Parents beware! Are your daughters into Enjo Kosai (date-style prostitution)?

Enjo Kosai–means “assistance relationship” literally, and is a term for a modern phenomenon —  date-style prostitution.

The following is an extract from “What Japanese Women Are Really Like” by Yukiko Kimura and Ai Yamana:

A Common Girl, Ai

“What’s good about Enjo Kosai? Well, I get money on the spot. I get 20,000 yen in an hour or two”.

Ai is 17 years old, and she looked as young as a junior high school girl.

“Have sex once and I get 25,000 yen. At most 35,000 yen. … But it is better than a part-time job.”

Ai was swinging her legs back and forth as she spoke. She acted younger than her age but she didn’t seem to care. She did not seem to be ashamed, either. However, she did not smile either. The clothes she wore were quite simple and she had no make up on. She did not smoke, and she did not die her hair brown. There were no Rolex watches, expensive rings, nor pierced ear rings as one often hears about. However, she did not act like a regular teenage, like asking many innocent questions.

Ai looked like a common girl, nothing really drew extra attention to her. …

When Ai needs money, she calls up the telephone club and finds any man she can. She could get at least 20,000 yen within that day. That is the simplicity of this assisted relationships. …

“I think assistance relationships are quite good. All you need to do is sex. It’s not quite the same as having sex with someone you lke but, it’s still the same thing you do. I get money just by being patient and looking at the ceiling for a while.” …

She started this with her friend when they called the telephone club just for fun. They both made an appointment with the men they talked to and went out to see them. They both made an appointment with the men they talked to and went out to see them.  They both continue to do Enjo Kosai.

“Oh, the men I meet are all nice, and they try ot hide it from my parents I never felt bad about myself.”

Most men she goes out with are in their thirties and are often married. Have she ever thought of the reason why men want to have assistance relationships?

“I don’t know. Probably they just want to do it with a normal kid.” Ai answered with the least interest.

The Budget as a High School Student

Ai’s average income is 150,000 yen permonth. She says she needs at least 70,000 yen.

“70,000 yen is an amount  that disappears so fast. I go to a private high school, so most kids are rich. They all have more money than I do. If we go to a coffee shop, that will cost 2,000 yen. If we go to Disneyland, that will cost tens of thousands of yen. If we buy a CD or a game, money would disappear immediately.”

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t need money. But without money, I would be left out from my friend’s circle, and I wouldn’t be updated with current events.”

Then why doesn’t she get a part-time job? Why does she have to choose what she is doing now? “I just don’t want to work so hard. I don’t like to be like my parents saying  ‘I’m tired’ all the time and being frustrated. This is something I can do because I am in my teens. I think it is wiser to do it while you can.”

After she became silent for a while, she opened her mouth and said it was not all for money.

“Sometimes when I am alone or when I feel bored, I will call up the telephone club. Some days, I just want to talk with someone.

But then she ends up meeting them and gets in to a relationship where she receives money.

When Ai wants money, or when she is bored, she looks for men through the telephone club.

“There are people I am glad to have been able to assist in a relationship. Some people take me here and there, and some people teach me common sense. For example? Like restaurant manners, and how an attractive woman must behave, etcetera. (Laugh) Nobody teaches me those things at home or at school. I think I won’t regret this because I experienced a lot that my classmates have not.”

Ai said once she reaches her 20’s she will quit cold-turkey. She said she is only doing this because she is in her teens.

Reference:

What Japanese women are really like / by Yukiko Kimura and Ai Yamana = 日本女性の実態 = Nihon josei no jittai / Kimura / 木村夕貴子・山名愛 1999  Yakku Kikaku, Tōkyō

 

Further reading:

Smartphone apps like LINE a potential hotbed of high school girl hooking
Junior high and high school girls using smartphone services for enjo kosai

 

16 thoughts on “Parents beware! Are your daughters into Enjo Kosai (date-style prostitution)?”

    1. Parents probably don’t know what’s going on. Some TV documentaries made on the issue show the girls often come from decent middle class families, but the girls change into clothes after school in public toilets and have alibis like they are with their schoolfriends (which they are) under pretext of studying or hanging out or afterschool activities, so parents don’t find out. Of course these days, we have GPS tracking devices on mobile phones, so perhaps keeping track of kids is getting easier. By the time, parents find the stashed away branded goods, it’s probably too late!

  4. There is nothing wrong with this.

    Enjo kosai is better off than young people losing their lives in tribal warfare and global terrorism.

    Why is it that we are trained to be insensitive to bloody violence but tortured with guilt of sex with the young?

    Lovers of young people are tormented, harassed, imprisoned, and publicly humiliated while the United Nations do nothing to stop warmongering countries.

    If you ask me, this world is run by tyrannical, puritannical, inhibited, 2-faced idiots making the rest of us suffer for their guilt.

    1. Whatever you can say, she is a chid both mentally and physically! Come on guys! People tend to judge others without considering moral ethics. Having sex with kids is anything but sane. Being myself a high school student, I know that at this stage we know nothing of real life. To see adults who are supposed to teach morals to children behave as such makes me sick. Where will all this lead you to? After hebephilia, maybe pedophilia?

  5. This is going NO PLACE. I cant say I condemn it either. She is not a child, not physically or mentally. She’s a young adult. If she wants to go and do this so be it. I don’t think it should be full on OK but then again I don’t think cracking down on it will do much of anything.
    I am not upset with prostitution as a whole in Japan. No cracked out aggressive AIDS ridden hookers on corners or pimps and gangsters making my family and I terrified to walk the streets at night.
    Somewhere something is being done right.

    Anyway- She wants expensive gear. Flipping burgers at MCD’s ain’t gonna buy that LV.

  6. Concern on this issue has nothing to do with being puritannical. It has to do with pure decency and being ethical. Sex for money is not love. Being underaged means they are immature and unable to make sound judgement about the consequences of their actions, and that they are likely to become victims under duress or in an unequal situation versus the adult partner – which is why they need to be protected from predators and perverts. Some of these girls are going to get hurt, abused, kidnapped or are at high risk of contracting AIDS or some kind of venereal disease or of getting pregnant. No normal parent is going to want this for their child. Even if you won’t agree on morality grounds, then look at the facts, and realize the situation is already a public health hazard and social cost, and therefore is a public policy issue. Here are the facts: “the epidemic is growing sharply in Japan – a record 1,165 new cases in 2004. And the rate is doubling every four years. More worrying still is the profile of the victims. Many Aids sufferers in Japan are heterosexual and drug-free and they are getting younger – the Welfare Ministry says 40 per cent of all Japanese newly infected with Aids are in their teens or twenties. Other sexually transmitted diseases are rising even faster. A conference in December last year heard that one in 10 Japanese teenagers had chlamydia. “We know from studies in the US that where chlamydia goes, Aids often follows,” said Dr Kitamura. “It shows a lot of youngsters are engaging in unprotected sex.” The key to tacking the looming crisis is changing Japan’s sexual habits, say experts, especially among teenagers: a recent poll found that nearly 40 per cent of senior high school students have had sex, rising to nearly 50 per cent for girls, and condom use is falling. … the Welfare Ministry says 40 per cent of all Japanese newly infected with Aids are in their teens or twenties. Other sexually transmitted diseases are rising even faster. A conference in December last year heard that one in 10 Japanese teenagers had chlamydia. “We know from studies in the US that where chlamydia goes, Aids often follows,” said Dr Kitamura. “It shows a lot of youngsters are engaging in unprotected sex.” Source: Complacent young push Japan towards Aids crisis The Independent 9 Jun 2005 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/complacent-young-push-japan-towards-aids-crisis-493532.html

      1. I wouldn’t know how to approach those engaged in Enjo Kosai plus I don’t speak Japanese. I guess that some of those engaged in compensated dating would speak english though. Thanks again for your interesting post. Kind regards, Kevin. PS; do you have any idea as to how I would go about approaching participants in Enjo Kosai? Living in the UK I don’t have much of an idea.

        On 1/19/14, EDUCATION IN JAPAN COMMUNITY Blog

  9. I didn’t know you were not local. One way would be to go into one of the high school social networking sites, and just offer to pay them online maybe in department store coupons or amazon or rakuten coupons for completing your questionnaires online. Most of them can handle simple written English, after all they have been studying it for many years… I don’t know, get creative!

  10. These girls are out of their mind.i think they should treasure themselves more.but to think these girls selling their bodies for money makes me want to cry 😦 .Because their are lots of ways where you can earn money rather than selling your body,you just need to find it and work hard and believe yourself.everything will be fine :).

    1. Ur correct in every way, their mentally should change, many sexual predators out there and they putting themselves in harms way

  11. The Enjo Kosai Lolitas are a asset to Japan! Everybody is free to do what they want with their bodies and everyone is happy with the outcome, the girls, the men, so no problem really. Nobody is forced to do it. These girls are free birds and love the good life and the met get good sex and company! All for it!

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