Sex workers rally behind politician over raunchy guide book row (mainichi-msn.co.jp)

A suburban Tokyo politician -- and former Mainichi reporter -- has become the center of a huge brouhaha with some colleagues waging a campaign for his dismissal because he used to publish guides to the sex industry, according to Weekly Playboy (7/30). Masayoshi Usui, 44, now a member of the Higashi Murayama Municipal Assembly, has a checkered work history that includes a stint as the publisher of Manzoku, a magazine offering information on Japan's inventive ejaculation industry. Usui also works on the magazine's cable network, Manzoku TV, where he has come out with such choice comments as: "I'd love to squeeze some G cup-sized tits," "The biggest orgy I've ever been in had me and seven women," and "If you're going to grope or peep, do it at one of the sex businesses set up for that sort of stuff." A couple of Usui's colleagues on the municipal assembly have taken offense at his past and demanded he stand down. Those assembly members, Hozumi Yano and Naoko Asaki, also make a newspaper which they have employed to unleash a sustained attack on Usui. "His statements are tremendously sexually harassing and he clearly violates women's human rights," Weekly Playboy quotes one of the women politicians as writing in an editorial. "And international treaties outlaw the sexual trade he encourages." Not many of the other members of the assembly support the two women. In fact, in a rare show of unity, representatives of all the major parties across the spectrum have come out in support of the man who gave up sexual sleaze for that of the political world. And Usui has even received support from the very sector the two women say he is exploiting. "This matter is not just a problem for Usui to deal with. People who confuse sex workers with sex slaves are being completely discriminatory on the basis of labor. If the moves to get Usui to stand down succeed, it could have an unpleasant rippling effect that extends widely. They're trying to deprive somebody striving to move out of the sex industry of a chance to go straight. We're totally behind Usui," Yukiko Kaname, head of the sex workers' union SWASH tells Weekly Playboy. "They say Usui keeps saying things that are sexually harassing, but he actually made the statements at a restricted area accessible only by adults. There's no problem ... it's the same as a couple of lovers talking about the size of the woman's breasts." Usui himself, who easily survived Yano and Asaki's motion to order him to resign his seat, is unfazed by the women's commotion. "Look, this whole thing is just a storm in a teacup generated by Ms. Yano and Ms. Asaki. I believe the other assembly members have some common sense. I don't think anything untoward will come out of this, but if it does, I'll have no option other than to fight," Usui tells Weekly Playboy. "If I have to resign just because I've worked in a sex business, then that would make it impossible for anybody else from the same industry to ever move into politics. I can't possibly allow that. I'm an assembly member and I've got a whole lot of other more important work to do. I just wish this whole kerfuffle would hurry up and die." (By Ryann Connell)