By TD Houchen, Photos by Mayo Takao
| Come on. Admit it. You’ve wondered what exactly goes on in those “Health Clubs” that you can’t get into, and that are sprinkled all over town. You’ve seen them, almost fully-nude pictures of luscious-looking Japanese women brazenly displayed on the buildings’ exterior, places called “Mothers” or “Ecstacee” or “Bus Stop” or whatever.Well, leave it to ya boy, me, big TD, to dig up the dirt so you don’t have to. I hustled up a real sex worker andsat honey down and chatted her upover toast, coffee, and French fries ata local Denny’s for a few hours about her life, her work, her thoughts and her feelings about her job, which is, to pleasure Japanese men for dough 8 to 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. The things we do for yen, everyone is a prostitute at some level, someone once said that I think, and if not, I just did. She was very “normal”, very forthcoming, and very attractive. Peep Game.TD: So, what’s your name? SW: “Mie”. TD: Okay Mie, how old are you? M: I’m 27. TD: You’re very cute. M: Thank you, you too. TD: Go easy Mie, I’m a professional. M; Sorry.. TD: Where do you live? M: Nagoya, but I’m from Gifu TD: Enough with the tiny talk, how long have you been doing this work Mie? M: One year or so.. TD: How did you get into this line of business? M: I was approached by the guys who stand on the street, you know, with the funny hair and pointed shoes, they are “scouts”, they asked me if I was looking for a job.. | TD: Were you? M: Yes, but I wasn’t looking for this kind of job. I was looking for a job as a cabaret girl, or a “regular” job to do during the day…. TD: What did the scout say to you to make you interested in doing this work? M: He asked me to get into the sex/Health Club industry right off. I wasn’t sure, but he was very kind. I was surprised. I was told that people in that industry are all mafia-related, but the guy who approached me wasn’t. He was kind and so I felt I could trust him, so I decided to try it. TD: What is the hardest thing about doing this job? M: Getting the customers hearts. TD: Why do you want their hearts? M: Because if I can get their heart, then they will become regulars, you know, repeat customers. I want to have the same customers for myself because if I can get repeats, then I can get a steady income. This job is very unstable.. TD: What do you do to get their hearts? M: Well, I try to keep a smile on my face always, and I try to put myself in their shoes. I try to communicate with them from their perspective, and I try hard to make sure they enjoy their time with me, but it is difficult to catch their hearts…. (She sighs heavily). TD: Describe a session with a customer, how does it all go down? (Pun kind of intended..) M: They come into the room. We greet each other. Then we speak a little, small talk. Then maybe we have a hug, then we take off our clothes and take a shower, then we have ‘mat play’, then we have ‘bed play’. After that we take another shower, touch our bodies together, then we talk again a little, maybe smoke a cigarette, then we say goodbye. | TD: Sounds almost quaint. How long is one session usually? M; They can pay for one hour or two hours, 60 minutes or 120 minutes. TD: Is there any part of the session that you especially like? M: I like the talking when it’s all over, because then I can know it’s over. TD: Which part(s) do you not like? M; The hardest part is kissing the customers, and doing the sexual things, because the customer is not my boyfriend, he’s just a customer… TD: How can you prepare your mind and body to do these intimate things with perfect strangers? M: What’s perfect about them? TD: It’s a term we use in English to describe..nevermind, I mean, how can you do these things with people you don’t know at all? M: It’s just work. I tell myself over and over, “…this is my job, this is my job..”, so that is what I think, it’s just a job i’m doing now. TD: Have you ever found yourself turned on by any of your customers? Sexually or otherwise? M: I have been sexually turned on, and, I fell in love with one of my customers, but usually, anytime I find myself thinking, “this feels good”, I’m surprised. TD: Are you turned on by me right now? M: Relax. You should relax. TD: You’re right. So what made you fall in love with that particular customer? M: First, I thought he was handsome, he was my type. Then after we were together, we began exchanging emails. I came to find out he was really, genuinely kind, but eventually, I found it wasn’t real love, just infatuation… |
| TD: How can you prepare your mind and body to do these intimate things with perfect strangers? M: What’s perfect about them? TD: It’s a term we use in English to describe..nevermind, I mean, how can you do these things with people you don’t know at all? M: It’s just work. I tell myself over and over, “…this is my job, this is my job..”, so that is what I think, it’s just a job i’m doing now. TD: Have you ever found yourself turned on by any of your customers? Sexually or otherwise? M: I have been sexually turned on, and, I fell in love with one of my customers, but usually, anytime I find myself thinking, “this feels good”, I’m surprised. TD: Are you turned on by me right now? M: Relax. You should relax. TD: You’re right. So what made you fall in love with that particular customer? M: First, I thought he was handsome, he was my type. Then after we were together, we began exchanging emails. I came to find out he was really, genuinely kind, but eventually, I found it wasn’t real love, just infatuation… TD: So, it is possible for the workers to find love in these places.. M: Yes. TD: Do you like being sexually on while you are working? Or do you prefer to just think ‘it’s a job’ and get it over with? M: The best way is for me to be naturally turned on by my customers, but most times, it isn’t like that, so, I close my eyes and imagine he is my boyfriend. TD: Do you think this work degrades women? M: At first, I wondered if men thought the women who do this kind of work are unclean, but I do think it gives women a bad image-inside of myself, I am always fighting with my own feelings.. TD: Are you and any of the other workers very close friends? M: No, we have shallow friendships only. TD: So you have a boyfriend.. M: Yes. TD: Does he know about your job? M; No, he doesn’t. TD: What’s his number? Just joking, ah, what does he think you do for your money? | M: He thinks I work at a cabaret club. TD: If he knew about your real job, what do you think he would do? How would he take it? M: I think he’d break up with me. TD: So you’ll never tell him about what you do? M: I don’t think so. TD: Is it easy for you to become sexually aroused with your boyfriend after a day of doing this work? M: For a while, after work, I didn’t feel anything with my boyfriend, so I decided that on the day that I know I will meet my boyfriend, I take that day off. TD: Nice of you…do you ever feel that you are cheating on him? M: In the beginning I did, but now I just tell myself “it’s just work, it’s business”, and I’m okay with it. TD: How much longer do you plan to do this? M: Maybe one more year.. TD: How long to most women do this type of work? M: The longest I’ve heard is 10 years, but women who are doing this move around from club to club, the average length of time I think is like 2 to 3 years. Women don’t stay at the same place though, they move around. TD: What is your opinion of the men who are your customers? M: They want a sexual experience they can’t get from their wives or their girlfriends, simple really. I have no special opinion of them. TD: Do you think the men who come to Health Clubs are cheating on their partners? M: I don’t think it’s cheating, I think it’s a way these men can enjoy their lives. TD: If you were married and discovered your husband had been going to a place like where you work, how do you think you would feel? M: I would be okay with it, but really, I wouldn’t want to know about it, it’s his business what he is doing, I don’t want to know. TD: If you were the boss of one of these establishments, what would be different? M: I would be more caring to the girls. Many of the women working in this industry have lots of problems personally and at the job. I would listen to the girls more and talk to them and care for them. The bosses insist we work even when we are menstruating, so, I would care more about the girls. TD: Foreigners are not allowed at 98 percent of these places, why is that? | M: Communication is difficult. Words and gestures aren’t the same. Plus, foreigners have more disease than Japanese, Japanese think foreign women have many sexually transmitted diseases, so naturally, foreign men do too. TD: Really? Wow. Would you let foreigners come in if you were boss? M: Maybe, it depends on what he looks like, if he can speak any Japanese.. TD: Would you let me in?…nevermind.. how many customers do you see in any average day? M: 3 or 4, the most was 14 in one day. TD: Wow. That beats my one day record by about 13, no, 12, no, 11, well, no, she didn’t count, so 12. Wow. 14. You must have felt really tired. M: Yes, it was a long day. TD: What was the strangest request you ever received? received? M: A man brought rope and tied me up, it was fun for him but not for me, another customer asked me to punch him in his stomach as hard as I could…he almost vomited but that’s what he liked, that al- most-vomiting feeling. TD: Yeah, I used to like that too, but I sorta grew out of it. Last question, do you have any coupons or anything, I mean like a free pass, or is there like a back door or something… M: (Nervous laughter, followed by nervous silence.) No, I don’t. TD: Anything else you’d like to add? ( A little pissed.) M: I am not ashamed of my work. I think it is important to keep sexual desire in order to feel alive and vigorous. My older customers are very “genki” and alive and it is because they have kept their sexual desire. TD: Thank you for your time, can I eat your french fries? M: I gotta go.. ..and then, just like that, she got up and bounced off, leaving me and my translator eating cold fries and feeling…. frisky. |
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