USA Today story on statistics published in a popular Japanese news magazine that point to an acute shagging deficiency throughout the country. A few BoingBoing readers (who’ve lived in Japan, or who are of Japanese descent) have written in to say that while the premise of this article may make for funny headlines and abundant “wacky Japanese culture” blog yuks, the truth behind the data may not be exactly what’s painted here. Snip from the USA Today piece:
Only in Japan would a popular weekly newsmagazine deem it necessary to exhort the nation’s youth to abstain from sexual abstinence: “Young people, don’t hate sex,” AERA magazine pleaded last month in a report detailing a precarious drop in sales of condoms and in business at Japan’s rent-by-the-hour “love hotels.”
More and more Japanese men and women are finding relationships too messy, tiring and potentially humiliating to bother with anymore. “They don’t want a complicated life,” says Sakai, who has written a controversial bestseller, Cry of the Losing Dogs, on the plight of unmarried Japanese thirtysomething women like herself.(…)
AERA reports that condom shipments are down 40% since 1993 (probably in part because Japan finally legalized birth-control pills in 1999) and love-hotel check-ins are off at least 20% over the past five years. What’s more, an increasing number of those visiting love hotels aren’t there for romance, AERA says; they’ve found that love hotels offer the cheapest access to karaoke machines and video games.
Link. Hope this has nothing to do with the butter dog trend recently reported by Fleshbot. Or, god forbid, her.(Thanks, Invisible Cowgirl).