out, saying ‘See you two months from now.'”

So it would seem that for a majority of seniors who drop by, getting off with a gal is not the main objective of their visit. It’s at least as important to find someone who will lend a sympathetic ear.

As incredible as it may seem, Ms. A says one of her regulars is a 96-year-old codger who drops by once a month on his way home from the hospital.

This sexually oriented senior citizen apparently finds euphoric satisfaction just by stretching out on the massage table and running his wrinkled, liver-spotted digits over A’s epidermis.

Well, there’s nothing like a young chicken to put the spring back in one’s old bone(s). And a lady in her mid-30s is “young,” right? Well, she certainly is young — to a naughty nonagenarian, winks Nikkan Gendai. (K.S.)

Source: “Nenkin shikyubi ni yatte kuru koreisha no mokuteki,” Nikkan Gendai (Dec. 21, page 28)

Note: Brief extracts from Japanese vernacular media in the public domain that appear here were translated and summarized under the principle of “fair use.” Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy of the translations. However, we are not responsible for the veracity of their contents. The activities of individuals described herein should not be construed as “typical” behavior of Japanese people nor reflect the intention to portray the country in a negative manner. Our sole aim is to provide examples of various types of reading matter enjoyed by Japanese.