Blonde in Japan

There's nothing quite like a nation's sex industry to tell you what its men truly hunger for, PC noises notwithstanding ...

Gentlemen may well prefer blondes, but Japan's not-so-gentle men seem to, as well, sparking a rapid increase in the number of South American sex workers with more yam than Yamato running through their veins to claim Japanese heritage, according to Spa! (1/24).

Foreign descendants of Japanese are given easy access to this country, with long-term visas handed out according to background.

While tens of thousands of legitimate Japanese descendants have entered the country over the past couple of decades, loads of blonde-haired, blue-eyed women, a large chunk of who are now working in the flesh trade, are also filing false claims to have roots in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Local demand for blonde, Caucasian sex industry workers has women flocking from all over the world.

Whenever one raises the issue of Asian preference for white features, as manifested in the region's advertising, its plastic surgery industry and even its comics (manga especially), one is always sure to get defensive reactions "explaining" how what one thinks one is seeing is something other than what it looks like, but the evidence from the sex trade in both Japan and Korea is unambiguous: as far as a great many people in Asia are concerned, white is right, and the blonder the hair, the bluer the eyes, the better; to be a blonde white woman in that part of the world is a guarantee that one will be approached with an indecent proposal sooner rather than later (I've seen it happen to acquaintances who weren't what one would call attractive).

The funny thing about the whole obsession with this nordic ideal, at least as I see it, is that the native women of the region are more than able to hold their own against those of the West in terms of physical attractiveness, if for no other reasons than that few seem to go in for the fat, slovenly look so popular nowadays in this part of the world. If I were a Japanese male I certainly wouldn't be wasting my time obsessing about blonde hair when I could so easily do so much better right on my home turf.

PS: I just know I'm going to get roasted for the last paragraph above, but it literally is the truth; most Westerners of any age today are fat and out of shape, while far too many young American and European women seem to think a tracksuit and jogging shoes rounded off with a beer-stained t-shirt constitutes respectable day wear; to overlook these shortcomings simply because a woman has yellow hair is just plain stupid - and brunettes are generally hotter anyway ... < flame-retardant suit on >.

Comments

[Ross]

In the case of Japan, surely blonde women benefit from their relative scarcity, more so than any general preference for blondes. A few seconds googling will show that there are a lot of Asian women working in the sex trade in the west* where I would presume a similar effect occurs.

" few seem to go in for the fat, slovenly look so popular nowadays in this part of the world."

Without wishing to come across like Pat Buchanen, in this sense I don't think South Americans count as Western.

*£150 an hour seems to be the going rate, at those wages I wish I could go on the game!

[Abiola]

"in this sense I don't think South Americans count as Western"

Hmm, I wouldn't be so sure about that ...

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/01/19/2003220072

"`Girl from Ipanema' slowly becoming a heavyweight prize"

["A government study showing that obese Brazilians outnumber the undernorished touched a nerve in a country where the debate about poverty has intensified since the election of the left-wing president, Luiz Inacio da Silva, but where physical beauty is a matter of fierce pride.

The report stated that more than 40 percent of Brazil's adult population is overweight, with 10 million defined as obese, compared with less than 4 million who were deemed to be undernourished. And last week press reports suggested that today's girl from Ipanema is as likely to be a chubby-cheeked charmer as the sleek beach babe immortalized in the song."]

Maybe they haven't gotten the "slovenly" bit down yet, but they're making good progress on that "fat" aspect.

[Andrew Reeves]

I wonder if what's going on in Japan doesn't have something to do with the whole idea of western women as "exotic." Indeed, I think that it might be the mirror image of those creepy western guys with "yellow fever."

[Abiola]

Well sure, they're "exotic", but there's more to it than that, otherwise one would see the same hunger for exotic women of other backgrounds and physical characteristics. No, what we're seeing here is an internalization of the belief that "white" features are better, which is why one sees white models all over their airwaves, billboards and subway platforms, and why nose-jobs and eye-surgeries to give a "whiter" looking appearance are so popular.

[Scott Wickstein]

I've seen anecdotal evidence that such operations and 'treatments' are popular in India, too.

[Abiola]

Aren't Indian bridal advertisments and the like actually pretty open about it? "Light skinned girl desired, must be XYZ"; then of course there's the "Aryan Invasion Theory" [sic] so many Indians love to waste time arguing about on bulletin boards ... Once enough Indians have the money, I'm sure they too will follow in Japanese and Korean footsteps by importing blonde-haired, blue-eyed hookers in large quantities.

[Julian Elson]

I'm tempted to wonder what a comic strip called "Charisma Woman" would look like, yet somehow I think the life of a blonde Brazilian sex worker in Japan isn't as glamorous as the suggested title would imply, even if she did lie to get in.

[Chuckles]

[...I'm tempted to wonder what a comic strip called "Charisma Woman" would look like...]

Ah! The difference here is that such a woman would already be prone to servicing sexual requests and hence quite used to some attention - unlike the Charisma Man types whose ascent from the depths of negative infinity to pomp, pageantry and prominence is nothing short of miraculous.

[Jim]

"If I were a Japanese male I certainly wouldn't be wasting my time obsessing about blonde hair when I could so easily do so much better right on my home turf..."

Well that just shows you aren't a race fetishist, is all. What would lead a man to be sexually interested in a woman who probably has more body hair than he does? Real sexual attraction? Or just a link with a potent symbol of Western success and dominance? The fat ones are not any kind of symbol of success or dominance, so that cuts them out, and I bet you don't see fat blond women hyped in Japan. People in my neighborhood keep pit bulls to make them feel macho. This has the same feel.

For a while there was a market in Bangkok for Russian women, many blond or blondish, from the stans, but I never heard that it became anything but a niche market. This is something especially Japanese.

As least they have the self-respect to limit their fetish to blonds - redheads would be a little mutant-icky.

[lostonly2befound]

the funny thing is that i am a natural blonde and i absolutley hate blonde hair and i'd have to agree with you on the brunettes. they are for the most part hotter. i think red heads are the best