Kickboxing Geishas by Veronica Chambers

Author:Veronica Chambers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2007-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

The rise of working women in Japan, and their dissatisfaction with dating traditional Japanese men, has brought about an interesting phenomenon: the host club. Typically, a hostess club is where Japanese businessmen take clients and colleagues to unwind at the end of the evening. The hostesses, dressed in modern clothes but seeking to emulate a geisha’s charm, flatter the men while getting them to buy expensive drinks. Sex is officially not on the menu, but unofficially, it often is. One of the oldest host clubs, called The English Club, is more than thirty years old. It used to be an anomaly, but now that women are making more money and enjoying more independence in society, there are more than one hundred host clubs in Tokyo willing to offer women the same services men have enjoyed. The surprising thing is that business is booming. Usagi Nakamura, forty-seven, made national news when she wrote her bestselling book, The Host Club Guide.

Dressed in a black turtleneck, black leather skirt, and black knee-high leather spiked-heel boots, Usagi smokes like a chimney and manages to look half her age. She says her history with the host clubs is quite long and can be divided into two stages: early stage and late stage. When she first started “host clubbing,” she thought that they could be quite boring. Her image of a host club was that it was a place full of quite ugly older hosts and customers like Kazuko Hotoki. When I ask who this person is, Usagi says, “A famous Japanese celebrity. She is, anyway, rich.”

Eventually though, the club owners became aware of the fact that they needed a different brand of hosts to appeal to Japan’s Sex and the City crowd. That’s when, according to Usagi, the fun started. “Many of the younger hosts are quite good looking,” she says. “The customers started to be quite a bit younger. I began to think, ‘They are not just rich people. They go there to have fun, just like me.’” Then Usagi did the one thing you’re never supposed to do—she fell in love with her host and it cost her a fortune. A truly popular host can make $50,000 a month. With bottles of high-end champagne going for more than one thousand dollars a pop, it’s easy for a giddy woman to spend $10,000 in a single night. Half of her bar tab goes to her host, so it’s in his interest to keep her drinking—and paying. Most hosts will do anything: flirt, cajole, touch, and even promise sex, to keep a woman drinking. First timers are lured in with discount rates: $50 or $100 for the first visit. During this first time, all of the hosts will come over to visit the newcomer with the hopes of becoming her favorite.

While the majority of Japanese young men rely on the old tradition of sogo rikai, mutual understanding, hosts understand that today’s Japanese woman wants to hear words of affection and love. She may have grown

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