Narita, of course, is the location of the New Tokyo International Airport.
Taking a cue from the now-familiar term "Narita divorce," Aera has coined a new
expression: "Narita ED." This is the term it has produced for husbands who lose
interest in having sex with their wives within one year.
ED is readily recognized as the abbreviation for erectile dysfunction.
"It came as something of a shock to realize it," says an unnamed 29-year-old
salaryman, whose bride of 12 months, annoyed by his repeatedly begging off at
bedtime, found it difficult to be confronted with the suspicion that his
marriage had already become sexless. Each evening before entering the bedroom
he had waited for the sound that indicated his wife was asleep.
When he peered into the waste receptacle and saw her discarded sanitary pads,
he would breathe a sigh of relief, thinking to himself, "The pressure's off for
this week."
In perhaps 90 percent of Narita ED cases, it is the husband's declining
interest that is responsible for the couple's sexless situation.
"I get the feeling that after marriage the previous pattern collapses," says
Kunio Kitamura, director of the clinic operated by the Japan Family Planning
Association. "Whereas in the old days, couples went on their honeymoon with the
expectation of getting it on, now you see more bridegrooms who make the trip to
take a break from sex."
A survey taken by Kitamura's clinic in 2004 determined that the percentage of
sexless couples at ages 25-29, 30-34 and 40-44 was virtually identical,
strongly pointing to sexless marriages developing from increasingly younger
ages.
"When we were dating we did it all the time," recalls a 27-year-old man
employed in the financial sector. "But during our weeklong honeymoon to the
Maldives, we only did it twice. Afterwards we did it about once a month, but
even that petered out, and it's been a whole year since we've made love."
Whenever the broadcast of a romantic TV drama, like the US series "Sex and the
City" began, one woman's hubby would invariably head for the shower, unwilling
to watch the program with her, perhaps out of fear that scenes showing bedroom
activities might embarrassingly underscore the couple's own sexless situation.
"Even though these couples did it regularly while dating, in many cases the sex
stopped right around the time of marriage," Kazuko Kaneko, a clinical
psychologist at the Japan Red Cross Hospital, tells Aera. "I suspect this might
be because when the couple dated the male usually took the initiative, but the
woman gradually assumed leadership in deciding the details of the wedding or
where they would live, causing the male to lose his self confidence."
A key problem is the different perspective the two partners take toward
sexlessness.
"Without sex, a woman feels that she's not loved, or not being treated as a
woman," Kaneko explains. "The husband, might try to rationalize by thinking, 'I
love my wife whether we do sex or not,' or 'Sex is no big deal.' When these
different perspectives become prolonged, it can lead to divorce."
"The young couples who come for consultations tend to demonstrate the same
pattern," says psychiatrist Teruo Abe, author of "The Psychology of
Sexlessness" (Chikuma Shinsho). "It clearly stems from a decline in the
husband's sex drive."
Abe has identified a characteristic pattern for Narita ED hubbies: 1. First,
the union was nearly always a "love marriage," in which the couple engaged in
normal premarital sex. 2. Soon after marriage, the husband began losing
interest. 3. Other than sex, the partners get along well, going shopping,
eating out and taking trips together. 4. The husband becomes unhappy if the
wife complains about the lack of physical attention. 5. Hence, she learns that
to preserve marital accord, it's best not to raise the subject. 6. The husband
does not suffer from any organic dysfunction, i.e., he might masturbate or
engage in sex with other women. 7. Her patience exhausted, the wife then seeks
counseling.
Dr. Abe's regimen for reviving flagging interest includes encouraging husbands
to "relearn" how to see their wives as sex objects, if necessary masturbating
while looking at their photographs. Sometimes Viagra helps. If that fails, he
prescribes an anti-depressant. Another tactic for rekindling romance, he
suggests, is to get out of the house and check into a local love hotel. If
these methods result in two or three successful episodes of intercourse, says
Abe, then the couple has a good chance of picking up where they left off.
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