Japan is slowly getting back to business. It's about time. When the government tells us that we shouldn't celebrate because of the March 11 disaster and that we should cancel festivals, Hanami and other drinking parties, that only serves to hurt local business and the economy.
The best thing any of us can do is to try to get our lives back to normal and get the economy going. We need to work, we need to sleep, we need to play.... I certainly need to go out drinking and enjoying life more.
I can't imagine anyone else who doesn't need to go out and enjoy life more.
Well, hats off to the world's oldest profession. It seems that right after the Tohoku disaster, sex- related service industries were the first back to business.
The excellent Tokyo Reporter has the story for us:
Even the horrifying death and devastation that struck northeastern Japan on March 11 could not suppress the human sex drive for long. Friday (June 10) reports that sex businesses were among the first to recover, many as soon as one week after the disaster.
“I was back at my job on March 18,” says Kitty-san, a 21-year-old employee of a delivery health (out-call sex service) service named Ainori in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. “From the day we reopened demand was even higher than it was before the disaster. Many customers had suffered from the catastrophe, and had even lost family members. They justified their urges, saying they ‘sought psychological relief’ or ‘wanted to be consoled.’
Gratuitous cheesecake photo #1
I suppose you could call it "Psychological relief" or "Consolation"....
“A lot of customers had been evacuated to temporary shelters where they couldn’t bathe, and just wanted to go to a hotel so they could get cleaned up,” Kitty continues. “One guy, who was about 35 years old, was pretty grubby. ‘I haven’t had a bath for two weeks’ he told me. He seemed so happy when I gave him a shampoo.”
So great was demand to use local hotel rooms with power and hot water, couples could even be seen queued up outside waiting their turn.
“I think our shop was the first one back in business after the quake,” says an employee of Ainori. “We couldn’t get through to the girls at first because cell phone communications had shut down. Afterwards we finally made contact.
Prostitution and the free exchange of time and services between two consenting adults is a free market ideal and a business that's been around since the beginning of society. No amount of government legislation will ever change that. Making laws that makes these activities illegal is pure nonsense.
You cannot legislate morality.
I applaud these businesses for getting back on track early and creating jobs for people. The economy needs it.
Gratuitous cheesecake photo #2
