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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1264 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 4, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I don't know much about soaplands, but I think that they are sort of the old school type of establishment. Off the top of my head I cannot think of anyone I know who has ever been to one. At least they haven't told me about it. I think I heard some American/Canadian guys in Tokyo frequented them, but that is a vague memory of 20 years ago and these guys were seedier even than the degenerates that I sometimes spend time with.

Just like anywhere, I imagine some will accept foreigners, some will accept foreigners who can communicate in Japanese, and some won't. There are various sorts of clubs, some of which make the wikipedia article and some which don't. "Delivery health" or デリヘル is probably the closest to what you have in the US in terms of callgirls, though to the best of my knowledge it is entirely up to the girl involved whether she will actually have sex. If she won't go with a foreigner you'll find that out soon enough, but there are literally hundreds of such shops in Osaka city alone. Many of them have English versions of their webpages, suggesting someone is paying attention to the tourism boom. There's at least one completely open red-light district in a rather seedy area in the south. I've been through there, the first time completely by accident, subsequent times to show people who've come to Osaka what it looks like (no one went in.) In this place if they call out to you, you're acceptable. It is total prostitution, completely against the law, but is sidestepped by various small gestures (they are "teahouses," forget about the fact that there is a girl under a lamp showing her cleavage, wearing a santa suit and fishnets, or whatever). There is within a two-block radius of this district both a police station and an organized crime headquarters with its kamon or organizational crest right out on the front door. Tobita shinchi is very old, almost like an Osaka version of Yoshiwara in Tokyo. (I have never been there, no.)

I think part of the no foreigners is probably about awkwardness and communication and the ability to negotiate and read the air, especially in a matter as delicate as whether she is going to actually have sex with you or perform some act like sumata or whatever. In every day life there is so much you have to just "get" about situations (outside clearly tourist situations) without being told that I can't imagine sitting there making a deal on fucking or not would be easy. The argument can be made that this is true in any culture, and I agree with that, but there seem to me to be many more unwritten rules in Japan than say, France. Simple, uncomplicated racism as well no doubt exists in some of these places, particularly in the older dudes who own them, or maybe there's a reputational issue where they want their bread-and-butter Japanese clients to feel they are in a foreigner-free situation. (Note I believe there are delivery health services whose roster is exclusively populated by foreign women [probably Russians or other eastern Europeans], for the Japanese man who has such a fetish. It is also possible some of these places do not accept foreigners. I wouldn't be surprised.)

Edit: There was recently--well a year or so ago--a big deal about teenage girls prostituting themselves in a certain area of Osaka proper. This made the news somehow and the city passed an ordinance where the roads there were....painted yellow. Also signs were put up along the lines of "You are important" and "Don't ruin your life." Or similar. It apparently worked because the girls no longer loiter there. Probably somewhere else. It's a strange world. Tokyo is like Osaka x100 I expect.

Thanks for the info, it was super interesting. I didn't know there was such a wide variety in the sex trade in Japan. Though of course, it's not like I'm particularly knowledgeable about the sex trade in the US, so it stands to reason I know even less about a foreign country.

I know next to zero about what goes on stateside, though I have heard the term lot lizards. The whole milieu has always seemed trashy and generally unsavory to me.

What I noticed strolling through the open genkan of Tobita Shinchi was not the tawdry squalor, but the very Osaka neat Japanese decor, the mannered behavior, and the surprising beauty of many (not all) of the girls/women sitting there. I think it would be quite something to interview some of them but I've long given up on access.

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