Sex in Japan

Japan’s sexual culture is known for placing eroticism in the center of the nobility life. This is best illustrated in the “Tale of Genji” book in which the sexual adventures and encounters of Prince Genji are well detailed for the readers. In this book but also in many other Japanese writings, sexuality is placed next to other arts such as music, and treated with the same respect and enthusiasm.

Even if the Tale of Genji is based mostly on heterosexual encounters and experiences, the main character Genji indulges in a homosexual episode and it is described to be just as intense and erotic as the other ones. Japan maintained this kind of acceptance and sexual variety until this day and Japanese people are very sexual individuals, open to new opportunities and sexual growth. Never in Japan’s history was sexuality treated in a less than respectful and erotic way. For Japanese people, sex is an art nowadays as well and diversity is one of its main qualities as well as creativity. With that being said, Japanese people don’t have sexual limits as much as other cultures and they don’t judge any sexual behaviors. The tradition of the Geisha which remained famous until this day, represents very well and accurate the Japanese perspective on sexual freedom. Along the centuries, Japanese sexual culture welcomed many fetishes, including BDSM ones like sadomasochism. Modern Japan is open to sexuality and the desire for sexual variety is successfully expressed in their literature, movies and music. This kind of sexual openness makes Japan so much different from other rich cultures such as China, India, Korea or Europe and even United States. However, this sexual freedom and variety is not an official one. In the Japanese culture it is still very important to maintain the differences and social accepted limits. This is why sex is not an open subject to talk about even if it sneaks out through their art and books. Japanese people are very concerned about what is appropriate to show to the rest of the world and for that supreme goal they might hide most often than not some sexual behaviors that, otherwise, they enjoy to indulge in. It is also important to mention that Geisha is a concept and so much more than a prostitute. A geisha used to be a woman that keeps company to men, not necessarily in a sexual way even if the sexual level was often reached. Geishas used to be well educated and they had other qualities than wives or girlfriends, which made them interesting and entertaining for their male clientele.

Japan gave the world a lot of sexual culture and it did help to open the sexual habits to new practices. It had a great contribution to the BDSM community and despite the suppressed aspect of this sexual freedom and fetishes, the originality of Japanese sexuality managed to find its way out and express itself. Sadomasochism practices were so well developed in Japan because women used to be raised to be obedient to their husbands and that was taken to an extreme along the years. Husbands had the leader role and in sexuality, this concept was translated to a dominant role while the wife was the submissive partner. Even nowadays, many new fetishes have their roots in Japan and some of them even in Japan’s history, not being so new at all but only recently discovered.

When it comes to sexual education in Japan, people are not so exposed to sexual transmitted diseases compared to other countries and cultures like Africa or some nations in Southern Asia. However, since 2004, most common used birth control method in Japan is the condom which became used by 80 percent of the couples until today. This reduced even more Japan’s rates of STDs in general and AIDS cases in particular. To have such a broad sexual history full of rich practices and fetishes is definitely something that the rest of the world could learn from in the name of sexual growth and development.