'Sexlessness' wrecks marriages, threatens nation's future

In its cover story last month, The Economist newsmagazine looked at the issue of "Asia's lonely hearts: Why Asian women are rejecting marriage and what that means." It offered many reasons — including economics, education level, changes in family structures and gender roles, divorce difficulties, and demographics — for why many Asian women (and of course, by extension, Asian men) are marrying later or not at all.

I commend The Economist's well-intentioned attempt at dealing with an important social issue. But its discussion left one major stone unturned: sex.

At the risk of turning this month's scribbling into a Hugh Hefner column, I think it incumbent upon those of us planning a life in Japan to consider a fundamentally unhealthy social phenomenon: how sexuality in Japan is downplayed, if not encouraged to be omitted completely, from many married lives.

First, an axiom: Healthy adults have sex throughout their lives, and this should not necessarily change just because people get married.

However, in Japan it often does.

A "sexless marriage," according to the Japan Society of Sexual Sciences, is generally defined as one where couples have sex less than once a month.

Sumie Kawakami, in her book "Goodbye Madame Butterfly: Sex, Marriage, and the Modern Japanese Woman," cites a 2006 joint survey by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare and the Japan Family Planning Association that found more than a third (34.6 percent) of all Japanese married couples could be classified as "sexless."

This is a rise from earlier surveys and should be discussed in Japan as a social problem. After all, Japan has a falling population and a birthrate at the bottom of the world's scales — demographic trends that garner more than their fair share of media attention.

But sexlessness is hardly seen as problematic in Japan. Quite the opposite. Hark back to the 1990s, when the sekkusuresu state was portrayed in the media positively, even as a natural outcome of marriage.

There is of course plenty of coupling and intimacy before matrimony (as I'm sure many of our readers can attest), but once kids are in the picture (people are even discouraged from having intercourse while pregnant), sex can decrease markedly or even become nonexistent for a habit-forming period of time.

Ask why and the reasons are usually forthcoming: One side is often "too tired," "It's a nuisance," or the kids are sleeping in the same bed, etc. The more cynical cite the cruel aphorism, "You don't need bait for a fish already caught".

But there is a fundamental difference here from attitudes in other developed societies, where sex even into old age ("orgasms at sixty!" on supermarket shelves, and don't forget Oprah, Dr. Phil, etc.) is seen regardless of family lifestyles as a healthy and essential part of a relationship.

Not in Japan, oddly in this "must try harder" society.

Then this discouraging set of expectations gets recycled back into our media and becomes self-perpetuating. Group-think gets people off the hook from trying to maintain intimacy, while people made to feel they "want sex too much" are sometimes told to take their loins elsewhere. No wonder sleeping around in Japan is a national pastime.

One might say this is just an outcome of modern life in a crowded society. But similar modern pressures and overcrowding exist in other countries.

Consider a more worldwide sampling of the issue.

In 2005, Durex, the world's largest condom maker, conducted a Global Sex Survey (see www.durex.com/en-jp/sexualwellbeingsurvey/documents/gss2005result.pdf) involving 317,000 respondents in 41 countries. The survey found that Japanese had the least sex in the world, at 45 times a year — far less than second-from-bottom Singapore (73 times a year), and even farther from the world average (103 times a year, meaning twice a week).

Moreover, less than a quarter (24 percent) of Japanese surveyed said they were "happy" with their sex lives, significantly lower than the global average of 44 percent.

Durex's more recent Sexual Wellbeing Survey, involving 26,000 interviews from 26 countries, found Japan at the bottom again with even lower results (15 percent satisfied).

One might counter that everyone exaggerates or is reticent about their sexuality, skewing the stats. But in international comparisons, Japanese are rarely shy about presenting an upbeat image of their society to the world. Such low figures for Japan say to me that people are being brutally honest about sex, or that a lack of sexuality is not perceived as something negative.

This matters. It is one more disincentive to marry in Japan. Indeed, why lock yourself into a marriage to someone who becomes a sibling instead of a spouse?

Sex life is not part of the dialog on the decline in Asian marriage. But in Japan's case, it should be.

It is Japan's worst-kept secret.

Debito Arudou's novel "In Appropriate" is now on sale (www.debito.org/inappropriate.html) Just Be Cause appears on the first Community Page of the month. Twitter arudoudebito. Send comments to community@japantimes.co.jp. Responses to last month's column, "The loneliness of the long-distance foreigner," will be published and posted online next Tuesday.

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Smart phone fever threatens to overload mobile phone networks

TOKYO (majirox news) — Japanese consumers have taken to smart phones with relish. However, the rapid escalation of use of the devices capable of handling data volumes on a par with PCs threatens to overload the country’s mobile phone network, according to cell phone companies.

Cell phone companies are taking steps to control communication volumes and come up with plans to stop users from literally blowing up the market by overloading networks.

Smart phones are capable of handling large volumes of data up to 20 times the average users’ level of existing mobile phone. KDDI Corp. estimates that smart phone proliferation will send data communication volume levels in 2015 to 18 times higher than what they had been last year.

“Unless we do something, communication volumes will exceed mobile phone network capacity in 2013,” KDDI President Takashi Tanaka said.

Networks in central Tokyo have already reportedly slowed down and connections have become more difficult.

KDDI, NTT DoCoMo Inc. and Softbank Corp., Japan’s three biggest mobile phone companies, have already started limiting data transmission on heavy users once they’ve exceeded a certain level of use within a set time frame.

Companies are also looking at eliminating a pricing system that allows users unlimited access and are considering alternatives that will charge smart phone users according to the volume of data they use.

Long Term Evolution (LTE), a system that allows fast, heavy transmission of data, is seen as the long-term answer to unclogging networks blocked by heavy smart phone use. NTT DoCoMo started using LTE last year and this winter will release its first LTE phone. KDDI and Softbank will move onto LTE from next year.

However, experts agree that it will take until about 2015 for LTE to become the norm. In the meantime, mobile phone companies are boosting their public wireless networks that smart phones can tap into and relieve some of the pressure on mobile phone circuits.

Tags: Cell phones, Japan, Japan cell phones, Japan mobile phone, Japan PCs, Japan softbank, KDD Corp., Long Term Evolution, LTE, NTT DoCoMo, Smart Phones, sofbank, Takashi Tanaka, wireless networks

This entry was posted on 09/04/2011 at 9:18 am and is filed under NEWS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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Strong yen threatens to force Japanese firms to shift production overseas - Mainichi Daily News

Nissan Motor Co.'s Oppama factory in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, is seen on July 2. (Mainichi)

Japanese companies including Toyota Motor Corp. could have no option but to shift production overseas if the yen, which recently hit a post-war record high against the U.S. dollar, remains strong for a long time.

"The strong yen will affect a wide range of businesses. I'm worried that Japan's entire industrial sector could experience a downturn," a top executive at a major electronics company told the Mainichi on Aug. 19. An official of a heavy-equipment manufacturing firm said, "Our international competitiveness will steadily decline."

According to a survey of 119 major Japanese companies conducted by the Mainichi from mid-July to early August, the average exchange rate the companies assumed against the dollar for the current business year (ending at the end of March 2012) was the 82 yen level. Currently, the yen is 6 yen higher than that against the dollar.

As for the auto industry, for every one-yen increase against the dollar Toyota's operating profits are projected to drop by 30 billion yen and Nissan Motor Co.'s by 20 billion yen. Toyota fell into the red in the April-June quarter, and calculates that the strong yen cut profits then by 50 billion yen. Toyota is trying to keep its production lines in Japan, but a senior company official said, "We have no option but to have more parts produced abroad."

Mitsubishi Electric Corp. set its assumed exchange rate at 85 yen to the dollar for the business year ending March 2012. If the rate against the dollar is 1 yen stronger than that, profits will drop by 4 billion yen.

"We have to take conventional measures such as cost-cutting and increasing imports of raw materials, but if the yen continues to be strong for a long time, there are limits to what one company can do to deal with it," said a Mitsubishi Electric official.

Takashi Miyoshi, Executive Vice President of Hitachi Ltd., said, "We have to do more business overseas. Otherwise, we will lose cost competitiveness."

The strong yen has merits: people can travel abroad from Japan and companies in Japan can import raw materials from abroad at lower prices. But most economists believe that the adverse effects of the strong yen on the economy caused by poor business performances will outstrip the merits of the strong yen.

The government and the Bank of Japan intervened in the foreign exchange market to sell the yen on Aug. 4, but the effects of such efforts were limited and business managers have become more frustrated. Prime Minister Naoto Kan has said his government would decide on whether to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact, but that decision has yet to be made. While the government has failed to implement measures to help boost corporate competitiveness, the yen has strengthened.

"Under these circumstances, production bases could be moved overseas," said a top official of a steel company.

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