No sex please - we're Japanese

USA Today ^ | Paul Wiseman

[LonghornFreeper]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&e=5&u=/usatoday/20040603/ts_usatoday/nosexpleasewerejapanese

[LonghornFreeper]

Sorry about the excerpt, not sure if USA Today via Yahoo is on the list or not. No registration or anything, just click the source link and the article is right there.

Reading this article was pretty scary. Anyone who believes that Japan will provide a bastion against China in the coming decades should read this article. Japan is a society already in decline, and fast approaching freefall.

[BrooklynGOP]

Maybe I should go help out.

[BrooklynGOP]

Maybe I should go help out.

[martin_fierro]

[Army Air Corps]

I am willing to help Japan increase their birth rate. This is a cause that I can really support! ;-)

[Centurion2000]

how interesting ....

[anonymous_user]

Yes, real women are tiring and potentially humiliating. Better to watch cartoon porn and "turn Japanese."

[pogo101]

I read a book about 15 years ago, "The Pink Samurai," that included a lot of this theme of Japanese men being rather clueless about how to deal with women. (Aren't we all? But this book's point was that, in Japan, the confusion was to a much greater degree than in the USA and Europe.)

I tend to think that part of the reason why is that Japanese women were kept politically and socially less powerful than their USA and European counterparts MUCH LATER into the 20th Century ... and so, now that Japanese women are catching up rapidly, Japanese men are somewhat taken by surprise. Their grandfathers still remember when women were not to speak unless spoken to. Put differently: Japan, although catching up rapidly in this regard, is still "only" in the 1950s or 1960s "That Girl!" stage of male-female sexual politics.

Sorry if that came off like Andrea Dworkin. :)

[I_killed_kenny]

"not sure if USA Today via Yahoo is on the list or not"
Gannet owns them and they still own the copyright no matter where it's reprinted (Yahoo or their own site)

[Slings and Arrows]

Today: Japan
Tomorrow: Europe (pre-Eurabia)
Next week: Us?

[talleyman]

Too much soy in the diet?

BTW, your screen name reminds me of the old joke:
"Why are Texans always smiling?"
"Long thumbs..."

[CzarNicky]

"Cry of the Losing Dogs, on the plight of unmarried Japanese thirtysomething women like herself."

Is this some kind of mistranslation? If it isn't I think I might know what the problem is.

[beelzepug]

"Nothing is happening with depressing regularity..."

Not like the good old days when you cats were raping Nanking, is it?

[TheGeezer]

This is not really news. Back in the 80s, I read - in Time I think it was - that Japanese department stores were using cardboard pictures of hostess/guides at elevators and escalators as information kiosks. It seemed that the population was declining so rapidly that young women were not available for hire for the jobs, something the stores had always provided for its patrons.

Abortion and contraception are taking a toll in Japan, it is true, just as it has in Europe and soon will in North America.

We are our own destruction. It's nice that our doom is coming with such subtlety, though. A nice touch. As for China, abortion selecting against women babies is sending the gender balance on the mainland off the rails. The population gains on the mainland are slowing, and it will become increasingly male in nature as time goes forward. Will this make China the same-sex marriage capital of the world? Or will it motivate the next major war of nations, so China can carry off the women of neighboring states to rebuild its homosexual population? Another reason I'm glad I'm a geezer...

[saveliberty]

Too expensive to raise children.

A liter of milk is over $3.50US. A good elementary/high school costs close to the same per year as an ivy league college.

Housing is outrageously expensive and no one gets very much of it.

High taxes, government control, business control (their free market is not our idea of free market) -- too many penalties for growth and investment; too many expenses for families.

[beelzepug]

"Sorry if that came off like Andrea Dworkin."

Well, there's one who could put me off sex. UGH!

[fr_freak]

•Sex. In a 2001 survey, condom maker Durex found that Japan ranked dead last among 28 countries in the frequency of sex: The average Japanese had sex just 36 times a year. Hong Kong was next to last with 63. (Americans ranked No. 1 at 124 times a year.)

We're #1 ! We're #1 !

[Always Right]

•Sex. In a 2001 survey, condom maker Durex found that Japan ranked dead last among 28 countries in the frequency of sex: The average Japanese had sex just 36 times a year. Hong Kong was next to last with 63. (Americans ranked No. 1 at 124 times a year.)

We're Number One, we're number one...

[whinecountry]

LOL!!

[lump in the melting pot]

you two sharing a brain cell or something?