Cigarette smoke hangs thick in the air of a Tokyo nightspot as Aki Nitta sips champagne with a trio of sweet-talking Lotharios peddling fake love at premium rates.
In a country that has lost its mojo, many wealthy Japanese women spend eye-watering sums on male hosts in return for an evening of sweet talk, flirting — and often sex.
“I want my heart to flutter,” Nitta told reporters at a popular club in the Kabukicho red light district lined with chrome and mirrors.
Photo: AFP
“Japanese men aren’t very attentive and don’t show their feelings, but hosts treat you like a princess. I want to be pampered and I don’t care how much it costs,” she added.
The 27-year-old businesswoman from Nagoya, Japan, spends about US$10,000 per month on the object of her desire — a faintly androgynous beau with bleached hair and a boyish grin.
However, some big-spenders splurge more than US$100,000 in a single night to have their egos stroked by smooth-talking rental Romeos who themselves can earn five times that amount in a good month.
There are a growing number of wealthy and successful Japanese women that have become frustrated with traditional dating and instead prefer to focus their romantic energies somewhere they are guaranteed to be treated well.
“I’m paying for time, rather than men,” Nitta said. “Time is more important to me, so I want to live for now, without any regrets.”
Many women — ranging from 20-somethings to those in their 60s — lavish expensive gifts on their favorite hosts, buying them diamond watches, luxury cars, even apartments.
“When I was 20 a customer bought me a Porsche,” said former host Sho Takami, who owns a chain of clubs and likens a host’s role to that of a psychiatrist, with benefits.
“It’s a 24-hour job,” the 43-year-old said after arriving for work in a chauffeured Rolls-Royce.
“Our real work starts after hours — going for drinks with customers, crawling into bed at 9am, meeting another one for lunch,” said Takami, who is set to open a host club in Las Vegas next year.
“It’s important the customer believes there’s a chance of love. After all, that’s how you get her to come to the club and spend money,” Takami added.
Host clubs are a US$10 billion industry in Japan, with about 800 venues nationwide. About 260 of those are located in Tokyo, most squeezed into Kabukicho’s narrow streets, where flickering neon signs display the airbrushed faces of hosts outside clubs with names such as Romeo, Gatsby and Avalon.
Hosts have been compared to male geishas and Takami believes the culture, which began in the early 1970s, empowers women.
“A host’s job is to support a lady’s heart,” he said. “We’re here to encourage women’s social advancement. It used to be considered a bit vulgar to party with hosts, but times have changed.”
“These days, being able to let your hair down at a host club is a mark of status or success,” he added.
Japan’s hosts, denizens of the night instantly recognizable by their spray tans, crimped long hair and tight-fitting suits, are often accused of preying on women’s emotions.
“The customers are buying affection,” ex-host Ken Ichijo said on the terrace of his penthouse apartment.
“We’re selling them dreams, so you lie about loving them in return for serious money,” the 38-year-old club manager added, freshly blow-dried and shirt open to reveal a medallion. “That leaves a bad taste for some people who think we’re just ripping girls off.”
Ichijo argued that it is simply a case of supply and demand.
“Hosts exist to fill a void in someone’s life,” he said. “In this business, the host is the product. We pamper to a woman’s every need — listen to her problems, tell her she’s beautiful, act out her fantasies.”
With harsher restrictions on opening hours, regular police checks and far less yakuza involvement, the host business has cleaned up its shady image in recent years.
However, the promise of sex is still dangled as bait in a cutthroat industry, said Ichijo, whose plush apartment screams bling.
“Sex is not necessarily part of a host club’s service, but it is part of trying to satisfy the customer’s needs,” he said.
Japan’s shrinking birthrate has been blamed in part on a growing social trend known as “herbivore men” — those who shun carnal pleasures and machismo in favor of the quiet life.
However, libidos rage among the coiffured gigolos at the Top Dandy club, where sex worker Megumi Suzuki is a regular.
“Hosts are charming and they understand a woman’s feelings,” the 27-year-old said as a snake-hipped host in leather pants and winklepicker shoes lit her cigarette.
“I come here to blow off steam. The men are like sparkly things — I could come every day and never tire of them,” she added.
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