Japanese Baby Boomers bonkers about boom-boom
By Ryann Connell
November 11, 2004
"I've got a sex friend. Every time I meet her, I make a mark in my diary. I
counted the marks up the other day - I met her seven times in a month, staying
over with her on three nights. Even I was surprised. I told my wife that I was
busy at work and had stayed at a hotel near my office. It's true that I'm busy.
My wife works and is busy enough on her own. She doesn't really care what I get
up to," 55-year-old trading company employee Masaru Ota tells Shukan Gendai.
Within striking distance of the retirement age of 60, Ota is like many other of
Japan's 5 million or so Baby Boomers who keep on boom-booming, with a poll
conducted among 500 men aged 55 to 57 by the men's weekly showing that one in
three maintained a healthy sex life, saddling up at least once and as many as
four times a month.
Some, like Ota, looked outside the marriage. Others, such as Katsuhiko Sato,
within.
"My wife and I have sex three to four times a month. I've showed no signs of
impotence and am not even worried about," the 56-year-old trader says. "I must
admit that sex is not so much about being so deeply in love with my wife as it
is about just force of habit."
Still more Baby Boomers, though, have already retired from the bedroom.
"My missus and I gave up on sex about 10 years ago," says 57-year-old Yuji
Matsushita, a brokerage employee. "I was busy at work, went out drinking every
night and never failed to come home late. I snored too loudly, so my wife
suggested we have separate bedrooms. After that, our sex life just dissolved
away naturally. We don't even talk about sex anymore. It's not like I'm
incapable of doing it, though. I had an affair for about three years. We
reaffirmed our physical relationship about once every couple of weeks."
Another standout feature of Japan's Baby Boomers has been their comparatively
low divorce rate, especially when other generations are untying the knot at a
record pace.
"Baby Boomers were born into a competitive society and have been bred on
competition. They're entire lives have been built on a foundation of
competition. Their biggest fear is being unable to compete. The fact that there
are so many Baby Boomers out there is a sign of competition. They grew up
wanting to go to good schools, yearned to buy their own homes, longed to have a
picture-perfect family and competed with people of their own generation to find
trophy lovers. That's why they shun divorce, because to them it looks like
losing. But, it also creates a large number of couples who are couples in name
only," Tokyo marriage counselor Hiromi Ikeuchi tells Shukan Gendai.
Ikeuchi predicts retirement will start leading to a flood of Baby Boomer
divorces.
"Divorce has three main causes -- infidelity, violence and debt. Up until a
couple enters their 60s, men are nearly always to blame when it comes to these
three factors. But, with the Baby Boomers, women are just as likely to play
around on their husbands, hit them or go out and borrow money from loan sharks
who they can't pay back," Ikeuchi tells Shukan Gendai. "Equality runs strong
among Baby Boomers. Women look at their husbands doing wrong and feel this
entitles them to act in the same way. Baby Boomer women who joined the
frontlines of the Women's Lib movement have turned into particularly
strong-willed wives. One major feature of the Baby Boomers is that couples
compete against each other and both sexes are forceful in expressing their
opinions. That's why so many women of this age group play around on their men.
Women are often content to keep quiet while their husbands are out working, but
once they retire, the women let loose, too, a free spirited thought that often
leads to the possibility of divorce."
Copyright 1999-2004, Mainchi Daily. All rights reserved. Ryann
Connell is a Staff Writer and Senoir Desk Editor for the Mainchi Daily News. No
content may be reproduced in whole or part without written permission.
Please contact us via the link below for re-print and syndication policies.
|
|
![](/contents/017/072/735.mime1)
Japanese
salarymen on front line of AIDS battle
11-3-2004
|