The “current location” of the “encounter café,” which has been transformed after the COVID-19 crisis.

Manager of the “Original Dating Cafe” Arrested

By September 28, the manager of “Tu-Ba Umeda,” known as the “original dating cafe” in Umeda, Osaka, and two others were arrested by the Osaka Prefectural Police on suspicion of violating the Prostitution Prevention Law. The store introduced male members to female members individually outside the store. After confirming the terms and conditions of the meeting, the two went directly to a hotel.

In the dating cafes and meeting cafes, when you pay a fee to enter the store, women are waiting for you through a magic mirror, and you can choose the woman you like from among them. Once you select a woman, you can talk with her alone in a small room called a “talk room” for about 10 minutes. If both parties like each other, they pay an exit fee and leave together, and the rest of the time they are free to do as they please.

Since the women are not employed by the café, it is a “place to meet” just like a matching app. However, since the mid-1900s, when the number of dating cafes began to increase, it has been pointed out that there are “professionals” and that these cafes are hotbeds for “aid-seeking. In 2011, the number of sex clubs with shops became a major problem. In 2011, they became entertainment establishments that are required to register as storefront sexually oriented businesses. A man in his 40s who has been using such encounter cafes for 10 years says that in recent years, especially after the COVID-19 crisis, the situation has changed considerably.

I have the impression that the number of professionals, such as sex workers, has increased overwhelmingly. Even during the period when brothels were not allowed to operate in Corona, encounter cafes were still open, so prostitutes who had nowhere else to go were pouring in. Many of them stayed there even after Corona closed, saying, ‘Unlike stores, I can work any time I want, and I can refuse any customers I don’t like. There are also examples of “koin girls” who work at parks and other places, and some customers say, “The only difference is whether I stand or sit. There are also cases where women who sleep in the Internet cafes come to the cafes as a “place” to stay.

Almost 100% of the women in the dating cafes are there for money, including those on dates for tea or dinner only, not for “splitting the bill. However, there used to be many non-professional women, such as married women looking for adulterous partners and women with day jobs looking to make some extra money. ……