The Lucrative Job for Young Japanese Girls That Might Disgust Most Western Women
The age of consent is 13. The adult movie industry’s worth $20 billion. Take a glimpse into Japan’s seedy underbelly.
“Why would I work for peanuts in an office serving tea to old men every day when I can just get them to buy me expensive drinks in bars and pay for my holidays to Hawaii and Bali?”
I’ll never forget this quote. It came from a Japanese surfer girl I’d gotten to know when I asked her why she worked in a ‘kabakura’ .
Her answer confused me then and still does. On the one hand, it was hard to argue with her logic, but on the other, it troubled me she was so flippant about working in an environment that, stereotypically, has a very misogynistic aura about it.
In Japanese, a ‘kabakura‘ is a men’s club that takes its name from a mix of ‘Cabaret Club’, using Japanese pronunciation (caba + clu = kabakura). To Westerners, these types of clubs are often called ‘Hostess Clubs’.
They’re everywhere in Japanese cities up and down the country.
Indeed, in the rural city where I live, there’s a big intersection a few miles outside town on the main drag that’s a perfect juxtaposition of the seedy and the beauty that intertwines here.
Exiting town and heading south from the intersection, the road is lined with towering palm trees that promise pina colada tropicana full of blue skies and beach highs.
In the opposite direction heading north into the city, the palm trees disappear and your eyes are immediately besieged by giant girls on billboards seductively beseeching you to part with your hard-earned for a few minutes of conversational intimacy.
The lure of the demure.
Dive even deeper into the town’s darker bowels and the subtlety surrenders to sledgehammer blatant.
Denoted by the ubiquitous posters and placards advertising the girls at your service inside, ‘kabakura’ clubs line the narrow streets and working girls or club touts do their very best to cajole the salaryman army onto the plush velvet sofas once the sun has disappeared each night.
But what exactly are these ‘kabakura’, and why might they disgust many western women?
At Your Service, Sir
In essence, ‘kabakura’ provide a service whereby cashed-up men can drink extortionately priced liquor with attractive young girls wearing slinky dresses and gobs of makeup.
A place of relaxation for husbands, fathers, bachelors, and bosses to let it all hang out after a hard day’s industry in the skyscraper trenches.
A place where the girls will light your cigarettes with the fancy flick of a finger, pour you a spirit to replenish sagging spirits, giggle at your banter no matter how boorish or banal, and even coo karaoke to woo your weary working heart.
Such service. Such stress-relief.
But no hanky panky. No stripping. And no prostitution.
Still pricey.
The price you pay is for the drinks and the company. The chance of a canoodle and a cuddle with a girl who might be half your daughter’s age.
Classy.
Companies often have bar tabs at ‘kabakura’ and do a lot of ‘team bonding’ and ‘business affairs’ there.
What’s so seedy about that, you might ask?
Well, the girls make their money by how much they can get each male or table to spend. Like a flutter-eyed butterfly flapping wings of servitude just to make its master smile, these girls are urged to use all their feminine wiles to excavate the money deep from a man’s pockets.
The more a man spends, the more a girl earns. Commission, as it were.
It’s sad that many young girls in Japan see this as a legitimate, nay, preferred option to earn money. Is this all that the superficial push for equality has amounted to in Japan?
Serious Health Complications
It ain’t rocket science, but these places aren’t 9–5 establishments. They open late and stay open later. A girl’s working hours are often dusk til dawn.
And they drink from dusk til dawn.
There’s usually a time limit on how long each girl spends at one table, so she will do the rounds with different clients, sharing drinks with all of them over and over through the night until she can barely speak anymore.
Or stand up.
Drink hard all night, sit amidst plumes of cigarette smoke in dark, windowless dungeons, then sleep off the hangover through the day and maybe grab something quick to eat to refuel and go again…
How long do you think the body can cope with this?
It’s why the majority of ‘kabakura’ working girls are under 30. Most under 25.
Chewed up, spat out, washed up by 30, what becomes of the girls’ working lives once they’re done? Who knows, but I’m confident their career paths don’t look too rosy. Nor does their health.
Blurred Lines Between Clients and Girls
After 18 years in Japan, I’ve met my fair share of ‘kabakura’ working girls. Most of them I’ve met through surfing.
While they’re still young, many see it as an easy way to make good money and have time off during the day to surf.
Good in theory.
Yet over the years, it’s almost always followed the same pattern, in my experiences:
- Start working in a kabakura.
- Love the money and the freedom.
- Surf during the day and take surfing trips abroad.
- Start surfing less and less as the job takes its toll
- End up as a mistress to a rich client
Yes, of course, there are exceptions and everyone’s different yada yada, but these have been my experiences.
I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count how many girls I’ve met who’ve ended up living alone in a city apartment provided by a client, enjoying the economic fruits of his labors in return for being his little bit of secret on the side.
‘Kabakura‘ owners and managers are adamant that there’s absolutely no prostitution and no stripping on the premises. And that’s true.
What goes on between client and girl outside the premises? Well, I guess there’s a reason you end up with about 15 business cards from girls in your back pocket after every visit…
My Own Kabakura Experiences
I’ve been to a few kabakura over the years, but not too many. One reason I don’t frequent them is that they cause too much grief with partners because you inevitably get caught with a wad of business cards in your pockets by night’s end.
Men don’t tell their wives or partners they’re going to a kabakura. That’s sabotage suicide for a relationship.
But in Japanese culture, it’s a must to receive and keep a business card when it’s given to you. Never, ever shove it in your back pocket or deep inside your bag, out of sight.
Problem is, once you’ve had a truckload of grog at a kabakura and stumble home, you forget to dispense with the evidence.
Drama with your partner.
But the bigger reason I don’t go is that most kabakura don’t allow foreigners inside. They often have signs on the doors explicitly saying so.
If not, the slick-back yakuza-adjacent doormen make it crystalline clear that these places do not covet your money.
Some people here chuck a hissy-fit about such discrimination, but it doesn’t bother me. Kabakura were not for me when I was single, and absolutely not now that I’m married with kids. Thus, I have no desire to go in any way.
If you’ve seen the Apple TV drama ‘Tokyo Vice‘, you’d have seen one of the star characters, Samantha, plying her trade in such an establishment.
No thanks.
Summing Up
There’s a school of thought that says kabakura girls are like modern-day geisha. I think that’s a load of utter poppycock dished out by dinosaur men who want to keep their little boy’s clubs.
To me, the saddest part about kabakura is that young girls often see this work as a glamorous, genuine way to make good money.
What’s so sad about that?
Equal pay is non-existent in Japan, and women are still heavily undervalued and underpaid in the workforce. Female CEOs? Please.
Cause and effect. Pay girls peanuts to do the same job as a man? They’ll turn to other ways of making money.
The horrifying part to me is that many Japanese guys are fine with that if it means the continuation of the status-quo.
And kabakura.
Japan is an incredible country with many wonderful assets. The world of the kabakura is not among them.
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