'Slut glut' thrusts working girls into real world

By Ryann Connell
November 9, 2004

Cop crackdowns on brothels, humdrum and an oversupply of willing workers causing, to put it crudely, a slut glut, have combined to drive sex workers out of Japan's ejaculation industry and into more respectable lines of work, as Spa! finds out.

"Working in the sex business taught me a lot, but most of it was a bit wrenching on the heart," says Miki Kurahashi, whose swap from a three-year veteran turning tricks to an expecting mother carrying the child of a co-worker from her apparel company turned her life from getting one in the coven to having a bun in the oven.

Kurahashi planned well for her post-coital career.

"I didn't really care at first about what my parents might think (about me working in the sex business), but when I started thinking about getting out, I got an alibi company to look after the little things for me," the 24-year-old tells Spa! For a joining fee of 10,000 yen and a monthly charge of 5,000 yen, the alibi company put Kurahashi on its books, providing her with monthly pay slips and, more importantly, documentation suggesting she was employed somewhere that could be openly talked about. "I used the company name on all my resumes and found a job at a high-class apparel company. The people are kinda like the customers I had in the sex business and my sales record is really good," she beams, before bemoaning the loss of the heady days where she earned 3 million yen a month through, well, headies. "A take home pay packet of 220,000 yen was a bit stiff. I found it hard to accept that reality at first, crying and thinking, 'this is impossible.' The 5 million yen savings I'd built up were blown within half a year. It took a long time to get used to what it had been like before."

Ryoko Kobayashi found her time as a call girl a positive experience and had little trouble slipping back into mainstream society after she ended the process of men slipping things into her. The four months she spent as a worker dealing with all types of men, including the disabled, have helped with her current post as a care worker for the elderly.

"I lost all my prejudices and became more tolerant of men. I sorta thought, 'Ah, naughty guys are all doing this kinda stuff away from the home,'" she tells Spa! "Many wrinklies are still at it now, or at least still have an interest in sex. Thanks to a 70-year-old customer I once serviced, I can understand how these guys are thinking. Boys will be boys."

Several years in the flesh trade dealing with those who only had broads on the mind also taught Mika Toda to become more broadminded.

"No matter how repulsive the person, I learned within 5 minutes how to find something good about them," Toda, now working for an event planning company, says. "My new job needs me to be a good communicator, so my past has stood me in good stead."

A former No. 1 call girl in the Tokyo suburb of Kichijoji, Mika Mizutani is delighted to have washed her hands of the sex business in favor of a job at a cosmetic surgeon's.

"All they wanted was my body," she whines to Spa! "It got to the stage where the mere sight of a man in a suit made me think all men were dirty, sex-starved beasts and it made me sick. I really came to have a distrust of men."

Kana Takayanagi, meanwhile, ditched her position as an erotic masseuse to instead massage people's egos at a web page design company where her old boss got her the job.

"I think I was lucky. But, everybody at my company now knows that I was once a sex worker. Once I've learned enough about the job, I'm going to switch to a new company where nobody knows anything about my past," the 24-year-old says.

Takayanagi still finds it tough trying to get by on her current wage of 150,000 yen a month, less than one-third of what she was making in her days plying saucy rub-downs.

"I really want to stay in this job, but I've gotta admit it's tough," she tells Spa! "Sometimes, I just think that if a guy came along and he was an OK type with enough money to get us by, I'd marry him even if I wasn't head over heels for him."

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.