I saw that Pink Box book. It was really very weird. For any fantasy that a Japanese man might ever have there is a club, and even for the ones he didn’t yet know he had.

I swear Im no troll. Im just sharing my opinions on this. If Im wrong - please dont take offence, just let me know why you feel differently.

Ok - I dont think its the sex industry that should be to blame. Maybe I misinterpreted what I read, but a woman should be able to work in the sex industry without penalty.

These places are obviously legal, right?

Well all things being equal - (equal access to education, lending, employment, and political equality)

If a woman wants to work in the sex industry, I do not see a problem with it. Nor does it give a guy a right to harm other women or the sex worker because of her job.

If a man cant indulge in a paid fantasy without exercising self control during and after, then the man is at fault, and society at large for nearly condoning it.

"f feeling up strange women as if they are your property is an act popular enough to merit its own fetish clubs, is it any wonder that over 60 percent of Japanese women in their 20s and 30s have been groped on the subway? Or that there's a demand for women-only subway cars?"

No - its no wonder. But it doesnt make it right. There are times I feel like pulling out an AK and pumping rounds into the idiot drivers I have to deal with daily. I refrain from doing it.

I fantasize about doing it. I even enter virtual worlds and pump rounds into anything that moves, just to get my jollies.

But I dont dare cross that line in reality.

Increase punishment, increase awareness, increase accountability.

Scilian, I think we're sort of saying the same thing but saying it differently. None of us (or almost none of us) here has any problem, per se, with a woman choosing this as her occupation. I certainly don't "judge" anyone for this sort of work -- if it's legitimately and genuinely what she wants to do, who am I to judge?

The problem is that the simple act of having these fantasies has social consequences. And being allowed to act on them heightens the social consequences. It's kind of like a modified Heisenberg uncertainty principle -- you can't engage these fantasies without changing something about yourself.

The problem is that these sorts of fantasies disproportionately exist w/r/t women. Women are seen as SEX itself in many ways, and whoever we're talking about -- the industry, the customers, even to some extent the workers (though they're so far at the bottom of the Blame Totem Pole as to potentially and plausibly not even be on it) -- has an obligation not to allow his or her actions to contribute to social diminution of women's status. These fantasies don't occur in a vacuum. They occur, rather, against a backdrop of disrespect for women. For many of the men who participate in these fantasies, if they had the respect for women that would enable them not to act out in public, they would have the respect not to WANT to act out. Obviously these are matters of degree, and there are creeps out there who sometimes manage to keep their creepiness to themselves -- but on some level, the simple wanting to touch a complete stranger, as though you mentally envision yourself as somehow being ENTITLED to her -- is ITSELF problematic.

Thanks law fairy. I see your point of view clearly.

The big question on my mind now - is how to address the problem.

I do not see male strippers worried about walking home late at night.

I also have never heard of a handicapped, disfigured male becoming a sexual focus for dominating women to abuse.

I also do not see women trying to drug men to have gang rapes behind closed doors.

I guess, since I was raised a southern woman, I never really care to question the sexual differences between men and women.

Would it be sexist of me to say many men have truly evil sexual issues?

Would be sexist to say men couldnt be any more different then women sexually? I want to understand and advance feminism in my own life, but I dont want to be sexist about it.

Why is it men are so different sexually then women?

Why the hell is it accepted that boys will be boys?

maybe an emotional day for me? I dont know.

But I also do see an entire nation of women conspiring to demean men or take vantage points against mens' sexuality.

Still learning, thanks for taking your time to write up your view. I was missing a big point.

I meant to say
"But I also DONT see an entire nation of women conspiring to demean men or take vantage points against mens' sexuality."

"...the simple act of having these fantasies..."

Really? Are you advocating thought legislation? And I thought the forced labor movement was prescriptive...

I remember when I was a sophomore in college and I took a Japanese class our female teacher was telling us about how (and this was five years ago) that women who rode the subway would often get into the train with their hands in place and cover their breasts or groin in order to protect themselves against these gropers, because once you're in the train you can't move to defend yourself. (sometimes the gropers would have their hands at the ready also, especially to feel butt/groin)

We were all shocked and she couldn't explain to us why there weren't better laws against this, it was mostly up to the women to "protect" themselves. Usually they are so packed in the women weren't sure of who was groping them.

As for the sex clubs their either 1) capitalizing on a trend they know they can make money off of, or 2) giving these men a "means" of acting out their fantasies so that they don't do it in public. Why hassle with a girl possibly outing you as a pervert when you just pop off $50 and grope all you want?

Not that that's a good solution, but if they're still groping on the train then you could also call them a cheap bastard as well as a pervert.

Really? Are you advocating thought legislation? And I thought the forced labor movement was prescriptive...

Have y'all ever noticed that it's impossible to talk about right/wrong or good/bad without somebody immediately accusing you of wanting to make whatever it is illegal? As if we can't even discuss these issues unless we want to make laws against them.

So, I'm wondering. Is it a problem with abstract moral thought that these folks are having, or is it something else?

"The problem is that the simple act of having these fantasies has social consequences."

I too find this statement problematic. Just because you have a certain fantasy doesn't mean there's necessarily something wrong with you. There are people who have rape fantasies, abuse fantasies, and so on - but would NEVER desire to rape or be raped, abuse or be abused. The fantasy itself isn't to blame.

Also, I don't think a Hollaback Tokyo thing would fly in that culture. The culture tends to "save face" - keep it inside, don't embarrass anyone, etc.

Since when is hyperbole "abstract moral thought"? I don't accept your authority to decide which fantasies are "right/wrong" or "good/bad". Of course we can discuss issues, but just as actions have consequences, words have meaning.

But apparently posters on Feministing aren't allowed to have opinions. I don't believe (and she can correct me if I'm speaking out of turn) that The Law Fairy necessarily stated that everyone had to agree with her, or that she would do anything legally to enforce her opinion. She simply stated that fantasies can have societal consequences. A fair opinion, and one which I don't necessarily think is wrong.

The issue for discussion then becomes whether or not those consequences are good or bad, and whether or not individuals have a responsibility born from that.

No where in any of that is a call for anything being made illegal, and the whole concept involves reams and reams of abstract moral thought.

Also, I don't think a Hollaback Tokyo thing would fly in that culture. The culture tends to "save face" - keep it inside, don't embarrass anyone, etc.

Tiara, maybe this means that, if we could get women to participate, Hollaback would be most effective in a culture like Japan's. If you look at the photos on the HollabackNYC website, all too many of these American dudes are grinning and excited to have their photos snapped.

She also backed up her statement that fantasies have social consequences by talking about it at length. In case you missed it, it's the big paragraph starting with The problem is that these sorts of fantasies disproportionately exist w/r/t women. .

She never once claims that we should police people's thoughts or pass legislation about fantasise. In fact, she goes on at length about exactly what she means by fantasy having social consequences. It's the part that continues on through: These fantasies don't occur in a vacuum. They occur, rather, against a backdrop of disrespect for women. For many of the men who participate in these fantasies, if they had the respect for women that would enable them not to act out in public, they would have the respect not to WANT to act out. Obviously these are matters of degree, and there are creeps out there who sometimes manage to keep their creepiness to themselves -- but on some level, the simple wanting to touch a complete stranger, as though you mentally envision yourself as somehow being ENTITLED to her -- is ITSELF problematic.

Boy, oh boy. 60%?

That makes me so happy that Chiyoko Gueler and friends are building IMPACT chapters in Osaka & Tokyo.

Creepy.

I'm sorry if my opinion is so offensive, but I still maintain that fantasy is sacrosanct. You can have any opinion you like, and I can have any fantasy I like. Am I being impolite here? I don't imagine the post I was responding to was advocating legislation, but I found the connotations suggestive.

Since when is hyperbole "abstract moral thought"?

Um, try "almost always." What, you think hyperbole is science?

I don't accept your authority to decide which fantasies are "right/wrong" or "good/bad".

And I don't accept your authority to tell me what opinions I can or can't have.

Tell me Chris, are you hypocritical on purpose, or is it just intellectual laziness?

Kimmy and Roymac, thanks for understanding what I was saying. For the record, I think education is the answer to most of these problems. Which is exactly what I'm doing, in my own small way, here.

Chris, fantasies are different from opinions. On some level, these sorts of fantasies involve depersonifying other persons. This is troubling enough on its own, but at least if it's done with relative equality no one PARTICULARLY suffers (if we're both disrespecting each other, on some level, no harm, no foul). It's ESPECIALLY troubling when it's done disproportionately to a particular group (e.g., women). One group is depersonified, on the whole, to a greater extent than is every other group. This is a very real problem that we have to figure out how to deal with, and this is why feminists are troubled by things like this.

Opinions are different -- when ACTED on, opinions can be damaging, and if spoken by someone you give a crap about, they can be hurtful. But opinions, standing alone, generally don't depersonify people. So there is a different -- and, no, I'm not proposing legislation based on this difference, but it's important to understand that it exists.

You can have any opinion you like, and I can have any fantasy I like.

Sure, anyone can have any opinion that they want- but that doesn't mean that there aren't consequences to having certain opinions, and it's dishonest to claim otherwise.

If you have the opinion that a particular group of people are inferior to your own group, for example, it can very easily lead to your treating that group differently than you treat members of your own group.
One can argue that having racist, sexist, homophobic opinions doesn't actually harm anyone, but most opinions are more than just opinions- they're part of behavior and part of who we are.

The argument "well, it's an opinion, so it's beyond criticism" is a non-argument. That something is an opinion doesn't put it beyond criticism. If you've got the opinion that homosexuals or women are somehow below or less important than heterosexuals or men, I'm going to take issue with that, and I'm going to criticize it. You're entitled to the opinion, and I'm entitled to point out what a dangerous, damaging, idiotic opinion it is.

In other words, some opinions are better than others.

I know that's not a popular view in some circles, but there it is.

Hey Roy--feeling jetlagged? ;)

/private joke

I'm feeling many things, but jetlag is definitely one of them.

It's far, but, thank gods, not that far. =D

Curses!
That, of course, should read "is definitely not one of them."

Apparently, though, "too tired to type properly" is.

Ann wrote: "Apparently it's already difficult for some Japanese dudes to understand that women's bodies don't exist for their groping pleasure, and I can't imagine that frequenting the fetish club makes them get the message." I disagree entirely. I expect that the men who go to the fetish clubs do so specifically because they do understand that, in the real world, they're are not allowed to feel up whomever they would like. It is possible to engage in fantasy without it taking over one's life and making one act inappropriately in public.

Justin: Thank you! That was what I was trying to say.

Ann: It's getting the women to participate that would be the problem. I've been on women-only carriages where a man stepped in (a sketchy man at that) and no one did anything because they don't want to draw attention to themselves. Something like Hollaback may get them more scorn than support.

1. You know what concept I can't fucking understand? That places like this should exist because it keeps all the pervs from groping/abusing/harrassing "real" women in "reality." Are sex workers not real women? We don't count? We should be subjected to threatening behavior so that more socially privileged women don't have to deal with it? Even many feminists seem to use this arguement.

Sex workers are not responsible for absorbing every fetish and impulse that men have in order to preserve the dignity and safety of the other "innocent" "good" women. Sorry.

Which brings me to another point: People defend things like sex clubs and porn as "fantasy." But ACTUAL WOMEN, HUMAN BEINGS are involved. The girls on the train are not mannequins or dolls or pictures. Neither are the women in porn. When a man has a "fantasy," a real woman satasfies it. (Exceptions include animated porn, erotic literature, etc)

Thoughts cannot be policed. But a man paying to exploit a woman is no longer a thought, it is the woman's very real experience.

To reiterate and perhaps embellish on what has already been said:

I think people's thoughts are policed in an informal sense everyday.
I think when I am told daily to get off my healthy normal-sized ass and go throw up till my clothes hang off me like a "celeb's", that my thoughts are policed.
I think when I study for an exam I have policed thoughts on a specific subject matter.
I think when a father takes his son to a boob-bar, both their thoughts are policed.

I think enough of any message will police one's thoughts (even if someone sees their thoughts as "opening" their mind is that opening closing something else off?)

It's a branch of conditioning and those who wax poetic about fantasy and illusory sex are simply policing their own thoughts from traveling into the realm that sex work involves people or more that real sex involves consent.

THANK YOU for sharing the link to Mr.My-Penis-Should-Fall-Off; it made my night to read about this woman's assertiveness (don't get me wrong, I wish we didn't have to deal with these guys at all) and then to switch from firefox to explorer and see that there actually is a picture of the guy! Brilliant. Kudos to Cathy for her quick thinking and for standing up for herself.

alice and pisquari,

Thank you so much for your comments. You put into words some of the thoughts I haven't been able to verbalize yet.

Men should condemn against sexism whenever they see it like Roymac did here. Men's collective masculinity goes UP a notch when they condemn sexism.

condemn sexism -- sorry.

Silly donna, you typed it right the first time.

alice, I completely agree. If anyone expects sex workers to just "absorb" society's fetishes, how far does it end up going? That's the kind of thinking that allows people to shrug it off when sex workers are attacked, raped, and killed, because it's basically just seen as a workplace hazard. And that's appalling.

I have lived in Japan for one year, and I have to say I hear a lot of stories about it that don't seem very true, may be contradictory, and also have some exaggeration attached. I have never heard of or seen a woman groped on a train, bus, or public space of any sort (including concerts, nightclubs or the like) since I came here, except that my partner knows an English teacher who has had other women feel her breasts without asking because they are large. Porn in this country is everywhere, and Japan is generally a place where porn is easy to access and views of sex are quite different. When I told my friends that Australia does not have love hotels, for example, their first question was "where do high school students have sex?"

The female only train carriages might seem like a sign of some kind of hugely sexist society, but it needs to be remembered that most cafes in Japan and many bars do not have mens toilets - they have womens and mixed sex toilets. Conversely, the genders often segregate by their own choice in this country, and I think there might be a common view amongst some men and women that women and men do not need to mix in public, or at least lack of concern about facilities which encourage this segregation. Finally, many of the stories we in the west hear about transport and housing in this country are relics of the 80s. The commonly held idea that tokyo subway trains are so crowded that special men exist to pack passengers in tightly is an example of this sort of myth.

Also, although according to the cited study 60% of women have been groped, Japan has a very low rate of rape, women walk alone at night without fear, and can wear whatever they want when they do so. The best example I can cite of this from my own experience is watching a woman in a mini skirt and high heels walking through a crowd of reclining homeless men at midnight in an otherwise empty underground station in Hiroshima. In Australia or England that woman would have retraced her steps and walked by a different route.

Finally I would be very suspicious about the idea that these types of clubs might "teach" men that women are there for their groping pleasure. The low rates of rape suggest to me that this is unlikely. This is a country which is also said to have a lot of rape porn, despite these low rates. It also is possible here to buy cartoons of child porn in the newsagency (I have seen this with my own eyes), but as far as I know child abuse here is no worse than anywhere else. The reality is probably that neither the "porn/sex clubs cause sex crime" or "porn/sex clubs defuse sex crime" types of arguments are true. I would suspect that this fetish has existed for a long time in this country, and the relatively permissive attitude towards prostitution, coupled with improved womens rights and female-only carriages, means it has become profitable for clubs to opeen which cater to this.

I read an entry by someone recently who insisted that Japan wasn't a sexist culture - it just had strictly defined sex roles that everyone agreed to participate in.

My head *still* hurts.

I'm not sure what that's meant to mean, Anna - as far as I can tell every country is sexist. I think the problem lies in comparing countries like, say, Australia and Japan, or Iran and Nigeria. It's hard to say which one comes out best under such circumstances. Australia, for example, probably has better work opportunities than Japan; but Japan has much greater public safety. I think one's opinion of these things depends on what one values more.

I also just did a search in Japanese on these "groper-fetish" bars, and they seem to be just a service as part of a standard brothel. My Japanese is pretty bad though, so I am probably wrong.

I lived in Japan when I was in high school. We took the trains into Tokyo quite a bit. We [my female friends and I] were groped every single time. The men would use bumps and jostles the train makes to move into our space and "innocently" place their hands on our buttocks, thighs or even breasts.

We began our own defense against this, using the same bumps and jostles, we'd slam into the pervs and send them flying across the train. Juvenile, yes... but we were juveniles at the time.

Thinking about it, I'd probably still do the same thing, though.

Flashheart: The problem isn't one of deciding "what country is more sexist" it's "is this sexist?"

Sexism is a problem, and it doesn't really matter if one country can claim to be more or less sexist than some other.

I don't want to get into some kind of debate about people's experiences, but your experience with Japan is quite different from many of the people I know who've gone. I mean, take your comment about Love Hotels- yeah, high school kids may use them, too, but what I've heard is that they're frequently used for prostitution. There is, I've been told, a strong connection between Love Hotels and Kogal culture/enjo kosai (I know that one does not equal the other), which, personally, I find very troubling.

That Japan has a lower rape-rate than some other places doesn't necessarily mean that things like these pervert trains don't have an effect on society. Again, I point to the whole enjo kosai issue- something that I personally find pretty troubling.

It's certainly true that Japan has an incredibly low rape rate, but these numbers may be attributed to higher conviction rates (around 95% per reported incident, I believe), different definitions of rape (rape, in Japan, is defined rather strictly as penetration of a female's geneitals by a penis. No vaginal penetration? Not a rape), better rape reporting (in 1983, a special rape investigation unit was established with the specific purpose of having an organization sensitive to the trauma of rape, and to help women), better sex education that includes information on rape prevention and reporting (manditory from K through 12), or any number of other concerns/issues.

That there is a lower rape rate does not mean that sexism doesn't exist- rape is hardly the only indication of sexism. It may just mean that sexism takes different forms.

“I think the problem lies in comparing countries like, say, Australia and Japan, or Iran and Nigeria.�
Well Flashheart, I don’t know about Iran and Nigeria, but as far as Iran and Japan….
I guess that Japan doesn’t have sexist laws (or none that I know of) where as Iran has plenty of them, but the laws are very much behind. You might be interested to know – and no I am not presenting this as scientific evidence, just something to make a note of: In the 80’s hundreds (maybe thousands, I am not sure) of Iranian men went to Japan to seek jobs, a few of them married Japanese women, most of them didn’t. But many came back with this notion of ideal Japanese wife that wasn’t bitchy, clingy and controlling like the Iranian wife. Growing up in Iran, most of what I learned about Japanese culture was through various Japanese soup operas, which were deemed appropriate for Iranian TV, because the women in them were good role models for Iranian women, hard working obedient, and respectful of mail authority.

Also: Thank you, donna.

I usually think of it as our collective humanity, but I agree with you- we (men) need to stand against sexism, too.

Men and whites should condemn sexism and racism whenever they see it. Progressives will help each other win for everybody for all time. Collective masculinity will go up a notch, real masculinity that's inclusive not traditional masculinity that (mostly) Republicans espouse.

When men see trolls on feminist blogs they should condemn whatever sexism they see instead of watching women deal with it because men almost always listen to other men in these situations. Their statements have a much greater impact than ten women's.

When men see trolls on feminist blogs they should condemn whatever sexism they see instead of watching women deal with it because men almost always listen to other men in these situations. Their statements have a much greater impact than ten women's.

i think this is very true. it shouldn't be true, and the fact that it's true is a problem all on its own-- men's opinions SHOULDN'T matter more, especially when it comes to women's issues. so i definitely agree that men should condemn sexism. but anytime that they manage to illicit an apology or a concession, they should point out that they shouldn't have had to say anything, or if women have also been pointing it out, they should say that it shouldn't have taken a man to change their mind.

(oops! i meant "elicit" not illicit!!!)

illicit indeed-e on this thread! what men and whites say about women's and nonwhite issues are perceived as unbiased therefore credible which of course is bullshit.

hehe. freudian slip :)

alicepaul: Brava!!

roymacIII: You rock!

Thanks Malaika, but, really, doublefantasy has it exactly right.

Honestly, I get sort of uncomfortable about being praised for being a feminist. Being a feminist isn't something that I should be getting complimented on. The fact that I, or any other guy, speaks up against sexism means that we're acting like minimally decent human beings. That's not really worthy of praise compared to the fantastic work that people like Jessica, Samhita, Vanessa, Ann, et al. are doing. In fact, it's kind of less worthy, since the social sanction against my speaking up is so minimal. At worst, I get accused of "co-opting political views for easy sex." Some of the things I've seen said about women who are openly feminist make me cringe.

I don't know. I'm tired, and stressed, and I have a hard time accepting praise anyway, so maybe I'm just being weird. Maybe I should be saying "thank you"?

Thank you.

Men should be praised not for being feminists as much as for each incident they speak out against. There should be a lot more men doing it just because it's the right thing to do.

Also, roy, while your modesty is completely appropriate--you're absolutely right, men shouldn't get cookies for being decent human beings--as a feminist woman, one is often brought face to face with the many ways that men devalue women, and it's always so heartening to run into you or Tom or my stepfather and be reminded that men with consciences and senses of justice are out there supporting us.

The sex worker industry provides a bellweather for the rest of society. I happen to think that it is a per se problem (a Swedish study found that 89% of sex workers wanted to get out of the business and a lot of girls end up smuggled into countries and forced into prostitution), but it is also a symptom of the cultural disease.

If a person has brain cancer and gets migraines, the migraines need to be treated, but they are hardly the the largest problem.

I read about men who grope women and get disguisted. I get groped, felt up, and pushed around a lot, so I would hardly say that it's unique to Japan. I'm with Scilian: not really sure why men feel the need (not just the right) to be so physical with women's bodies. Even if it is biology, we're not just animals and we can expect better out of humans. Somehow, we never communicated to men that part of living in polite society is ignoring the urge to grope at women.

I think something like Hollaback might work very well in Japan, if one could get women to overcome their acculturated aversion to doing things like that and actually make trouble for the perps.

Case in point, my old Japanese-language teacher and his friend, two North American-born hakujin (he's Canadian; his friend is American) were living in Japan. One day, they were on the subway in Tokyo and were conversing (as native speakers are wont to do) in English. Both of them are fluent Japanese speakers, and my teacher had lived in Japan for eight or nine years at that point. They started hearing comments from the crowd in the subway car, along the lines of "stupid foreigners," "dumb Americans," "damn gaijin," et cetera. Finally, my teacher's friend couldn't take it anymore, and addressed the sky in perfect, upper-class Tokyo-accented Japanese, and said, "My, there seem to be a lot of Koreans on this subway car."

Five seconds of dead silence. Then there was a murmurring and shuffling and rattling of newspapers, and almost everyone got off at the next stop.

The point being, of course, that public shaming works very well in Japan, if you have the nerve to actually do it.

Alicepaul: I wasn't saying that adult performers, or fantasy facilitators, as they might be called, aren't real people. Of course they are. They are real people with real jobs that require them to do things they might not want to do when they're not working. They are just as real as firefighters who might not actually choose to have to enter burning buildings at any time of the day or night, whenever they are needed, were it not for the fact that it's their job.

As a performing artist, it's my job to go to the theater, put on my makeup, wig, and costume, and pretend to be someone else for a while. I have to do that no matter what might be happening in my personal life. After the show, I'm still working. I need to be ready to meet the public with a friendly face, and graciously accept their compliments, no matter how badly I might feel that the show went. That's because it's my job to let the audience enjoy its fantasy. I have a real life, with real feelings, but I'm on the job, so the audience doesn't need to be troubled by my real life.

Chari, were you in Japan in the early 90s? Because it was about then that the anti-groping campaign started, and since then things have changed a lot I think.

Ultimately articles like this have to end up being a kind of comparison - here we have Americans commenting on what is or isn't sexist in a country with completely, radically different cultural and social rules. So these comparisons need to be treated carefully. This is no different to the warning implicit in Sojourner's story, of judging Japan by its cultural exports without knowing the culture behind them. For example, when the men in Sojourner's story watch these "submissive" wives are they aware that many housewives in Japan take their husband's entire pay packet, and then grant them an allowance? Cultures we don't know are very easy to misunderstand. Feminist analyses of other countries need to exercise the same caution.

I have a soft spot for Japanese gender relations, strange though they seem sometimes, for one simple reason - since coming here my partner has had the chance to earn the same wages as a man in the same position, for the first time in her life. She is also able to travel alone at night in safety (because yes, roymacIII, the statistics are true); and for these two remarkable experiences I am truly thankful. So while I don't claim Japan is not sexist, I view simple cross-cultural comparisons with great caution.

Thanks for the HollaBack mention. It seems we're becoming a meme...

'I have lived in Japan for one year...I have never heard of or seen a woman groped on a train, bus, or public space of any sort '.

Well Flashheart, I don't think it's for you to say what does or doesn't happen in Japan to WOMEN. Especially when there are women telling their stories of what they have endured and a survey of JAPANESE women back those stories up.

This isn't about trying to paint Japan as so much more perverted than any other country, it's about recognising a problem that women, and not men, suffer.

You are not a woman so you do not have to travel with that worry, but don't try and say that women don't have that worry either.

“This is no different to the warning implicit in Sojourner's story, of judging Japan by its cultural exports without knowing the culture behind them.�
I am not claiming that by TV shows from a certain country you can become an expert on its culture, but it definitely tells you a lot about a people’s values. A very simple example: you can’t watch American TV and deduce that all American women are tall and thin, but you can definitely conclude that thinness is something they are obsessed with. So I don’t think that all Japanese women are like Oshin? Of course not, I am sure many Japanese women and men find it very annoying. But does it not imply anything about what is valued in women in that culture?

“the men in Sojourner's story watch these "submissive" wives are they aware that many housewives in Japan take their husband's entire pay packet, and then grant them an allowance? Cultures we don't know are very easy to misunderstand.�
Many of the women in my story do the exact same thing, because they are supposed to be in charge of managing the house. So what? Taking your husband’s pay doesn’t make you his equal. He is the one earning it, he is letting you manage it for him. Strict gender roles can only exist in a sexist and unequal society. Equality is equality, independent of culture.
Oh, and as for the men in my story, I think one of the attractive features for them was that they had heard you still get a weakly allowance to spend at sex clubs and such, because “boys will be boys� even if or especially if the boy is your husband and has been working hard all week.

jxthree, that was the awesomest post. Ever.

I'm so tired of people of a different color or gender assuming that if another color/gender/sexual orientation had it bad, then - by god! - they would have noticed. Guh.

"they are real people with real jobs that require them to do things they might not want to do when they're not working. They are just as real as firefighters who might not actually choose to have to enter burning buildings at any time of the day or night, whenever they are needed, were it not for the fact that it's their job."

ahhh the old, sex workers should just happily do their jobs and shut the fuck up argument. lovely.

workers should not be compelled to put up with harrassment and abuse no matter what industry they are in.

for example, dancing is a stripper's job. It is not a stripper's job to be a therapist, a prostitute, an actress, a punching bag, a toy, a surrogate girlfriend, a zoo animal, etc. What people who have never worked in the sex industry fail to realize is the amount of a) unpaid emotional labor you have to do and b) violation of personal space, safety, and humanity that you are not monetarily compensated for.

So no, if I'm not being paid for it, I don't consider it my job and I will not put up with it.

and btw justin, if you bring that attitude with you into any type of sex/strip club or show, I promise that the performers notice it and they hate you. Ya' hear that? They Hate You.

Sorry to ruin that quaint little fantasy life of yours.