ENJO KOSAI

Japan is a land full of euphemisms. One of my favorites is enjo kosai, which translated literally means "compensated dating". What it really means is schoolgirl prostitution. It doesn't refer to the under-age girls working in the sex or pornography industries; there are plenty of young runaways who find their way to working as sex-workers, and it is not unheard of for loan sharks to force their debtors to have their daughters turn tricks to pay off the debt, what enjo kosai refers to is free-lance, amateur prostitution by junior high, and high school girls. Media interest in enjo kosai peaked in the 1980's, the height of the economic bubble, and the materialism that flourished in Japan at that time is blamed for the lax morality of these schoolgirls, for while Japan has a long history of young girls entering prostitution, traditionally this was done to support their poor families, whereas today's schoolgirls choose paid sex to enable the purchasing of designer and brand name goods. The exact number of girls practicing enjo kosai is hard to fix, media scare stories of the eighties gave the impression that every other girl was doing it, but a reasonable estimate would be 5%. That figure would still mean the equivalent of every classroom having a teenage prostitute. Indicative of Japan's morality and materialism, one survey of 14 and 15-year-old girls found that 20% of them saw nothing wrong or immoral in enjo kosai. Shibuya, an area of Tokyo, is renowned as a place where middle-aged men visit to "date" schoolgirls, but the preferred method of meeting is through internet dating sites and cell-phones. A new law was passed recently making it illegal to solicit anyone under 18 for sex, and convictions have increased slightly since then, notably of policemen and schoolteachers, but Japanese men have a firmly established Lolita Complex, so enjo kosai is unlikely to disappear or even diminish.