The age of the disposable male

Ask young women if their attitude toward men is “love ‘em and leave ‘em,” and almost all, says Spa! (Sept 22-29), will protest that they would never dream of being so heartless. But rephrase the question: ask them if they “fade out” after one or two or maybe three sexual encounters, and, to the magazine’s amazement, fully one-third say they do!

We’ve entered the age of the “disposable male,” is Spa!’s melancholy conclusion based on a poll of 100 women in their 20s and 30s.

Reasons for the women’s chronic restlessness vary, 34% saying that the sex in question was (as far as they were concerned) impulsive to begin with and never meant to lead to anything lasting; 28% citing disappointment in the man’s sexual performance; 20% recalling episodes in which they thought they liked the guy, only to discover otherwise after sleeping with him.

Case in point: A 27-year-old journalist we’ll call Reiko tells Spa! of meeting a man at a drinking party and really falling for him—so much so that she brought him home with her and, drifting off to sleep after sex, thought to herself, “I really want to marry this guy.”

If only you didn’t have to wake up after a night like that. But you do, and she did, to find that that the morning light shining on his sleeping face was anything but flattering. In fact, his puffy, vacuous features bore a disconcerting resemblance to a certain manga character, not one of the superhero variety.

As soon as he woke up, she packed him off, and proceeded to ignore his ensuing stream of emails. “I have one regret,” she says. “The guys got some really good-looking friends, and now I can’t come on to them!”

Risa, a 25-year-old in the insurance business, tells this story: A man she met at a singles’ party was a convivial drinker and a good talker; they talked, laughed, necked on a park bench, kissed in dark places… but why wasn’t he dragging her to a love hotel? Didn’t he see how eager she was to be dragged?

Finally, on their fifth date, after dinner, he announced, “I’ve booked us a room at a city hotel, with champagne and everything.”

Well, she thought, that’s nice, though a little overdone. But, she shrugged, let him do things his way. In the hotel room, she soon understood why he had hesitated so long. Size matters, at least to some women, and he didn’t have it. She doesn’t specify precisely what action she took, but presumably it was not such as to bolster the man’s confidence.

Well, such are the times we live in, muses essayist Shigeru Kashima in a sidebar to Spa!’s main article. In the 1970s, the ideal of going virgin to the marriage bed was swamped by women’s lib and the breakdown of community ties. In the bubble years of the ‘80s came “luxury capitalism,” in which men flaunted their spending power for sexual advantage. The bubble collapsed, discouragement set in, and suddenly the watchword became “mendokusai”—everything was too much trouble. Men turned to “fuzoku”—the erotic entertainment industry—for sexual gratification, and women to one-night stands.

Get used to it, men, lick your wounds and move on; all indications are that it’s not going to change any time soon.

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Latest 15 of 63 Total Comments Show All

griff at 04:43 PM JST - 24th September

so women are going to stop trying to cling on to men? sounds great to me!
PleasureGelf at 06:44 PM JST - 24th September

I wouldn't necessarily believe in what a magazine like Spa! has to report.
alphawolf at 03:45 AM JST - 25th September

The point in this article is to try to convice all, that J women are sluts.. Spa seems obsessed with this ideal. Maybe they are trying to make the news rather than report it. As far as the article, if a woman finds the man they are dating is not ideal, why should she stay with him? Move on to the next and hopefully learn from past experiences and experiences of her friends.

aw
abromofo at 06:13 PM JST - 25th September

Haha! I have never read a single Spa article that even remotely sounds credible. Anyone that lives in Tokyo and has an ounce of common sense would just disregard this stuff.
DerekJ at 11:27 PM JST - 25th September

Gotta love Reiko's coyote morning!
usaexpat at 11:57 PM JST - 25th September

Whatever, some women play the game and so do some men. This is hardly a cultural trend or shift in society. Makes me miss Wai Wai though.
Farmboy at 02:58 PM JST - 26th September

"but why wasn’t he dragging her to a love hotel? ..."

The magazine seems to have interviewed a variety of shallow people with no clue about how to go about having a rewarding relationship.
Tommygun at 12:13 AM JST - 27th September

So this means girls are less clingy to men. And that's...bad?
aizoyurei at 04:51 PM JST - 27th September

I can see both sides of card. I see all kinds of situations and hear all kinds of stories at work. Japanese women are MORE than capable of having intellectual conversations. My wife and I are very happy and I never get bored with talking to her and her subjects are never shallow especially compared to all of my American ex-girlfriends. On the other hand, at work I witness the pathetic and some of my wife's friends are also quite pathetic when it comes to dating. Kanpa after failed kanpa.... Some of my students are bored housewives that hate their husbands. Some are whipped salary men scraping by one their allowance from their wives. Some guys go off to Taiwan with their gf's while their wife is at home. There are plenty of failed and miserable here but it's the same everywhere. I also see plenty of very happy people. Just like others said this magazine is just trying to sell and doesn't report anything.....If you look for it, you will find it. If I go to the right parts of the cities of course I will find these types of girls.

As far as penis size and Japanese girls if you've seen an AV here you know it's not even a problem and WE ALL know Japanese girls can't act.
tmarie at 09:47 PM JST - 27th September

I really have zero sympathy of these women. They want their cake, they want to eat it and they expect some man to buy it for them. When the clock starts ticking they take whomever they can get and I don't feel sorry for the ones who end up unhappy in the end. Karma. When Japanese women stop acting like airhead princesses who think they have a right to everything they want, Japan will improve greatly.
UnagiDon at 10:02 PM JST - 27th September

The point in this article is to try to convice all, that J women are sluts.. Spa seems obsessed with this ideal.

So are a lot of gaijin in Japan, male and female.
jason6 at 02:29 PM JST - 5th October

Jeez, you'd think nobody had ever heard of a rag magazine before, judging by the amount and intensity of comments.. Anyways, I still don't get this conceit that many posters have had against Japanese women (and women in general for that matter) who have had multiple partners. Why should women be viewed more negatively than men who do the same thing? And have you even considered the fact that people can change? It's very possible that these women want to experience as much sex as possible before marriage (or maybe even during marriage) just like many men do, "sowing oats" and so forth. In my opinion, we are smack dab in the middle of the female social/sexual revolution in Japan. We are living in a brave new world folks!
Kuroyama at 12:18 PM JST - 12th October

I find the shortcoming of the contemporary Japanese male to be cultural. Not physiological. When I started making JPN male friends in college, many of them looked like men. comparitively broad shoulders. Short hair. facial hair... After moving to Japan I am hard pressed to find guys like that. Most guys look like girls. Not because they arent as physically big as thier western counterparts, but because they NURTURE this look!! Look at SMAP, or any current Johnnys pop group, or most all TV personalities in their 20s. When I ride the trains most of the guys are frail and waiflike! It honestly looks like if a fist fight broke out between the men and the women of any given train... the women would clean up handily!

Whats more is that most JPN women seem to like that. They buy the CDs, they watch the TV programs... they seem to support this!

I dont have issues with homosexuality. If a guy wants to be with a guy, or a girl wants a girl... hey, you do what works for you.

But I dont see how or why hetero people want to ride the fence. guys who looks like girls and girls who look like guys (breastless, hipless women being the JPN standard of beauty...)

JPN people wanna say they are unhappy in the bedroom? Reap what you sow.

Wait until you reach old age and theres no foreigners to help with labor. Better start studying Mandarin now...
bdiego at 06:34 AM JST - 15th October

Exactly Jason, well said. This is a rag magazine and a good one at that. Very entertaining just don't take it for real.
IvanCoughalot at 10:27 AM JST - 23rd October

This sounds like an ideal situation to me.