Strange you should ask that just now....

>From the Thursday 29 August 1996 issue of the Electronic Telegraph,
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk) the *excellent* and award winning Web
version of the London Telegraph.

Pocket-money prostitutes thrive in Japan
By Juliet Hindell in Tokyo 

AKEMI and Kazuko, 16, are still in high school. From middle-class
homes, they have the bronze-dyed hair of Japan's trendy youth. Both
have long, painted nails and wear platform sandals and earn about #700
a week having sex with older men.

They say that it is not prostitution but "compensated dating", and
they meet their "dates" through telephone clubs, which thrive
throughout Japan. There may be no cinema in town, no bar open, but
telephone clubs are doing a roaring trade.

The National Police Agency counted 2,200 clubs across the country in
December last year. A recent government survey found that one in four
teenage girls had called a telephone club, and of those five per cent
agreed to have sex with the men they spoke to. Men go to the clubs and
rent a tiny booth with a telephone that connects customers to women
and girls who call into the clubs on free numbers.

Although there has been no campaign against the clubs, the Health and
Welfare Ministry has voiced concern about them. Prefectural
governments are moving to reduce the involvement of teenage girls by
introducing zoning rules. In some areas, for example, a club cannot
operate within 500 yards of a school.

Shiro Yoshiaki, of the organisation Caspar (Campaign to Stop
Prostitution of Asian Children and Protect their Rights), says that
there should be a campaign against telephone clubs. But he thinks one
of the problems is that many adults believe the girls willingly get
involved in "compensated dating", so little can be done.

In Japan sex is legal over the age of 13, and many of the girls seem
to have no sense of guilt about what they are doing. They say that
they need the money to buy the latest fashions and go out. Akemi and
Kazuko laughed when they were told that what they charge for sex,
about #300, is what many an average worker takes home at the end of
the week.

They said that the men were idiots, but they didn't care as long as
they got the money. They described sex with the clients as boring and
said that they did not have boyfriends their own age because it cost
them too much.They regard what they do in the same light as any other
part-time job, but far more lucrative.

Yoshiaki Fujii, a writer who has documented many of Japan's sex fads,
believes that the girls have no idea of the value of money or what
people normally earn.

They have telephones, televisions and personal computers in their own
rooms, so making contact with men without their parents' knowledge is
easy. Few parents want to think that their daughters are involved in
"compensated dating".

One father of a 16-year-old girl said that his daughter did not have
enough time between school and homework for such things, and a company
director with a 14-year-old daughter said he believed her when she
said that she did not call telephone clubs. But he said that he had no
idea what she did when she went out.

In any case, the telephone clubs may have a limited lifespan. The
Japanese sex industry has had many short-lived crazes such as clubs
where girls sell their used underwear.

Many girls are now bypassing the clubs and contacting men directly via
mobile telephones or pagers. They make stickers with their numbers at
vending machines and stick them up in red-light districts, much like
the flyers to be found in many British telephone booths. There are no
pimps wanting a cut of the proceeds, and no reason to turn up if you
get cold feet.

The ease of making contact and the prospect of high earnings mean laws
and public disapproval are unlikely to put a stop to Japan's
pocket-money prostitutes.

<end>

					- Harold