Naked Director Author’s Insight: Midnight Shinjuku Kabukicho, Japan’s Wonderland

Pay me, pay me, pay me!

A woman in her early twenties clutches the left arm of an elderly man firmly and clings to him, refusing to let him go.

The man, with a puzzled look on his face, pushes his way to shake the young woman off.

It is the cold winter winds of Okubo Park in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

After about 40 minutes of sexual intercourse, they stand in the park again.

They are called “tachinbo.

Until about 20 years ago, “tachinbo” were positioned at the bottom of the hierarchy in the sex industry. Soap girls and delicatessen girls who had become too old to find customers had no choice but to stand on the streets and take customers as freelance sex workers. Since there is no store in between, all the money paid by the customers goes into their pockets. In the old days, the yakuza would collect 3,000 yen per person as a “shoba-fee,” but with the enactment of the Anti-Gang Law in 1992 and the explosive increase in the number of stand-up girls and customers in the park, the yakuza could no longer collect the fee, and the girls could use the entire amount as their own income. For these women, it is a cash income for the day, and they cannot stop.

On the other hand, it has become a social problem that women become tachinbo in Okubo Park, where they can earn quick money to play at host clubs in Kabukicho.

Because they are freelance, these women have to solve their own problems. The stand-up girl at the beginning of this story probably had a dispute after leaving the hotel because she could not receive money from the man.

As a rule in underwater sexual negotiations, it is too late for the customer to cancel after the woman has stripped naked. Cancellation is not possible once the woman has undressed. The case at the beginning of this article is probably at this stage.

In this kind of negotiation, the principle is to pay in advance. In this case, the woman does not put the cash in her wallet but leaves it on the table. This was invented because some customers take money out of their wallets when they take a shower or go to the restroom.

The man and the woman walk toward Seibu-Shinjuku station, entangling with each other. I was tempted to follow them, but decided to give priority to the Okubo Park area.

Kabukicho is the best place to explore the forefront of the sex scene.

In the 43 years since I began my writing career, I have walked and written about this town as if I were making fixed-point observations.

Here is my latest report on Kabukicho, Shinjuku.