Compensated Dating

This book considers a burgeoning social phenomenon, compensated dating in Hong Kong, that facilitates direct commercial sex exchange between consenting females from their mid-teens through the late 20s and males from their early 20s to mid-adulthood. Informed by the transformation of intimacy, the breakdown of institutional constraints, the emergence of a new female sexual autonomy and the advancement of information technology, this book moves beyond stereotypes of sex work to look at the complexities of compensated dating. The phenomenon of compensated dating is distinctive from most other sex trades in that it involves intense emotional interactions and often extends beyond the commercial boundary. Given the dynamic, flexible and ambiguous nature of compensated dating, it has become more of a space for sexual explorations and less of a rigid model of commercial sex, at least in the eye of the participants. This book walks through how men become involved in compensated dating and also sheds lights on how gender relations are negotiated, with important implications on what it means to be a man and a woman in contemporary Hong Kong society. It also speaks to the broader transformations of some of the key social structures and elements, particularly gender and sexualities, in the era of late modernity.

This book employs a unique interdisciplinary approach to analyze different ethical dilemmas in public policy, applying values and concepts to examine substantive policy and public issues that are grounded in practical realities (by integrating philosophy, political science, law, policy studies etc.), thereby bringing fresh insights to governance. Building on the nascent scholarly literature on the role of values in governance, it focuses on analyzing “social values in public policy” in the East-West context of Hong Kong, yielding new insights on how to achieve good governance by reflecting on public affairs and policy issues from a social values perspective. The book will be of interest to researchers, postgraduate and undergraduate students in the fields of philosophy, political science, public policy and social science in general, while politicians, public administrators, policy researchers and other professionals (e.g. teachers, journalists, social workers, doctors etc.) from both East and West will find it stimulating and constructive. The book offers well-founded reading and reference material for citizenship education, e.g. as teaching materials, especially for General Education courses at universities and Liberal Studies and Arts curricula in secondary schools. It also provides food for thought on the part of general citizens.“This will be a very important and unique book in the study of ethical pluralism andpublic policy in Hong Kong.”– Professor Sonny Lo Shiu Hing“Public policy both reflects and shapes social values and social norms. However, the so-cial values and ethical dimensions of public policy are often left implicit and unexploredin policy analysis and policy formulation. The big questions – what kind of society dowe want to create? What is at stake here? Whose values? – are debated and discussedin some other context which is more distant from the applied world of policymaking.This book takes a different position and puts ethical issues and social values up front inan exploration of a number of key public policy issues in Hong Kong. In doing so, thebook makes a very timely intervention in Hong Kong’s increasingly contentious publicaffairs and makes an important contribution to the general literature.”– Professor Ray Forrest

Over the past thirty years, whilst Japan has produced a diverse set of youth cultures which have had a major impact on popular culture across the globe, it has also developed a succession of youth problems which have led to major concerns within the country itself. Drawing on detailed empirical fieldwork, the authors of this volume set these issues in a clearly articulated ‘social constructionist’ framework, and put forth a sociology of Japanese youth problems which argues that there is a certain predictability about the way in which these problems are discovered, defined and dealt with. The chapters include case studies covering issues such as: Returnee children (kikokushijo) Compensated dating (enjo kōsai) Corporal punishment (taibatsu) Bullying (ijime) Child abuse (jidō gyakutai) The withdrawn youth (hikikomori) and NEETs (not in education, employment or training) By examining these various social problems collectively, A Sociology of Japanese Youth explains why particular youth problems appeared when they did and what lessons they can provide for the study of youth problems in other societies. This book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Japanese society and culture, the sociology of Japan, Japanese anthropology and the comparative sociology of youth studies.

This book draws attention to the nonlegal, sociocultural aspects of justice for minorities in China. The primary objectives are threefold. The first is to present a tentative analysis of the lived realities of being ‘the other’ in China, with the aim of presenting a critical picture of the complex national context and identifying main concerns and key challenges. Six topics are covered - gender roles, health, class, intimacy, ethnicity and religion, and expression. The second objective is to explore the interaction between a wide range of factors and myriad systems that enable or hinder protection and justice for these groups, be they historical, political, social, or cultural, hoping to open up a rich domain of inquiry for those interested in to what extent and in what ways otherness may or may not survive in China. The third objective is to bring attention to new trends and developments, some are easily identifiable whereas others are less detectable, some are interrelated while others are relatively isolated, some are straightforward and others remain easily misinterpreted.

In Lovesick Japan, Mark D. West explores an official vision of love, sex, and marriage in contemporary Japan. A comprehensive body of evidence—2,700 court opinions—describes a society characterized by a presupposed absence of physical and emotional intimacy, affection, and personal connections. In compelling, poignant, and sometimes horrifying court cases, West finds that Japanese judges frequently opine on whether a person is in love, what other emotions a person is feeling, and whether those emotions are appropriate for the situation. Sometimes judges’ views about love, sex, and marriage emerge from their presentation of the facts of cases. Among the recurring elements are abortions forced by men, compensated dating, late-life divorces, termination fees to end affairs, sexless couples, Valentine’s Day heartbreak, "soapland" bath-brothels, and home-wrecking hostesses. Sometimes the judges’ analysis, decisions, and commentary are as revealing as the facts. Sex in the cases is a choice among private "normal" sex, which is male-dominated, conservative, dispassionate, or nonexistent; commercial sex, which caters to every fetish but is said to lead to rape, murder, and general social depravity; and a hybrid of the two, which commodifies private sexual relationships. Marriage is contractual; judges express the ideal of love in marriage and proclaim its importance, but virtually no one in the court cases achieves it. Love usually appears as a tragic, overwhelming emotion associated with jealousy, suffering, heartache, and death.

In 1999, responding to international concerns about the sexual exploitation of children, the Japanese Diet voted unanimously to ban child prostitution and child pornography. Two years later, in the wake of 9/11, Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet radically shifted government counterterrorism policy toward new military solutions, and away from an earlier emphasis on law enforcement. Although they seem unrelated, these two policies reveal the unintended consequences of attempts to enforce international norms at the national level. In Think Global, Fear Local, David Leheny posits that when states abide by international agreements to clamp down on transnational crime and security concerns, they respond not to an amorphous international problem but rather to more deeply held and proximate fears. Although opponents of child prostitution and pornography were primarily concerned about the victimization of children in poor nations by wealthy foreigners, the Japanese law has been largely used to crack down on "compensated dating," in which middle-class Japanese schoolgirls date and sometimes have sex with adults. Many Japanese policymakers viewed these girls as villains, and subsequent legal developments have aimed to constrain teenage sexual activities as well as to punish predatory adults. Likewise, following changes in the country's counterterrorism policy, some Japanese leaders have redefined a host of other threats—especially from North Korea—as "terrorist" menaces requiring a more robust and active Japanese military. Drawing from sources as diverse as parliamentary debate records and contemporary film and literature, Leheny uses these two very different cases to argue that international norms can serve as political tools, allowing states to enhance their coercive authority.

Japanese society in the 1990s and 2000s produced a range of complicated material about sexualized schoolgirls, and few topics have caught the imagination of western observers so powerfully. While young Japanese girls had previously been portrayed as demure and obedient, in training to become the obedient wife and prudent mother, in recent years less than demure young women have become central to urban mythology and the content of culture. The cultic fascination with the figure of a deviant school girl, which has some of its earliest roots in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, likewise re-emerged and proliferated in fascinating and timely ways in the 1990s and 2000s. Through exploring the history and politics underlying the cult of girls in contemporary Japanese media and culture, this book presents a striking picture of contemporary Japanese society from the 1990s to the start of the 2010s. At its core is an in-depth case study of the media delight and panic surrounding delinquent prostitute schoolgirls. Sharon Kinsella traces this social panic back to male anxieties relating to gender equality and female emancipation in Japan. In each chapter in turn, the book reveals the conflicted, nostalgic, pornographic, and at times distinctly racialized manner, in which largely male sentiments about this transformation of gender relations have been expressed. The book simultaneously explores the stylistic and flamboyant manner in which young women have reacted to the weight of an obsessive and accusatory male media gaze. Covering the often controversial subjects of compensated dating (enjo kôsai), the role of porn and lifestyle magazines, the historical sources and politicized social meanings of the schoolgirl, and the racialization of fashionable girls, Schoolgirls, Money, Rebellion in Japan will be invaluable to students and scholars of Japanese culture and society, sociology, anthropology, gender and women's studies.

This book illustrates how young Japanese males perform their gender identity and sexuality. It compromises a comprehensive theoretical and practical reading of sexuality education as well as a comparative analysis that brings about a global perspective of the current issues concerning disease, sex, gender, and education for young people. An important resource for Japan specialists, this study will also be valuable for scholars in sociology, education, gender studies, and psychology.