Expo cleanup operation has begun! A sex industry journalist talks about the “strangeness” of the Kyobashi Pinsaro in Osaka.
Three pairs of naked men and women are ……
On October 8, the Osaka Prefectural Police rounded up three brothels in Kyobashi and Sakaihigashi for indecent behavior. They arrested 18 people, including the actual manager and 13 employees of the Kyobashi pin salon “Gakkozaka 3-kun K-gumi,” as well as three male customers who were present at the scene.
The arrests were based on suspicion of public indecency for forcing female employees to perform sexual services in the nude in front of an unspecified number of people, including other customers, at two stores, “Gakko-zaka 3-nen K-gumi” and “Gakko-zaka Sakai Higashi” (Sakai Ward, Sakai City), between February and October of this year. When investigators raided the Kyobashi location, they found three nude male customers and three female pinzaro girls in the middle of “play” in both locations. The seating area was separated only by a one-meter-high partition, so the pubic areas of the naked men and women were in full view. Another two employees were arrested on suspicion of violating the Entertainment Establishments Control Law by conspiring to operate “Kyobashi Cosplay Idol Academy” (Kyobashi Ward, Tokyo) in an area where sexually oriented businesses are prohibited between June and October. This time, a tip that he was ‘prostituting himself inside the store’ led to his arrest.
The Sunpiaza Building in Kyobashi, which housed “Gakko-zaka 3-nen K-gumi” and “Kyobashi Cosplay Idol Academy,” and the Joint 2 Building in Sakai Higashi, which housed “Gakko-zaka Sakai Higashi” are famous “sex industry buildings” in Osaka. It is extremely unusual that a pimp salon in these two buildings has been busted and even male customers have been arrested. At least, not to my recollection.
Very similar to the case before the Tokyo Olympics
In Tokyo, when the pin salon “Magic Banana” in Ueno was busted on May 22, 2009, the charge of public indecency was applied for the same reason, and a total of eight people were arrested, including the owner, a female employee, and a customer. This was the first time in history that the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department had ever caught a pinsaro for public indecency.
On July 6 of the same year, just before the Tokyo Olympics, Akebono, a pin salon in Sugamo, was busted and its female manager and others were arrested on the same charges. Since Akebono was an excellent establishment with many regular customers, it was a shock to those in the industry. When I first learned of the bust, I thought to myself, “Why would Akebono, which had no problems at all, get busted for this? I thought, “Why Akebono? It is true that female employees are sometimes stripped naked, but this is not limited to the aforementioned restaurants. The series of revelations was said to be a “one-punishment, one-hundred-commandment” performance by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department in anticipation of the Tokyo Olympics.
The latest bust by the Osaka Prefectural Police is believed to be related to a cleanup operation in preparation for the Osaka-Kansai World Exposition. In other words, the message is likely to be, “Keep a low profile and do business quietly. During and around the time of the Expo, it is even more “illegal” than usual for brothels to make a scene or cause problems.
The structure of the store in “full view” is determined by law.
Pinsaro is not legally a “sex establishment,” but rather a “restaurant,” and according to the provisions of the Entertainment Establishments Control Law, private rooms cannot be set up. In most cases, the partitions are low, so the inside of a pincaro is designed so that patrons can see everything that is going on around them. In this case, it was reported that “the partition between the booths was about 1 meter high, and the suspect was suspected of committing indecent acts while other customers could see him.” The Entertainment Establishments Control Law has detailed rules regarding facilities, and the rooms of pincaros are required to have a structure that allows a clear view. It is well known that all pinsaros in Japan have basically been operating in this manner for a long time, and that this is not limited to the store that was exposed this time.
The police are naturally well aware of the fact that the pince-nez salons provide sexual services. Although the police could at any time have charged them with “public indecency,” until now they have been tolerated as being in a “gray area. As with soaps and “chonoma,” there is a historical background to this practice, and it is likely that it has received a “free pass” from the police. The predecessor of the pinsaro was the arsaro (part-time salon) in Minami, Osaka, which was established around 1950, and the current form of pink service is said to have started around 1960. It is highly likely that the measures taken in the wake of the Expo were largely influenced by the measures taken in the wake of the Expo, which had been approved ambiguously for more than half a century, to suddenly expose pinsaro as illegal.
At about the same time that the pinsaro bars in Kyobashi and Sakaigashi were busted, a girls’ bar in Juso and a stand-up bar in Umeda were also busted. When international events such as summits and the Olympics are held, the crackdown on brothels tends to be tightened due to a sense of “national shame,” a desire to “keep a lid on what stinks and keep up appearances as a developed country. The latest incident may be another example of “history repeating itself.
Interview, text, and photographs: Akira Ikoma