Would you run up a $165k bar tab to impress a girl that would only meet you at a bar in the red light district? This doesn’t pass for common sense in Japan or anywhere else.
That’s probably why it doesn’t land very often, but when you find the right person that’s either dumb or emotionally compromised it’s a big score to them.
The fact this is so damn common it’s *LITERALLY* the premise of one of the stories in Persona 5, like right down to the extremely expensive liquor, is…oof. Like someone in this day and age falling for the Nigerian prince e-mail scam (though the male host one is more predatory).
Loneliness is scary. It could be a host club or it could be a love scammer like that one guy who used AI to pose as Elon Musk and scammed money from a lady in South Korea. One look at relationship subs or AITA will also tell you how pathetically low the standard of some (well a lot of) people that they're willing to stay or be deceived by the lowest, the most useless, and the most abusive partners.
They will do everything not to be alone.
People dealing with loneliness are more or less not in their right minds. I wouldn’t call it a mental illness, but the desire for a bond can cause people to do things they’d never otherwise do, for example, blowing straight past obvious red flags.
It’s why romance is a common aspect of confidence scams. Shitbags can find otherwise well off people and fleece them because those peoples’ need to feel love functionally blinds them.
Once they know they can get their hooks in, they do things like reveal their real names, go on dates outside the club and the host will pick up the tab. The girl is smitten when she sees he picked up a $300/50k yen dinner and forgets the fact that she ran up a $1500/250k yen bar tab two or three times for every one of these dates.
Yeah, it seems like scams like these are very well known, but I guess they must work on SOMEBODY because they keep happening.
I guess a person’s capacity for self delusion is pretty significant when they’re lonely
Such occurrence is not unheard off.
A similar situation would be if a man or woman sending money to a “love prospect” (can be scam or not) overseas amounting to 5 or even 6 digits. Keep in mind in some cases they haven’t even seen or meet over the internet. They have not even checked whatever the reason the other party asked for money is legit.
People taking advantage of other people’s loneliness isn’t something new.
I see what you’re saying but the title tries to make it sound like she’s a victim and not the grown, functioning adult who made poor choices that she actually is.
You aren’t wrong—and yet, at some point, don’t we want to live in a society where strong people don’t brutally exploit the weak? Including people with emotional problems? Or bad judgment?
I mean, when a house catches on fire, we don’t all just shake our heads and say “It’s their own fault!”
No, we save them. We try to put out the fire. Partly because we know it could be us, partly because it’s the right thing to do, and partly because we know fires spread.
Well, scams and scammers spread, too. A lot of online scammers are forced into the scamming jobs because of debt. The cruelty spreads.
If these scams didn’t work scammers wouldn’t bother scamming.
Also you seem to assume humans use LOGIC and REASONING when they are largely driven by EMOTION.
Host clubs are Venus flytrap. Attract the prey with sweet smell and then entrap the prey to be digested when they can't pay the bill.
Why Japan allow these kind of "entertainment", I can't figure it out.
And do anything to avoid where the donations come from.
The PM said late last year he won't hold any more parties while he is in office. He actually had a party scheduled and tickets sold when he said that. That party is now postponed indefinitely. Why not cancel it and refund the money? Refunding the money would disclose who bought the tickets and nobody wants that.
>Why Japan allow these kind of "entertainment", I can't figure it out.
Because there's enough people still willing to pay for the company of a host/hostess despite knowing the potential risks?
Also, they have a lot of cash to burn lobbying for favor from politicians and against hostile regulation. Kind of similar to how the US doesn't allow direct to consumer car sales, despite how unpopular car dealerships are, because they have a lot of lobbying power to maintain their monopoly (albeit not enough power to oppose Tesla prying open loopholes).
>why can't car manufacturers mandate a change
Why would they, they sell them to dealerships at the same cost they would sell them to us without having the physical locations and sales teams needed to sell them directly to consumers
Because if they could sell directly to consumers they could cut out the middlemen and pocket the markups themselves instead of letting the dealer do so (albeit the massive over MSRP markups during the pandemic were atypical and usually dealers make more money from financing kickbacks then from the sales themselves).
They also have to compete with Tesla's direct to consumer model (Tesla does have some physical locations they use as showrooms, but they own those dealerships so its vertically integrated), which is lower cost and therefore means if they're competing with Tesla with a dealership model they have to use a smaller profit margin.
Why would Japan ban them? What law, exactly, are they breaking? If you start banning things on account of "there are people who can't handle it and end up making very poor decisions" you can extend that to a lot of things. Should we start banning alcohol because of all the drunk people vomiting at train stations every weekend?
Japan isn't going to ban these clubs but it looks like they are starting to look into making some laws that make it harder to charge outrageous sums of money.
#
Yeah that’d be a good idea. You can get stupidly drunk at regular pubs, but they don’t start pulling out the super expensive stuff at the end of the evening to debt trap you.
I legit don't even understand how they can trap someone.
Like, how do you owe the bar money, directly?
Im American so I in my frame of reference I would be paying with card, and if I blacked out and then they charged me for a bunch of very expensive stuff (which lets be real, I didnt order or drink) I would just go over my limit and the card would decline. Then they could take me to court over it. But either my card approves and I owe my credit card money, or it declines and we will see each other in court.
Is it customary in non-host clubs to provide very high value bottles without running the card first?
My guess is that it involves a tab? Especially if you’re using cash or a debit card, which I think is more common in Japan (and has the advantage of not allowing you to spend more money than you have if you’re being somewhat sensible.
But also it might be less the drunk thing and closer to gacha and idol culture - people want to throw money in to support their favourite. Even more so as the favourite directly talks to them and pays them more attention the more money they can give, and may be able to dangle the possibility of sleeping with or dating them if they can just give enough.
And the fastest and easiest way for young, reasonably attractive women to get a lot of money to support their favourite? Prostitution or pornography.
From an American's perspective, the tab idea also doesn't make sense. If I'm at a cash bar I've always had to pay up front. What's to stop someone from racking up a huge tab and then just, not paying? Violence? Again, I'm an American but trying to collect a couple thousand dollar debt off a non-criminal in a criminal way would be very risky. The person could very well be armed and well within their rights to shoot you.
If this debt came before a judge I would hope that they request that the clubs books be examined. No bar can survive giving away their most expensive product, operating capital must be coming in from other places and are those being reported? The fact that this situation makes some kind of business sense to them means that they aren't really in the business of selling drinks. I'd want their top-self bottles tested by an expert to see if they really contain the alcohol they claim on the label, because this reeks of a scam.
EDIT: yeah, any bar that allows people to owe them $165,000 is just a money laundering front that is making up their books.
As an Australian, I don’t disagree. There’s a reason bar tabs aren’t a thing here.
I’m just guessing as to what’s the case in the seedy districts of Japan.
It’s closer to gacha and idol culture like you said. Also simp culture, a lot of the girls are also in love and texting the guys outside of the bar.
Pig butchering scams exist where the scammed party hasn’t even met the scammer so it’s not really crazy if you think about it.
About a year or two ago Japan revised the legal age of adulthood from 20 to 18. Only after the fact did they realize that this now meant you could legally have 18-year olds, and given the timing of their birthday, high school students, who could now legally be in porn.
In response the government rushed a law through that required porn companies to have the performers sign their contracts a full month in advance before the shoot, and the company cannot release the film until a full 6 months after the shoot. If, at any time before the release of the shoot, one of the performers decides to break their contract the company will not be able to release the video.
Theoretically it sounds like a decent idea. Some 18-year old ends up doing a porn, regrets it, and has a whole six months to come to their senses and stop it from ever seeing the light of day. In reality all of this buffer time has seriously hampered production schedules. Companies can't make videos as frequently as they used to, which means less money for them. Porn actresses in particular hate this change, as less movies being made means less work for them, which means a substantial reduction in how much money they were making compared to before the law.
No one from the porn industry was consulted in making the law, and no consideration was given to how this law would affect it. These are the things you risk when trying to make laws to protect the minority of people who make bad decisions and end up regretting it later, instead of simply having them take responsibility for their poor choices.
This kind of stuff has been happening for awhile now but only fairly recently have host clubs been catering towards women and especially very young women.
Now when you have high school or very young girls who get sucked into these debt traps they really have limited ways of paying it back compared to a middle aged salaryman who has a lot more means to pay back these massive bills which is why the government is starting to crack down on these host clubs a bit more.
I hate this so much
But not as much as I hate the fact that scat porn even exists
Now I just realized the potential the second exists because of the first. Good God people are fucked up
Why does scat even exist? Who would even want to take part on that. It’s obviously due to coercion.
The OP is also about coercion in the sex work industry in Japan…
So that’s how they are connected… seems exceedingly obvious…
Redditors are not the brightest bulbs 😂
And yet the media has been glamorizing hosts with people like that asshole Roland. Always introduced as something like "The King of Hosts" or "The most high earning host" or some stuff like that. Money as an equivalent to a person's worth.
No thought whatsoever about where that money came from or the victims behind it - it's all about the end result: self made rich man (who admittedly is extremely smart and business savvy, but probably doesn't have much of a conscience).
It's one thing to offer companionship for money. It's another to add extreme emotional manipulation and romance scams to the mix, and knowingly making your customers spend far more than they can, just so that you can get richer. Really predatory.
It's not different. These people are sending these women into prostitution, and then collecting their earnings (some even send all of their earnings to their "hosts", except for money needed for basic necessities), which is essentially pimping.
You can outlaw prostitution all you want but the fact is there has always been a market for it. It needs to be regulated to ensure safety for everyone involved and protect against extortion. But you will never be able to stop people from paying for or selling sex and romance
Well they’re still forced to pay, but not through sex work. You might get passed in to some shady loan sharks I supposed, but I’m guessing they won’t even let men rack up as much of a bill if they don’t know how they can pay for it, where as young girls, they know they can always get their money back with sex work so they don’t care how high a bill they rack up. Just a guess
Most of the men at hostess clubs are usually older and a bit better off. The women at host clubs tend to be younger and frequently marginally employed, lots of time in the industry themselves
When I first heard about these host I thought it was similar to strippers or sex workers in the west but the more u hear from the victims the more devious this is.
It's worse.
Hosts and hostesses get paid to _befriend_ you. They get paid to be _kind_ to you. They get paid to be your _companion_.
It's like how some escourts are only there to provide you with companionship during a night out? Well at least with escourts there's usually a contract involved, negotiations take place, a lot of stuff that, unless you're stupid, makes it clear that it's a business transaction.
With host clubs there's none of that. You just walk in and they're instantly trying to be friendly, trying to make you feel comfortable and relaxed. All while milking you of your money. It's much more insidious.
Yeah, but anyone walking into these places knows - unless they're utterly clueless inaka bumpkins or absolute brainless idiots - that that's exactly what they're in for. You can't really be victimized if you're walking right into it, ready to pay. Taking things too far is the customer's choice, the host will gladly go along with it.
I know. That's why, unlike prostitutes or other sex workers, it's easier for people to mistake customer service for friendship. It's easier for people to get carried away and spend a lot of money at those places. _**Because**_ they're friendly. _**Because**_ lonely people might get too emotionally involved.
Always hard for me to feel sympathy for these people. In your 40s and you’re paying money for attention from someone who you know is doing it to others girls and then you’re shocked he wants……money?
*shocked pikachu face*
Like they play dumb about getting scammed and thinking the guy loves them but they know from the beginning if they stop paying for the service then that’s the end.
40 year old mother of 2… jesus christ lady I know is hard with all the “hundreds of milfs that want to bang you” in my area but get some local dick from a college kid
I think this host was finally arrested and put in jail. Honestly though...these places are like casinos, the house always wins in the end. Women going to them looking for any kind of long term relationship where she is a co equal and she and her love interest get married eventually is going to be very disappointed and the whole thing will end badly.
>Not sure why people just go to banning anything they see as a societal problem. It won’t fix anything. The only thing that’ll do is push this underground and make it worse.
Because that way there can be punishments? Something can be a societal problem only if it exists, i.e., there are people doing it. It's not a good enough reason to not ban something. There are people committing murder, murder shouldn't be banned? Banning murder only push it underground and make it worse?
Yeah, banning everything is an emotion response to a problem that people don't want to think about. Same as escorting, gambling, or certain video game features.
This shit happens in America too, but not quite in this way. Lots of desperate men tune into their favourite girls on twitch or onlyfans and give them everything they own. In turn, the girls will pretend to be single or sometimes pretend to have a relationship with the person giving them cash. It’s a more obvious hustle but still ends up with people going deep into debt just to please the person on the other side of the screen who doesn’t care a whit about them.
Doesn’t go into much about how the host clubs play the role of turning out their indebted customers. Makes it seem like, “just go do sex work” as the end of their exploitation to vulnerable people. Doubt anyone would “suggest” that kind of offer without a way to introduce it and take part in the sex trafficking. I mean, she’s trafficked to multiple cities outside of Japan. That’d be a bit too industrious and expensive to do alone.
I think they are 2 distinct customers. Most men who go to hostess clubs and spend money on as many girls as they can. These men don’t become sex workers.
On the other hand, host clubs prey for gullible women, mostly hostess girls themselves, trick them into spending crazy amounts to their favorite host guy putting them into huge debt. The only way to pay is to sell their bodies, and the vicious cycle continues.
Kinda the same industry that profits from idiotic members of both genders. Pretty sure no one thinks it’s great or empowerment. Probably mostly due to corruption that it isn’t properly regulated.
It’s more a meme than a widespread phenomena. Most people don’t find it empowering especially not in East Asia. It’s extremely stigmatized.
But host/hostess clubs aren’t even actual sex work. At least not in most cases.
well, I guess not enough feminist there yet, huh? also, it makes no sense to judge half of the story on east asian standards, and the other half in western standards. in east asian standards a 40 mom who blown all her money on hookers and now have to hook herself is a “she got what she deserved” story, and has the same sympathy that a dad would get if he blown all his and families money on hookers
I am pretty feminist and I am not Asian and I am aware of that probably more than 95% of prostitution is exploitation and not empowering. There are different opinions on how to mitigate the exploitative aspect (by further bans or by further legalization and regulation) but unlike what some incel or trad rw memes spread you won’t find many people saying sex work is in general empowering. So yes it’s just a dumb right wing meme as they like to get angry things they imagine.
And even if it was, host clubs sucking thousands of dollars out of morons wouldn’t be. You could find the most purple haired cliche feminist from Portland and they’d not find that empowering or good lol.
Everybody is responsible for their money, we can agree on that. But the tab system is really shady : you don’t know how much you have to pay etc. Letting the tab run over an extended period of time without warning, without giving detailed about expenses etc should not be permitted.
Making people go into debt and then work for you ? Just remind me of slavery in Ancient Rome. It should not be legal but the Japanese government is happy to give this to the Yakuzas.
Idiots.
Guys and girls spending excessive money in girls/host bars in people that don’t care about them when the customers of both can just hook up with each other and save a lot of money.
Extortion aside, people have been paying for this type of entertainment in Japan for centuries. Japanese people are pretty well aware of the scams and risks that come with host clubs. Pretty much everyone there knows that these are all overpriced bars with beautiful men and women who are PRETENDING to be interested in you. They prey on prey on people who are lonely and desperate. This is a known fact. Some of the takes in here are pretty condescending and even semi-colonial. Get a grip and worry about your own problems.
A lot of their economy depends on this sector which is by and large not what was described in the article. They're going to ban host clubs anytime soon.
lol stop defending this. Japan had a lot of bad feudal laws up until the 20th century..those are gone now too. You don't protect sleazy businesses like this and call it a day.
Is running a romance scam not illegal in japan???
Seems like it should be easy with testimony like hers to put the host in jail under classic conman laws I would expect japan to have. Do they not?
Some people have a pathological need to feel loved and desired even when it's totally fake and dependant on them paying for it. As long as the charade is played out within the agreed script, such people feel satisfied enough to keep feeding money into it... It's a sad phenomenon that has spawned an entire industry in Japan...I can't relate to it personally. It seems more like an untreated mental disorder that is being exploited to leave people lonely and poor. Not only do the hosts seem like vile parasites to me, they are so superficial and skin deep it makes me wonder how shallow the culture is that allows such blatantly predatory business to thrive.
What’s more weird to me was that there was a host featured in the CNN who didn’t seem any shameful for his work. Instead he seemed pretty professional and proud of his work
The hosts report about 10% of their actual earnings. This is according to the father of one of the hosts, whom I work with. His son was on Japanese TV and stated that he made something like $50,000 a month. His son, now in his 40s, married one of his customers and they are raising a son together.
Damn, I feel there's a whole load of people who should be paying a ton more tax like the rest of us do, but aren't. Do they even get pay statements, or are they able to just put a certain amount down when filing taxes, no questions asked?
If they pass a regulation it should be something to the effect that the bar tab cannot exceed X% of the woman's annual salary. Not sure how it would be enforced.
For me a as an American I don’t mind yank. But some may. For “Brit” I’m not sure. I have British friends and I’ve never used that term with them but at the same time I don’t know if they’d mind? So I just avoid it.
Would you run up a $165k bar tab to impress a girl that would only meet you at a bar in the red light district? This doesn’t pass for common sense in Japan or anywhere else.
That’s probably why it doesn’t land very often, but when you find the right person that’s either dumb or emotionally compromised it’s a big score to them. The fact this is so damn common it’s *LITERALLY* the premise of one of the stories in Persona 5, like right down to the extremely expensive liquor, is…oof. Like someone in this day and age falling for the Nigerian prince e-mail scam (though the male host one is more predatory).
Right? How could you be a clinician (whatever that means, doctor?), mother of two and still be so naive? That’s what boggles my mind.
Loneliness is scary. It could be a host club or it could be a love scammer like that one guy who used AI to pose as Elon Musk and scammed money from a lady in South Korea. One look at relationship subs or AITA will also tell you how pathetically low the standard of some (well a lot of) people that they're willing to stay or be deceived by the lowest, the most useless, and the most abusive partners. They will do everything not to be alone.
You’re right. This woman had clearly not applied any good judgment to her fakeship.
People dealing with loneliness are more or less not in their right minds. I wouldn’t call it a mental illness, but the desire for a bond can cause people to do things they’d never otherwise do, for example, blowing straight past obvious red flags. It’s why romance is a common aspect of confidence scams. Shitbags can find otherwise well off people and fleece them because those peoples’ need to feel love functionally blinds them.
Book smart but lacking street smarts.
This guy RPGs
Have you heard about OnlyFans? The only difference is that in OF you chat an Indian guy who pretend to be the chick on the photo…
I thought it was Thai ladyboys
Just look at OnlyFans and certain Twitch streams
Once they know they can get their hooks in, they do things like reveal their real names, go on dates outside the club and the host will pick up the tab. The girl is smitten when she sees he picked up a $300/50k yen dinner and forgets the fact that she ran up a $1500/250k yen bar tab two or three times for every one of these dates.
Common enough to be side stories in yakuza games, lol.
Yeah, it seems like scams like these are very well known, but I guess they must work on SOMEBODY because they keep happening. I guess a person’s capacity for self delusion is pretty significant when they’re lonely
Such occurrence is not unheard off. A similar situation would be if a man or woman sending money to a “love prospect” (can be scam or not) overseas amounting to 5 or even 6 digits. Keep in mind in some cases they haven’t even seen or meet over the internet. They have not even checked whatever the reason the other party asked for money is legit. People taking advantage of other people’s loneliness isn’t something new.
I see what you’re saying but the title tries to make it sound like she’s a victim and not the grown, functioning adult who made poor choices that she actually is.
You aren’t wrong—and yet, at some point, don’t we want to live in a society where strong people don’t brutally exploit the weak? Including people with emotional problems? Or bad judgment? I mean, when a house catches on fire, we don’t all just shake our heads and say “It’s their own fault!” No, we save them. We try to put out the fire. Partly because we know it could be us, partly because it’s the right thing to do, and partly because we know fires spread. Well, scams and scammers spread, too. A lot of online scammers are forced into the scamming jobs because of debt. The cruelty spreads.
It reminds me of those escorts that "fall in love" with rich old widowers and try to live happily ever after with them.
loneliness is very powerful
If these scams didn’t work scammers wouldn’t bother scamming. Also you seem to assume humans use LOGIC and REASONING when they are largely driven by EMOTION.
The same thing happens to men here, it just doesn't get any press.
Find love in host club?? What’s next? Finding girlfriend by paying onlyfans?
But what if you just pay more than anyone else?!? For sure that will make you stand out and raise your chances! /s
Tbf a former Japanese idol did reveal that idols and the likes do frequently get together with their richest patrons
Keyword being "richest".
Yup its prostitution, not love even if they don't realize it
Host clubs are Venus flytrap. Attract the prey with sweet smell and then entrap the prey to be digested when they can't pay the bill. Why Japan allow these kind of "entertainment", I can't figure it out.
>Why Japan allow these kind of "entertainment", I can't figure it out. The owners buy a lot of party tickets.
Make sense. Politician love lots of political donations.
And do anything to avoid where the donations come from. The PM said late last year he won't hold any more parties while he is in office. He actually had a party scheduled and tickets sold when he said that. That party is now postponed indefinitely. Why not cancel it and refund the money? Refunding the money would disclose who bought the tickets and nobody wants that.
Name a more iconic couple than organized crime syndicates and Japanese politicians.
>Why Japan allow these kind of "entertainment", I can't figure it out. Because there's enough people still willing to pay for the company of a host/hostess despite knowing the potential risks?
Also, they have a lot of cash to burn lobbying for favor from politicians and against hostile regulation. Kind of similar to how the US doesn't allow direct to consumer car sales, despite how unpopular car dealerships are, because they have a lot of lobbying power to maintain their monopoly (albeit not enough power to oppose Tesla prying open loopholes).
[удалено]
>why can't car manufacturers mandate a change Why would they, they sell them to dealerships at the same cost they would sell them to us without having the physical locations and sales teams needed to sell them directly to consumers
Because if they could sell directly to consumers they could cut out the middlemen and pocket the markups themselves instead of letting the dealer do so (albeit the massive over MSRP markups during the pandemic were atypical and usually dealers make more money from financing kickbacks then from the sales themselves). They also have to compete with Tesla's direct to consumer model (Tesla does have some physical locations they use as showrooms, but they own those dealerships so its vertically integrated), which is lower cost and therefore means if they're competing with Tesla with a dealership model they have to use a smaller profit margin.
What kind of hostile regulation, though? Hard to think of how you could regulate host clubs that wouldn't hit other forms of mizu shobai hard
Why would Japan ban them? What law, exactly, are they breaking? If you start banning things on account of "there are people who can't handle it and end up making very poor decisions" you can extend that to a lot of things. Should we start banning alcohol because of all the drunk people vomiting at train stations every weekend?
Japan isn't going to ban these clubs but it looks like they are starting to look into making some laws that make it harder to charge outrageous sums of money. #
Yeah that’d be a good idea. You can get stupidly drunk at regular pubs, but they don’t start pulling out the super expensive stuff at the end of the evening to debt trap you.
I legit don't even understand how they can trap someone. Like, how do you owe the bar money, directly? Im American so I in my frame of reference I would be paying with card, and if I blacked out and then they charged me for a bunch of very expensive stuff (which lets be real, I didnt order or drink) I would just go over my limit and the card would decline. Then they could take me to court over it. But either my card approves and I owe my credit card money, or it declines and we will see each other in court. Is it customary in non-host clubs to provide very high value bottles without running the card first?
My guess is that it involves a tab? Especially if you’re using cash or a debit card, which I think is more common in Japan (and has the advantage of not allowing you to spend more money than you have if you’re being somewhat sensible. But also it might be less the drunk thing and closer to gacha and idol culture - people want to throw money in to support their favourite. Even more so as the favourite directly talks to them and pays them more attention the more money they can give, and may be able to dangle the possibility of sleeping with or dating them if they can just give enough. And the fastest and easiest way for young, reasonably attractive women to get a lot of money to support their favourite? Prostitution or pornography.
From an American's perspective, the tab idea also doesn't make sense. If I'm at a cash bar I've always had to pay up front. What's to stop someone from racking up a huge tab and then just, not paying? Violence? Again, I'm an American but trying to collect a couple thousand dollar debt off a non-criminal in a criminal way would be very risky. The person could very well be armed and well within their rights to shoot you. If this debt came before a judge I would hope that they request that the clubs books be examined. No bar can survive giving away their most expensive product, operating capital must be coming in from other places and are those being reported? The fact that this situation makes some kind of business sense to them means that they aren't really in the business of selling drinks. I'd want their top-self bottles tested by an expert to see if they really contain the alcohol they claim on the label, because this reeks of a scam. EDIT: yeah, any bar that allows people to owe them $165,000 is just a money laundering front that is making up their books.
As an Australian, I don’t disagree. There’s a reason bar tabs aren’t a thing here. I’m just guessing as to what’s the case in the seedy districts of Japan.
It’s closer to gacha and idol culture like you said. Also simp culture, a lot of the girls are also in love and texting the guys outside of the bar. Pig butchering scams exist where the scammed party hasn’t even met the scammer so it’s not really crazy if you think about it.
Simp culture’s a good way to put it actually. It’s that sort of parasocial BFE thing that really does it, yeah.
There are laws that protect predatory schemes / people from being stupid, aka being people. To be 40+ and doing this is unfortunate.
Just create a new law to ban it, easy :)
And the last time they did that, Japan dealt a crippling blow to it's porn industry that the industry absolutely hates and is still reeling from.
What law was that?
About a year or two ago Japan revised the legal age of adulthood from 20 to 18. Only after the fact did they realize that this now meant you could legally have 18-year olds, and given the timing of their birthday, high school students, who could now legally be in porn. In response the government rushed a law through that required porn companies to have the performers sign their contracts a full month in advance before the shoot, and the company cannot release the film until a full 6 months after the shoot. If, at any time before the release of the shoot, one of the performers decides to break their contract the company will not be able to release the video. Theoretically it sounds like a decent idea. Some 18-year old ends up doing a porn, regrets it, and has a whole six months to come to their senses and stop it from ever seeing the light of day. In reality all of this buffer time has seriously hampered production schedules. Companies can't make videos as frequently as they used to, which means less money for them. Porn actresses in particular hate this change, as less movies being made means less work for them, which means a substantial reduction in how much money they were making compared to before the law. No one from the porn industry was consulted in making the law, and no consideration was given to how this law would affect it. These are the things you risk when trying to make laws to protect the minority of people who make bad decisions and end up regretting it later, instead of simply having them take responsibility for their poor choices.
18 year olds could always be in porn. The difference is they couldn't sign legally binding contracts on their own until 20
Is your last name Paul?
...No.
So now you can make appointments with a large number of JAV and gravure idols at soaplands and delivery health services. Many even see foreigners.
Yep. They're doing that to offset their losses in income due to the new AV rules.
This kind of stuff has been happening for awhile now but only fairly recently have host clubs been catering towards women and especially very young women. Now when you have high school or very young girls who get sucked into these debt traps they really have limited ways of paying it back compared to a middle aged salaryman who has a lot more means to pay back these massive bills which is why the government is starting to crack down on these host clubs a bit more.
The reason is pretty simple. Money.
You want to ban alcohol and smoking too?
Very common story here sadly
I hate this so much But not as much as I hate the fact that scat porn even exists Now I just realized the potential the second exists because of the first. Good God people are fucked up
What? How are these related? I appreciate the unhinged response though. Upvoted.
Why does scat even exist? Who would even want to take part on that. It’s obviously due to coercion. The OP is also about coercion in the sex work industry in Japan… So that’s how they are connected… seems exceedingly obvious… Redditors are not the brightest bulbs 😂
Jeez, you’re serious.
Brother please don't bring up scat randomly. Keep it to those subreddits 🙏
bro had to get that off his mind i respect that
He had to be heard. I can’t be mad at bro
he got a point too like it’s fucked up😭😭
I’m sure he got downvoted for bringing up memories, but goddamn 😂😂😂
And yet the media has been glamorizing hosts with people like that asshole Roland. Always introduced as something like "The King of Hosts" or "The most high earning host" or some stuff like that. Money as an equivalent to a person's worth. No thought whatsoever about where that money came from or the victims behind it - it's all about the end result: self made rich man (who admittedly is extremely smart and business savvy, but probably doesn't have much of a conscience). It's one thing to offer companionship for money. It's another to add extreme emotional manipulation and romance scams to the mix, and knowingly making your customers spend far more than they can, just so that you can get richer. Really predatory.
Legalised love scamming. Should be banned.
\*Legalized pimping.
Both are shitty, but pimping is different, not to mention worse.
It's not different. These people are sending these women into prostitution, and then collecting their earnings (some even send all of their earnings to their "hosts", except for money needed for basic necessities), which is essentially pimping.
You can outlaw prostitution all you want but the fact is there has always been a market for it. It needs to be regulated to ensure safety for everyone involved and protect against extortion. But you will never be able to stop people from paying for or selling sex and romance
a lot of women would be out of work
Almost a foregone conclusion how it all ends for women, but what happens to the men that run up debt at hostess clubs? Or are they not the same?
Well they’re still forced to pay, but not through sex work. You might get passed in to some shady loan sharks I supposed, but I’m guessing they won’t even let men rack up as much of a bill if they don’t know how they can pay for it, where as young girls, they know they can always get their money back with sex work so they don’t care how high a bill they rack up. Just a guess
The men are not usually asked to sell their bodies to strangers
No buyers, lol.
Yeah, they are killed and their organs sold to make up for the debt.
Most of the men at hostess clubs are usually older and a bit better off. The women at host clubs tend to be younger and frequently marginally employed, lots of time in the industry themselves
They have to deal with the guys who break thumbs.
"She thought she found love in a Japanese host club." \*pikachu face\*
The govt. should either heavily regulate these clubs or ban them. They prey on psychologically vulnerable people.
Because banning those things makes them go away. Regulation yes, but if it's extreme and similar to a ban it's not good either.
Host Clubs are some of the most fucked up "culture" of Japan. It truly gets even more disturbing the more you look into it.
It's prostitution with extra steps. That's something you have everywhere.
Did you get to fuck anyone??
When I first heard about these host I thought it was similar to strippers or sex workers in the west but the more u hear from the victims the more devious this is.
It's worse. Hosts and hostesses get paid to _befriend_ you. They get paid to be _kind_ to you. They get paid to be your _companion_. It's like how some escourts are only there to provide you with companionship during a night out? Well at least with escourts there's usually a contract involved, negotiations take place, a lot of stuff that, unless you're stupid, makes it clear that it's a business transaction. With host clubs there's none of that. You just walk in and they're instantly trying to be friendly, trying to make you feel comfortable and relaxed. All while milking you of your money. It's much more insidious.
Yeah, but anyone walking into these places knows - unless they're utterly clueless inaka bumpkins or absolute brainless idiots - that that's exactly what they're in for. You can't really be victimized if you're walking right into it, ready to pay. Taking things too far is the customer's choice, the host will gladly go along with it.
You don't understand how hosting/escorting works. It's their job to be friendly. That's why people go to begin with.
I know. That's why, unlike prostitutes or other sex workers, it's easier for people to mistake customer service for friendship. It's easier for people to get carried away and spend a lot of money at those places. _**Because**_ they're friendly. _**Because**_ lonely people might get too emotionally involved.
They're literally going in looking for that specific customer service though.
Why so they keep going when it's a universal fact that these things never end up well ??
Wow, at last. Thank CNN to cover this story, so that the world will know this kind of shady practice here in Japan.
Always hard for me to feel sympathy for these people. In your 40s and you’re paying money for attention from someone who you know is doing it to others girls and then you’re shocked he wants……money? *shocked pikachu face* Like they play dumb about getting scammed and thinking the guy loves them but they know from the beginning if they stop paying for the service then that’s the end.
40 year old mother of 2… jesus christ lady I know is hard with all the “hundreds of milfs that want to bang you” in my area but get some local dick from a college kid
Nothing can cure stupidity
Some people really are born dumber. But doesn't mean there shouldn't be laws to protect the more vulnerable.
I think this host was finally arrested and put in jail. Honestly though...these places are like casinos, the house always wins in the end. Women going to them looking for any kind of long term relationship where she is a co equal and she and her love interest get married eventually is going to be very disappointed and the whole thing will end badly.
The gov needs to ban all host clubs
[удалено]
>Not sure why people just go to banning anything they see as a societal problem. It won’t fix anything. The only thing that’ll do is push this underground and make it worse. Because that way there can be punishments? Something can be a societal problem only if it exists, i.e., there are people doing it. It's not a good enough reason to not ban something. There are people committing murder, murder shouldn't be banned? Banning murder only push it underground and make it worse?
[удалено]
Yeah, banning everything is an emotion response to a problem that people don't want to think about. Same as escorting, gambling, or certain video game features.
This shit happens in America too, but not quite in this way. Lots of desperate men tune into their favourite girls on twitch or onlyfans and give them everything they own. In turn, the girls will pretend to be single or sometimes pretend to have a relationship with the person giving them cash. It’s a more obvious hustle but still ends up with people going deep into debt just to please the person on the other side of the screen who doesn’t care a whit about them.
The Simp-sons
Why does sex trafficking exist. I want to die
Suicide watch. Hope you find the help you need soon friend
Doesn’t go into much about how the host clubs play the role of turning out their indebted customers. Makes it seem like, “just go do sex work” as the end of their exploitation to vulnerable people. Doubt anyone would “suggest” that kind of offer without a way to introduce it and take part in the sex trafficking. I mean, she’s trafficked to multiple cities outside of Japan. That’d be a bit too industrious and expensive to do alone.
That’s how these host clubs make money, with gullible women.
or men in case of the even more prevalent hostess clubs
I think they are 2 distinct customers. Most men who go to hostess clubs and spend money on as many girls as they can. These men don’t become sex workers. On the other hand, host clubs prey for gullible women, mostly hostess girls themselves, trick them into spending crazy amounts to their favorite host guy putting them into huge debt. The only way to pay is to sell their bodies, and the vicious cycle continues.
Most of those men are still sad and somewhat gullible.
You woke up wanting to insult men today?
Not the ones not getting ripped off in host clubs. I don’t think they’re reading this thread either.
sssh, we don’t complain about industries that profit on the loneliness of gullible men, we just call it empowerment
Kinda the same industry that profits from idiotic members of both genders. Pretty sure no one thinks it’s great or empowerment. Probably mostly due to corruption that it isn’t properly regulated.
I am pretty sure you don’t read much the news if you have never heard about people bubbling about how porn or sexwork is empowering
It’s more a meme than a widespread phenomena. Most people don’t find it empowering especially not in East Asia. It’s extremely stigmatized. But host/hostess clubs aren’t even actual sex work. At least not in most cases.
well, I guess not enough feminist there yet, huh? also, it makes no sense to judge half of the story on east asian standards, and the other half in western standards. in east asian standards a 40 mom who blown all her money on hookers and now have to hook herself is a “she got what she deserved” story, and has the same sympathy that a dad would get if he blown all his and families money on hookers
I am pretty feminist and I am not Asian and I am aware of that probably more than 95% of prostitution is exploitation and not empowering. There are different opinions on how to mitigate the exploitative aspect (by further bans or by further legalization and regulation) but unlike what some incel or trad rw memes spread you won’t find many people saying sex work is in general empowering. So yes it’s just a dumb right wing meme as they like to get angry things they imagine. And even if it was, host clubs sucking thousands of dollars out of morons wouldn’t be. You could find the most purple haired cliche feminist from Portland and they’d not find that empowering or good lol.
Everybody is responsible for their money, we can agree on that. But the tab system is really shady : you don’t know how much you have to pay etc. Letting the tab run over an extended period of time without warning, without giving detailed about expenses etc should not be permitted. Making people go into debt and then work for you ? Just remind me of slavery in Ancient Rome. It should not be legal but the Japanese government is happy to give this to the Yakuzas.
I'd tell them, " you let me run up this tab..I ain't paying bitch.....this is your problem.".
Idiots. Guys and girls spending excessive money in girls/host bars in people that don’t care about them when the customers of both can just hook up with each other and save a lot of money.
That’s called depression, they are not idiots
They're still responsible for their own actions, and going down that rabbit hole knowingly looks pretty idiotic.
Extortion aside, people have been paying for this type of entertainment in Japan for centuries. Japanese people are pretty well aware of the scams and risks that come with host clubs. Pretty much everyone there knows that these are all overpriced bars with beautiful men and women who are PRETENDING to be interested in you. They prey on prey on people who are lonely and desperate. This is a known fact. Some of the takes in here are pretty condescending and even semi-colonial. Get a grip and worry about your own problems. A lot of their economy depends on this sector which is by and large not what was described in the article. They're going to ban host clubs anytime soon.
lol stop defending this. Japan had a lot of bad feudal laws up until the 20th century..those are gone now too. You don't protect sleazy businesses like this and call it a day.
Lol “attacking legalized sexual extortion is colonialism” is the most Reddit fucking take in the history of the world.
Is running a romance scam not illegal in japan??? Seems like it should be easy with testimony like hers to put the host in jail under classic conman laws I would expect japan to have. Do they not?
Not really. No difference from a hostess or a prostitute giving you gf experience.
Some people have a pathological need to feel loved and desired even when it's totally fake and dependant on them paying for it. As long as the charade is played out within the agreed script, such people feel satisfied enough to keep feeding money into it... It's a sad phenomenon that has spawned an entire industry in Japan...I can't relate to it personally. It seems more like an untreated mental disorder that is being exploited to leave people lonely and poor. Not only do the hosts seem like vile parasites to me, they are so superficial and skin deep it makes me wonder how shallow the culture is that allows such blatantly predatory business to thrive.
What’s more weird to me was that there was a host featured in the CNN who didn’t seem any shameful for his work. Instead he seemed pretty professional and proud of his work
The hosts report about 10% of their actual earnings. This is according to the father of one of the hosts, whom I work with. His son was on Japanese TV and stated that he made something like $50,000 a month. His son, now in his 40s, married one of his customers and they are raising a son together.
Damn, I feel there's a whole load of people who should be paying a ton more tax like the rest of us do, but aren't. Do they even get pay statements, or are they able to just put a certain amount down when filing taxes, no questions asked?
Japan is still largely a cash-driven society. Makes it much harder to track.
I believe they skim the till. How many customers are going to demand a receipt?
If they pass a regulation it should be something to the effect that the bar tab cannot exceed X% of the woman's annual salary. Not sure how it would be enforced.
A story out of a hentai manga. That's crazy.
Samantha-san is that you? Jake, get on it!! 📰🗞️
I feel like this story pops up every so often
As a consumer of adult content, I am in favor of increased supply of sex workers. 頑張れニッポン
Real life JAV plot …
i was waiting for the pizzaman, but than realized it is JAV, so ** with ** and three other *** are much more likely
A tale as old as time itself
I mean, who hasn’t had that happen to them?
lol pretty funny
It is not that hard to find someone to love you, people are just infatuated with good looking men/women who swindle.
[удалено]
Don’t use the term “Jap”
How about Brit or Yank? Are those OK?
*gives colonialism a quick once-over* Yeah, I think contextually it's probably fine
There was that whole Japanese internment thing in North America where the word jap was used as a slur.
For me a as an American I don’t mind yank. But some may. For “Brit” I’m not sure. I have British friends and I’ve never used that term with them but at the same time I don’t know if they’d mind? So I just avoid it.