Contents*

• Demographics and a Brief Historical Perspective 636

1. Basic Sexological Premises 637
2. Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Factors Affecting Sexuality 640
3. Knowledge and Education about Sexuality 642
4. Autoerotic Behaviors and Patterns 645
5. Interpersonal Heterosexual Behaviors 646
6. Homoerotic, Homosexual, and Bisexual Behaviors 659
7. Gender Diversity and Transgender Issues 660
8. Significant Unconventional Sexual Behaviors 661
9. Contraception, Abortion, and Population Planning 671
10. Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV/AIDS 673
11. Sexual Dysfunctions, Counseling, and Therapies 675
12. Sex Research and Advanced Professional Education 675
13. References and Suggested Readings 676

*A Note for Researchers:  The numbers included in the section titles in the Contents above refer to the page numbers in the print edition of the CCIES. For the convenience of researchers, an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file of this chapter is available for download above (click the PDF icon), which reflects the actual pagination of the book. This will allow scholarly writers to cite actual page numbers in the printed book for quoted material, as well as its availability on the Web and the URL if desired. See also How to Use This Encyclopedia.

Chapter URL:  http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/ccies/jp.php    Retrieved: 

[Note from the CCIES Website Editor:  Please send any additions, corrections, or updated information to:  Raymond J. Noonan, Ph.D.]

Demographics and a Brief Historical Perspective

ROBERT T. FRANCOEUR

A. Demographics

It was Marco Polo, a man from Venice, Italy, in the latter half of the 13th century, who wrote a book titled Le Merveilles du Monde, in which he introduced the country of Japan to the Western world as Jipang, “the land of gold.” His book was actually a collection of his experiences and information about his journey through central Asia and China.

Japan is an island country, located to the east of the Asian continent in the northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean. The islands face the Pacific on the east and south sides, the Sea of Japan and East China Sea on the west side, and the Sea of Okhotsk on the north side. The islands form a bow-shaped string stretching from the northeast to the southwest. In addition to five major islands, i.e., from the north, Hokkaido, Honshu or Main Island, Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa, there are some 320 small islands over a square kilometer (0.39 sq. mi.) each, totaling 145,883 square miles (377,835 km²). Japan is slightly larger than Germany or the state of California, and smaller than Spain.

A relatively mild climate prevails, because of the location of most of Japan’s islands in the Temperate Zone. With four distinctive seasons, there are variations because of the longitudinal distribution of the islands. Because of the mild climatic characteristics, natural features of the islands, and religious philosophy, the Japanese people have developed a sensitive and cooperative attitude to the relationship between nature and humankind, in contrast to Western culture, which is independent, and often exploitive or in opposition. Such views of nature and humankind may be regarded as characteristic of the Orient.

The landmass of Japan is rather small and approximately 87% of the land is mountainous. As a consequence, fields and basins of rather small scale are divided by mountain ranges. From the beginning, this geographic circumstance has isolated local communities—which in the early days were independent countries—producing different cultures, customs, and religious events in different areas. This situation persisted into the 20th century. Since the Meiji Era (1868-1912), the influence of Western cultures, along with economic growth and the development and popularization of the mass media system in recent years, has promoted an increasingly shared (common) education and culture, resulting in the current unification of the Japanese culture. Cultures imported from China and Korea since the 5th century, and from the Western world since the Meiji Era, have been well absorbed by the Japanese people. The Japanese always kept a flexible attitude in accepting foreign influences to amalgamate traditional and imported cultures, forming their own specific culture.

In July 2002, Japan had an estimated population of 127 million, double what it was in 1925. (All data are from The World Factbook 2002 (CIA 2002) unless otherwise stated.)

B. A Brief Historical Perspective

According to Japanese legend, the empire was founded by Emperor Jimmu in 660 B.C.E.. However, the earliest records of a unified Japan date from a thousand years later, about 400 of the Common Era. Chinese influences played an important role in the formation of the Japanese civilization, with Buddhism being introduced to the islands before the 6th century C.E.

A feudal system dominated Japan between 1192 and 1867, with locally powerful noble families and their samurai warrior retainers controlling local government, and a succession of military dictators, or shoguns, holding the central power. This ended when Emperor Meiji assumed power in 1868. The Portuguese and Dutch developed some minor trade with Japan in the 16th and 17th centuries. United States Commodore Perry opened American trade with Japan in an 1854 treaty. Japan gained Taiwan and other concessions following an 1894-1895 war with China, gained the south half of Sakhalin from a 1904-1905 war with Russia, and annexed Korea in 1910. During World War I, Japan ousted the Germans from Shantung and took over the Pacific islands controlled by Germany. In 1931, Japan took over Manchuria, starting a war with China in 1932. World War II started with Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and ended with two atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

In 1947, Japan adopted a new constitution that reduced the Emperor to a state figurehead and left all the governing power with a Diet. In a few decades, Japan quickly moved to become a major world power and leader in economics, industry, technology, and politics.

1. Basic Sexological Premises

A. Gender Roles

In Japan, a strict hierarchy of social classes and clearly defined traditional gender roles have their roots in over 2,000 years of cultural history. In terms of social classes, merchants or chyonin were beneath the farmers and artisans. Samurai, the social elite, were retainers in the service of the shogun and the daimio. The samurai, who represented the superior male, constituted a bureaucratic and conservative hereditary group. The samurai and his sword were more a class symbol than the fierce warrior pictured in American television mythology.

As for gender roles, Karel Van Wolferen (1989) gives a terse picture of the traditional/modern female gender role in The Enigma of Japanese Power:

Although in reality Japanese tradition has never frowned on working women, and today the majority of working married women are obliged to help make ends meet in their families, the officially sponsored portrait of “wholesome” family life invariably shows that the proper place for women is at home. In a country where stereotypes are treasured, emphasis on the established proper roles of women is especially noticeable. It extends to demurely polite deportment, a studied innocent cuteness, a “gentle” voice one octave above the natural voice and always a nurturing, motherly disposition. The modern woman in the world of the salaryman [white collar workers] is a cross between Florence Nightingale and the minister of finance (as women are always totally responsible for household finances). Superior intelligence is a liability for girls and women, and must be disguised.

In early 1989, the Welfare Ministry launched a poster campaign to stress that the only difference between males and females is biological. The posters showed two romping, mud-splattered toddlers with the caption Tamatama otokonoko, tamatama onnanoko: “He just happens to be a boy; she just happens to be a girl.” This notion gained little support from government ministries more closely allied to business and industry, who joined the politicians in upholding traditional gender-role values as a means of continually exploiting the diligence of the people (Bornoff 1991, 452).

In a 1982 opinion poll conducted by the Prime Minister’s Office, 70% of the Japanese surveyed agreed with the statement that “Japanese women still believe a woman’s place is in the home and that little girls should be brought up to be ‘ladylike.’” In a 1989 multinational survey by the same agency on the theme “Men should work and women should stay home,” 71% of the Japanese women either completely or somewhat agreed with the premise (see also discussion of Table 28 (IES2 Fig. 34, p. 814) in Section 5B, Interpersonal Heterosexual Behaviors, The Sexuality of Adolescents). Critics suggest that respondents to government surveys may be inclined to give answers they believe the authorities want to hear, so it is important to balance these government survey results with similar surveys in the private sector. In one such survey conducted by a noted cosmetics firm, four fifths of the women found working women admirable, and 70% rejected the notion that a woman should quit her job after marriage (Bornoff 1991, 453). Still, the argument that traditional sex roles are strongly valued in Japan is persuasive when one considers that only 20% of Japanese firms offer female employees a year’s maternity leave, in most cases without pay, and that daycare facilities are woefully inadequate. (One should recall, however, that the record of American corporations is not much different on these issues, and certainly lags far behind the policies in some European countries.)

Gender roles are clearly defined, although they are also being challenged in modern Japan.

At the two extremes of female and male in popular culture, one finds the geisha and the sumo wrestler: the dainty living doll standing for femininity and the mountainous icon of macho flesh with the little porcine eyes. Between the two bookends plenty of scope lies in a nebulous heaven of make-believe far from the constrictions of daily routine. Segregating the sexes during childhood and defining the contexts and nature of their encounters later on, Japanese society defines gender roles with adamantine rules. In the realm of the imaginary, the strict roles encapsulating male and female are broken, being transgressed in fantasies which can be singly and variously violent, sadistic, maudlin, sentimental or comical. Transcending the laws of society, authority and even gender, these fantasies reach apotheosis in the popular imagination with ethereal creatures as blessedly sexless as occidental angels. (Bornoff 1991, 437)

Gender definitions in Japan can transcend the anatomical; masculine and feminine attributes can fade or fuse through conventions. This is most clearly seen in public rituals, for instance, when the emperor becomes a female incarnation of the sun goddess Amaterasu during the daijosai enthronement ceremony (See Bornoff 1991, 15-16, for the legend of Amaterasu and Ama-no-Uzume, the Heavenly Alarming Female). Gender reversal is also common in both traditional theater and modern cinema. After centuries of evolution, kabuki became a sophisticated form of theater in which the all-male cast plays all roles. Kabuki theater has long found a female equivalent in certain geisha theatricals comprising dances and playlets in which some of the female cast adopt male roles. In Nobuhiko Obayashi’s film Tenkosei [Transfer Students], a 1983 offbeat youth comedy hit about junior high school lovers who undergo a kind of Kafka-like metamorphosis when the girl’s soul enters the boy’s body, and vice versa, and are forced to confront their awakening sexuality, the characters adopt the physical and social gender roles of the other. Similarly, the famed Takarazuka Young Girls Opera, founded in 1914, embraces many older male-role superstars, with female actors performing in braided pantomime in military uniforms, tuxedos, cowboy garb, and samurai armor, blue cheeks, and mustaches. The Takarazuka Opera is part of a virtuous theme park called Family Land, “a florid world of Tinseltown baroque in pink, a feminine Disneyland with rose-colored bridges spanning artificial water courses.” In 1987, when Takarazuka unsuccessfully pushed for recognition as a traditional art form to gain tax exemption, male traditionalists were quick to point out that geisha theater provided the proper traditional female counterpoint to male kabuki (see also Section 7 on cross-dressing, gender-crossing, and transsexualism; Bornoff 1991, 436-439).

[Update 1997: In ancient times, Japanese women wielded considerable authority. Until the 11th century, it was common for Japanese girls to inherit their parent’s house. The rise of Confucianism and a conservative moral movement that preached the inferiority of women in the early 18th century significantly reduced women’s role. In some respects, Japanese women today have less power in society than they did a thousand years ago. Fewer than one in ten Japanese managers is female; women in less-industrialized nations, like Mexico and Zimbabwe, are twice as likely to be managers. Only 2.3% of Japan’s key legislative body are women, compared with 10.9% in the U.S. House of Representatives. In this regard, Japan ranks 145 in a list of 161 countries, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

[The public gender roles, however, are reversed when one steps inside the Japanese home. Typically, the wife handles and completely controls the household finances. She gives her husband a monthly allowance and has total control over the rest of the family income. Half of the husbands in one survey reported they were dissatisfied with the size of their allowance, but could do little if anything about it. While the husband and wife may have a joint bank account, and automatic teller machines are available, wives often do not share access to these with their husbands (Kristof 1996b). (End of update by R. T. Francoeur)]

[Update 1997: In the late 1990s, a new phenomenon appeared in Japan’s vibrant, big-city nightlife that may echo other signals noted in this chapter suggesting that traditional Japanese gender roles are changing. A 1996 New York Times report by Miki Tanikawa focused on New Ai (“New Love”), the largest of Tokyo’s estimated 200 “host clubs.” The host clubs are a variation of the ubiquitous clubs where businessmen regularly unwind in the company of charming young women, except that the traditional gender roles are reversed and sex is not part of the host-club scene. In the host clubs, it is the women who are flattered and flirted with by attractive men of their choice. The clientele are usually the wives of wealthy men or hostesses at the businessmen’s clubs where they spend their working hours pampering male clients. On a busy night, New Ai entertains more than 300 customers in its rooms elaborately decorated with rococo-style furniture, statues, and chandeliers. A band provides music ranging from standard jazz to Japanese love songs. Unlike their male counterparts, the host clubs are strictly for companionship and nonsexual entertainment. Still, an evening of flattery, chatting, drinking, and dancing can cost the equivalent of US$500 or more. Regular clients may run up monthly bills of $3,000 to $4,000.

[Traditional values are, nevertheless, evident in the absence of sexual activity and in the secrecy women are expected to exercise in their visit to a host club. Japanese men can have an open nightlife, including visits to the sexual hot spots known as “soaplands.” Japanese women do not have this freedom (see discussion of soaplands in Section 8B, Significant Unconventional Sexual Behaviors, Prostitution). Despite their efforts to defy social conventions, clients of the host clubs often choose a host and remain devoted to him for years, sometimes showering him with expensive gifts to express their affection. (Tanikawa 1996; (End of update by R. T. Francoeur)]

B. Sociolegal Status of Males and Females

[Note from the CCIES Website Editor:  See Last-Minute Developments for updates related to this topic that were added after this chapter had been typeset.]

An important insight into the status of women and men in the realities of everyday life and legal statutes can be found in the workplace. Female employees who pass the tekireiki, or marriage age, without getting married often encounter discrimination, despite the enactment in 1986 of an Equal Employment Opportunity (E.E.O.) Act. While firing such a female employee is against the law, the atmosphere may become so strained because of inquiries from supervisors and colleagues that the unmarried female may decide to leave the company. Women who remain employees and unmarried after tekireiki must be compensated as they climb, however unwelcomed, the corporate ladder. Onna dakara (“Because I am a woman”) is a line often heard in the perennially popular and unabashedly sentimental Enka folk songs. Indeed, in a conservative country in which Confucian samurai ethics were resuscitated in the 1880s and fomented lucratively ever since in industrial disguise, being a woman can be difficult. Obligatory marriage and motherhood, and subservience to her husband and his family, would seem to have no place in a technopolitan economic supergiant in which half of the work force is female (Bornoff 1991, 452).

The E.E.O. law has been largely ineffectual because large corporations have a strong standing with the government, making enforcement of any measures against sexual discrimination unlikely. From the largest international firms to the smallest businesses, the widespread view is that sexual discrimination is unethical only according to concepts adopted in recent years, concepts that, to some, are quite foreign. The law entitles women to complain, but this more often than not results in “counseling” rather than action, and so few women complain. Even if filing a complaint could theoretically win a woman higher wages and guard her from dismissal, the action of filing a complaint would be viewed as a complete lack of loyalty to the firm and only earn her complete ostracism by her colleagues. Nevertheless, some major firms, including several banks, have recently moved to put ability before traditional stereotypes and hierarchical promotion, and stress greater sexual equality in the workplace. However, even when management gives female employees equality with males, the male business associates the women have to deal with are often uncomfortable or unwilling to deal with a woman as an equal (Bornoff 1991, 452).

[Update 2002: Japanese gender roles are still evident in most female names (which are formed using a word for child), in their limited career opportunities, and in the strong stigma and life of hardship women encounter if they divorce. It is still almost impossible for a woman to use her maiden name after she marries. Many women who are divorced face insurmountable obstacles in achieving financial independence. Even obtaining a credit card in her own name is very difficult. Gender-based restrictions affect women even after death. Under Japan’s complex burial customs, divorced or unmarried women have been traditionally unwelcome in most cemeteries, where plots are still passed down through the husband’s family and descendants must provide maintenance for burial sites or lose them. About a decade ago, this began to change, according to Haruyo Inoue, a sociologist of death and burial at Japan University. “The woman who wanted to be buried alone couldn’t find a graveyard until about ten years ago.” In 2002, there were close to 400 new cemeteries that serve single women only. According to Junko Matsubara, a popular writer on women’s issues who is credited by many with igniting the trend to separate-sex burials in the late 1990s, “The point isn’t simply to avoid being buried with one’s husband, but rather to learn how we as women can lead more independent lifestyles.”

[Western notions of women’s liberation have never taken hold among Japanese women, which gives more social significance to what is quietly becoming one of the country’s fastest-growing social trends. In a 2002 TBS television network survey, 20% of the women who responded said they hoped to be buried separately from their husbands.

[In another recent development, eight years after Princess Masako and Prince Naruhito married, and after fertility treatment following a miscarriage, Princess Masako produce a daughter on December 1, 2001. The newborn Princess Aiko could become a legal heir to the 2,000-year-old Japanese imperial line and Japan’s first “test tube emperor,” if the governing party decides to change the law of succession, which currently limits succession to the throne of the Sun Goddess to males (French 2001, 2002). (End of update by R. T. Francoeur)]

C. General Concepts of Sexuality and Love

The Shinto religion recognizes neither good nor evil, so the concept of sin and personal guilt so commonly associated with sex in Western cultures does not exist in the Japanese tradition. The persistence of fertility festivals echoes the acceptance of sex and romance as a natural component of everyday life. Rooted in folk religions and primitive animism, these festivals are celebrated by revelers wearing traditional masks representing the more frankly sexual and comical denizens of Shinto myth and carrying oversized papier-mâché phalli and vulva through the streets (Bornoff 1991, 14-15, 89-90).

Apart from the persistent traditional culture of Japanese sexuality, it is true that Japan has also experienced a rapid modernization, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. As in other societies, modernization in Japan has brought a series of changes in the daily life and lifestyles and hence in human behavior. Table 1 provides a summary of such changes as a model of trends, problems, and issues in lifestyles and human life that are the result of a variety of primary and secondary changes (IES2 Table 1, p. 771; Hatano 1972).

Table 1                  

Trends, Problems, and Issues in Lifestyles as the Result of Primary and Secondary Changes in Societal Modernization

In general, technological development has resulted in a significant decrease in the amount of physical labor and inconvenient living circumstances. Development of scientific knowledge, along with popularization of education, brought more literacy and freer communications among the common people. The power of the patriarchal structure that originally gave an eccentric, unbalanced character to the family organization decreases as modernization proceeds. In this manner, communication within the family is being ignored. Modern Japanese family life has come to the point where many parents are not taking care of the children and the children are not establishing their self-identity. On the other hand, with only one or two children, parents, and particularly mothers, may be overly protective to the point of rendering their offspring indecisive and inadequate in their interpersonal relationships.

Such changes also cause significant shifts in the way human sexuality is experienced in modern Japan, including the sexual consciousness and sexual behaviors among the people (see also Table 2) (IES2 Table 2, p. 772; Hatano 1991bc). The impact of the scientific development invited marked progress in the knowledge of biology and genetics. This in turn stimulated the development of sexology. For example, much of the mystery in childbirth, especially the superstitions that there are certain relationships between the behavior of the parents in the past and the physical nature of the newborn, has gradually disappeared. The promotion of science education in public schools has helped this tendency.

The next event in this line was the development of sexology and knowledge about sexuality, such as the separation of reproduction and other sexual behaviors, family planning, emancipation from traditional sex roles, and, subsequently, a more liberal attitude regarding sexual activities. Promotion of family planning after the war years played a decisive role in decreasing the yoke of the women in Japan. At some times, abortion was the most frequently used method of family planning, resulting in certain aftereffects on women’s health. In these societal trends, religion no longer played a strong role in controlling the code of ethics because of the allergic reaction to the national control of religion during the dark days of World War II. However, at the same time, modern Japanese have often lost self-identity in terms of development of moral judgment and values.

The pre-modern Japanese had no choice but to accept and follow the lifestyles, behavior patterns, and basic philosophy of life of their parents or leaders in the society. Role models and lifestyle patterns were rather easily found among the family members, as long as one did not attempt to find something new in life. Modern Japanese people, confronted with an explosively large amount of information pouring into their brains, have had to learn how to sort and select this information before they can apply it to actual daily living. It is quite true that during the economic postwar prosperity period, Japan’s economic growth almost became the standard of values for society, inviting severe criticism from people in other parts of the world.

Education in information selection systems or value systems—moral education, particularly in relation to sexual activities—has become a major necessity in formal and informal education. Likewise, education in sexual behavior, not in terms of instruction in a behavioral code but in terms of providing understanding of the stages of psychosexual development, will benefit the development of each individual’s sexuality. Likewise, sexuality education is expected to enhance education for parenting. All of these needs share a common base as consequences of modernization. The current national Course of Study of the Ministry of Education does not include education for either value systems or for establishment of self- and sexual identity. Perhaps these aspects of education belong to the realm of family education. Unfortunately, in contemporary Japan, the national administration of public education is so well developed that the general public has almost forgotten the responsibility of family education. This is causing some serious social problems, particularly when parents expect the public schools to assume complete responsibility for teaching all the codes of ethics, including sexual behaviors.

2. Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Factors Affecting Sexuality

A. Source and Character of Religious Values

According to the latest statistics from the Japanese Ministry of Education, 96.25 million Japanese believe in Buddhism, 109 million in Shintoism, and 10.5 million in other indigenous Japanese religions. A total of 1.46 million are members of various Christian churches. The sum of these statistics exceeds by 75% the total population of Japan. The explanation lies in a characteristic of the Japanese people’s attitudes toward religion, which may not be easily understandable for the non-Japanese. The logic of this seemingly illogical trait of Japanese life may be explained in a typical example of Japanese parents who have a custom of visiting a local Shinto shrine to pray to all the 8 million divinities of Shintoism for the healthy growth and well-being of a newborn baby. In the same family, the same parents may have held their wedding ceremony at a Christian church and prayed there for happiness of their newly formed family. The same couple may read the holy scriptures in the Buddhism temple when a family member dies, praying for the dead one to be accepted in the heavenly world safely. Such inconsistency is widely accepted among the Japanese without much friction. Indeed, “three different bells ring in the valley,” instead of “three bells ring in the valley.” Having a mix of various religions in one’s daily life is a common way of the Japanese lifestyle. In addition to these well-organized religions, nature worship, which is closely related to Shintoism, is another prevalent religious belief.

Regardless of the mix of religions practiced, which heavily influences the Japanese consciousness on culture, sex, and sexuality, one needs to understand the substantial connection between religion in Japan and the culture, value system, and attitudes toward sexuality. This understanding requires a brief sketch of the history of religion in Japan.

The results of archeological studies in Japan indicate a common practice of burying the dead with certain religious services and rituals during the Jomon and Yayoi culture periods, which ended somewhere around the 3rd or 4th century C.E. During the Jomon period, which lasted several centuries, especially in the eastern part of Japan, remains indicate the special attention the ancestors of the Japanese people then paid to sex and procreation. This is well demonstrated in the artificial designs of the earthed works that are frequently excavated. Throughout the Jomon period, people lived by hunting and gathering, and there was little evidence of any power struggles or the existence of social classes. The Yayoi period arose after the Jomon, around 100 B.C.E., mostly in the western part of Japan. This culture introduced rice crops and ironware from the Korean peninsula and Chinese continent. With these new cultural influences came a disparity of wealth and social classes, which gradually spread throughout the society. (See Bornoff 1991, 7-16, for a helpful discussion of the sexual and coital implications of Japanese creation myths.)

Later, in the middle of the 6th century of the Common Era, Buddhism and Confucianism were introduced to Japan from Kudara in the Korean Peninsula. These religions rapidly spread nationwide, combining with the gradual permeation of a central government power ruled by the Emperor’s family. Popularization of the new philosophy and new administration proceeded along with the preservation policy of these value systems by the central government. In adopting this new religion and culture, Japan followed a path distinctively different from that pursued in other countries. In most cultures, a religious war has been necessary before a newly introduced religion could gain acceptance. In Japan’s case, the local religious practices and customs of the preceding culture were not abandoned; rather both old and new cultures and religions seemed to have coexisted quite peacefully.

From the early years until the end of the 16th century, the prevailing religion in Japan was an amalgamation of Buddhism, Shintoism, which is close to nature worshiping, and local religions. During the Muromachi Era in the 14th to 16th centuries, the Catholic form of Christianity was introduced and propagated to some extent by the Portuguese until 1590, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued a national policy prohibiting Christianity. In the next three centuries, during the Tokugawa (Edo) Era, the circumstances surrounding religion in Japan returned to the amalgamation of Buddhism, Shintoism, and local religions as before the Muromachi Era.

In 1868 when the Tokugawa Shogunate collapsed, the Meiji Era began with restoration of the emperor who held power within a new political system that promoted a policy of nationalism and who strengthened the nation’s military force so that modern Japan could compete on even terms with other already modernized nations. As the spiritual basis of this strong Japan, the government pronounced that Shintoism would be the national religion. The emperor’s family tree, it was claimed, could be traced back some 120 generations through more than 2,000 years of history. Whether or not the historical facts were twisted to some extent, the government goal was to integrate all the religions in Japan into one by national decree. This idea was pursued until the end of World War II in 1945. Aside from the intention of national power, among the common people the concept of traditional Buddhism and citizen’s beliefs were substantially followed. This is another proof of the variability of the religion of the Japanese.

In the newly adopted Constitution of Japan after World War II, freedom of faith was promised, and thus the religious control of the national government was abandoned. At the same time, the chaotic coexistence of various religions leaves the religious thoughts of today’s Japanese more or less ambiguous.

B. Source and Character of Japanese Ethnic Values Affecting Sexuality

While culture has been variously defined by different researchers, the concept is used here to indicate the complex of phenomena, ideologies, religion, and literature that provide the fundamental orientation for all sorts of behavior patterns of the Japanese people. As was mentioned earlier, deep in the Japanese mind, the structure of cultural consciousness includes a tendency to nature worship and local religions. This may be because of the roots of the Japanese consciousness in an agrarian culture that has been uniquely molded by archeological and historical processes. It can be said that the general belief among the Japanese that children are the natural gift from the divinities is an expression of the sexuality of the Japanese people. In the ancient days of the Nara and Heian periods, the Man’yoshu, a late 8th-century collection of 10,000 Waka poems, many of which are love songs, and the 11th-century Romances of Genji, 54 volumes of love stories by the woman novelist Murasaki Shikibu, strongly conveyed the attitude and message that love and sexuality were an important part of human thought and everyday behavior as a natural expression of human nature. In other words, sexuality was openly accepted among the early Japanese people.

In Japan’s history, an aristocratic culture dominated in the Nara (710-794), Heian (794-1336), and Muromachi (1336-1573) Eras. In the Sengoku (Turbulence) Period, many warlords competed with each other until the Tokugawa Shogunate was established and national integration begun in 1603. Various groups of the military commanders maintained control of the culture and the behavior of the Japanese people during the Sengoku and Tokugawa Eras. Therefore, the cultural construction and sexuality of the Japanese people operated in a double-layer system. More specifically, extremely strict moral ethics and control of behavior were enforced on children and adults in the families of the samurai class (soldiers and the commanders), who were influenced by the Confucianism originally introduced to Japan in the 6th century from China. In the feudal value system, as well as its family system, there was no room for any free expression of human passions and natural desires. Thus, not only romantic love, but also immoral and adulterous behavior of any kind were strictly prohibited, and severe penalties, including capital punishment, were instituted for any case that came to light.

While the samurai community kept to a strict behavior code of ethics, the commoners and the townspeople did not, except for the upper-class commoners who closely followed the samurai code of ethics. Romantic love was freely allowed among the commoners, and often an illegitimate child—a single mother and her child in today’s sense—was accepted and reared without any prejudices in the community or tenement commune (Bornoff 1991, 83-149).

All of the ukiyo-e and shunga (pornographic paintings) by Utamaro, Hokusai, and Kunisada were produced from the commoners’ culture. Yoshiwara, the sexual amusement quarter in the city of Edo, painted by Oiran, a prostitute and social entertainer of the highest class, for example, prospered in the middle and later Edo Era. Few examples of erotica in the world tell us as much about the cultures that produced them as the shunga tell us about the practices and fantasies of the Japanese. Among the more striking features of shunga is the common presence of children, indicating just how very uninhibited and frank the Japanese were about sex (Bornoff 1991, 184-86).

These examples of a dual-layered social and cultural construction during the samurai ruling periods produced a double standard of code ethics, each code composed of its own logical but superficial principles and real intention. These two codes are still actively practiced in contemporary Japanese society, making the understanding of the Japanese culture confusing and difficult.

It was during the very last stage of the Edo Era—in fact, only 130-some years ago—when the country of Japan abandoned its three-century-old policy of national isolation, that free trading and cultural exchanges began with the other countries of the world. As has been already discussed earlier, the modernization process of the nation at such an extremely rapid pace produced certain distorted periods in the history of modern Japan. These periods of turmoil and confusion include the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate political system, the restoration of the Imperial ruling system in the Meiji Era, the rise of nationalism in the Taisho Era, and the dominance of the militarism that collapsed at the end of World War II in the middle of the Showa Era.

During the Meiji Era, in order for the country of Japan to be able to compete evenly with the other nations in the world, Japan took a policy of economic enrichment based on development of heavy industry, strengthening of the military power, and placing the Imperial family in the sacred order. The value of each individual in this social system was extremely neglected, resulting in the idea that a man is to serve the nation and a woman is to bear children. Any consciousness of sexual equality was thoroughly repressed, and sexual discrimination—the ideas that higher education is not necessary for women or that childless women deserve to be divorced—were commonly expressed and adhered to. Under such circumstances, a very patriarchal sexual culture emerged in which specific male-centered sexual behavior was accepted without any argument. The proxy engagement system, in which it is mandatory for parents to choose the marriage partner of their child, and in which the matchmaking ceremony takes place only after the parents have chosen the marriage partner (distinctively different from the matchmaking practice seen in the modern times in which the young couple has the right to choose to proceed or not), were typical of such practices.

The cultural structure in the Taisho Era is often called Taisho Liberalism. As a temporal reaction of the Imperial-family-centered social structure of the Meiji Era, some opinion leaders advanced distinctly liberal ideas during this era. This was particularly evident in literary works, as some women writers and cultural leaders proposed the very first expression of the feminist movement in Japan. Others followed by advocating communism and the birth-control movement. The case of Senji Yamamoto, the first sexologist in Japan, was certainly an example of this liberalization trend. Yamamoto had spent some time in America while young and had been influenced by its culture. He was assassinated in 1902, at age 40 years, by an ultra-right-wing terrorist opposed to Yamamoto’s promotion of birth control, labor liberalization, proletarian theory, and the anti-Law of Public Peace Maintenance. The national leaders of that time regarded a person like Yamamoto, who recognized the sexual rights of each individual, worked hard against poverty, and had a strong anti-power attitude, as dangerous.

The Taisho Era, which lasted only 15 years, was followed by the militaristic age of Showa, in which Japanese militarists initiated a series of wars, including the invasion of China and military actions in Southeast Asian countries and the Pacific area, leading up to World War II.

In the historical process of Meiji, Taisho, and Showa, Japan’s primary national policy consistently focused on economic enrichment and strengthening of the military power. Within this societal atmosphere, children were regarded as a national treasure, and thus they were reared comparatively freely. In contrast with contemporary urban life, adolescents in the agricultural community life that dominated the Meiji and Taisho Eras, learned most of the manners and rules that were necessary to spend a normal life in the adult community by spending time together with peers in the local community. A good example of this peer learning was the Shuku or “dwelling-together practice.”

This Shuku community group is roughly classified as either Wakamono-shuku for young males and Musume-shuku for young females. Within the local community, it was mandatory for each youth to join the shuku of their respective sex at a specified age. In the shuku, they worked together for the village in the daytime and learned the traditional codes of behavior of the community in the evening. Sexuality education in today’s sense was definitely included in this community education system. Within the local community, the freedom of love was widely accepted, as those who fell in love with each other were usually allowed to get married. Children of the ruling-class families, such as village master and landowner, however, were not allowed to enjoy this freedom during their adolescent and youthful days.

In 1945, after World War II, the Japanese people were granted the right to experience democratic and liberal lifestyles because of the cultural influences of the Allied Western countries. The Japanese people have enjoyed this freedom in the subsequent 50 years, and yet, at the same time, the traditional Japanese consciousness of the societal system, moral codes, and fundamental attitude toward life and sex formed throughout the centuries still regulate their thoughts and behaviors today. The highly successful experience of 50 years of newly available pro-Western ways of life visible on the surface of Japanese culture today is definitely overpowered by the centuries-old value systems and views toward sex, human beings, religion, and society at the conscious level and deep in the mind. The sexuality of the modern Japanese is, therefore, formed in a double-layered manner that, in effect, defies clear description or understanding by outsiders. The world has become smaller as the consequence of the vast development in the transportation and media systems. At the same time, however, it is often pointed out that deep in the mind of the modern Japanese people, the national isolation policy is still alive.

3. Knowledge and Education about Sexuality

A. Historical Perspectives

There are various opinions among the historians regarding the time of the establishment of Japan as a nation, but at least many agree that it was after the 6th century when the political system had gradually formed into a certain style, not in the modern sense, but in a way that was based on and facilitated by organized education run by Buddhist priests from their temples. With the coming of Buddhism in 538 or 552 C.E. (depending on the source cited), numbers of Buddhist priests came from Kudara on the Korean Peninsula. In addition, a likely larger number of Japanese priests went abroad to Korea and China to study. In these temples, education in Buddhist scripts and political administration was provided for the priests and the children of the national administrators.

It is commonly recognized that the first schools in Japan’s history were the Daigakuryo, or College Dormitories, established in the nation’s capital, and the Kokugaku or, National Schools, which were established in each major city, in accordance with the Taihorituryo, or Great Treasure Laws enacted in 701 C.E.

Subsequently, various educational systems were established to provide education exclusively for the ruling class, i.e., aristocrats, samurai, and priests. Even though the political systems and/or power structure changed from time to time, these educational systems persisted because the schools were established by the ruling daimyo (feudal lords or landlords) or samurai families. Education for the townsfolk and commoners, though not yet institutionalized, was initiated in the 13th and 14th centuries and continued afterwards in the Buddhist temples. During the Edo era (1603-1886), such private schools for elementary education became quite popular and were known as Terakoya or temple houses.

Education for women was not available in the rulers’ schools, but was available to some extent in the “commoners’ schools.” Then, in the early 1700s, in the middle of the Edo Era, a unique educational organization developed as a function of the village and town community, for the education of the immature youths for daily life, including education in sexual behavior. These organizations were known as the Wakamono-gumi, or young men’s activity group, and the Musume-gumi, or daughters’ activity group. This system of community education was disbanded in the middle of the Meiji Era around 1890 in favor of promoting newly established public school systems.

In 1868, as the shogunate political system collapsed, Japan made its first step into the modern world when Emperor Meiji transferred the capital from Kyoto—formerly Edo, where the Shogunate was located—to Tokyo. In 1872, the new government announced a law known as Gakusei, or School System, based on the French school system, and launched a nationwide education for all. This educational law, intended to promote industrial development and the universal conscription system, was ultimately linked with the national policy of enriching the country and strengthening its armament. One may observe in this historic transition the germination of the Japan’s militarism in the 20th century.

The Law of Education, enacted in 1879, took a liberal direction in using the American school system as its base. This was quickly amended the following year by the “Revised Law of Education,” which put the emphasis on Confucianist morals as the fundamental spirit. This traditional vision was obviously necessary because of strong opposition within the government against Western liberalism. “Catching up with the already modernized nations in the world” was indeed the priority motto of the Meiji government, but in terms of practical education, the goal of producing guns and battleships outranked the education of humans. In 1903, the government took over supervision and authorization of textbooks in order to develop uniformity in people’s thoughts and minds. As a result, Japan’s education was overwhelmed by the moral and behavior codes of Confucianist ethics based on the emperor system and nationalism.

A short-lived liberal trend developed between 1912 and 1926, when Emperor Taisho was on the throne. This liberal movement, however, was not strong enough to change the government’s educational policy, and in the long term, the militarists regained power.

The militarism, and later fascism, grew stronger and matured in the Showa Era beginning in 1926 and climaxing in education’s dark period during World War II (1941-1945). After the 1945 defeat, Japanese education was completely transfigured with the adoption of a 6-3-3-4 year sequence, the first nine years being mandatory (six years of elementary school and three years of junior high school). This newly implemented system also brought to Japan substantially equal opportunity of education for boys and girls and all social classes.

The outstanding economic growth of Japan throughout the postwar years is regarded as a contemporary marvel. Along with it, education in Japan also made great progress quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Much of its content will be introduced in the following section. It should, however, be explained here that the Showa Era was closed in 1989 upon the passing of Emperor Showa, and now it is the era of Heisei.

B. Sexuality Education in Contemporary Japan

The Background Education System

As of 1994, Japan had a total of 65,000 schools of all kinds for its total population of 124.3 million. This includes approximately 25,000 elementary schools (grades 1 to 6), 12,000 junior high schools (grades 7 through 9), 5,500 senior high schools (grades 10 through 12), 1,100 colleges and universities (including two-year junior colleges), 6,700 vocational colleges (mostly two-year), 15,000 kindergartens, and 1,000 special schools for handicapped children. The rate of actual participation in required education has been as high as 99.9% since around 1910, although the length of mandatory education was much shorter before 1945. These statistics exclude some 1,200 heavily handicapped children and an estimated 100,000 prolonged absentees because of illness and unwillingness to participate.

The great majority of those who complete the required education of nine years by age 12 go on to three-year senior high school, specifically 94.3% of the boys and 96.4% of the girls. Advancement to colleges and universities is 36.3% for men and 39.2% for women. This trend to high academic achievement orientation has created stress and mental pressure in the “entrance examination war” all Japanese youths experience. Because of overemphasis on the entrance examination, many recognize the necessity of Juku, extracurricular schools in the evenings and on holidays, tutors, and/or correspondence courses to prepare for the examinations. Such practices are common in Japan these days, perhaps more so than in other countries, suggesting the need to discuss the effects and consequences of the Juku for the social life of Japanese adolescents and young adults.

The detailed curriculum in each school level, the general objectives of each subject, and aims and contents of each school year for each subject are precisely controlled by the national Course of Study. It may seem that the national government limits and controls the contents of education and its teaching methods; however, the Course of Study only presents the frame structure of the teaching, and the classroom teacher has the liberty of the details presented. The Course of Study is revised once every decade or so.

As in some other countries, the Ministry of Education provides a list of approved textbooks from which teachers select those to be used in their classes. It is true that sometimes court cases have arisen about the suitability of the national policy on textbooks, questioning whether the government is interfering with education, whether the examination/approval system conflicts with the Constitution, or whether the system infringes on the freedom of expression. However, so far the system is functioning well, with individual schools and teachers free to choose classroom content and presentations aside from government approval of texts and teaching materials.

Sexuality Education

There is no distinct sexuality or family-life education course included in the subjects to be taught in the Japanese school system. The Course of Study does not require anything to be taught about sexuality, nor does the national government determine any objectives or the content of sexuality education wherever a local school or teacher decides to deal with this topic at any grade or school level. The official statement provided by the Ministry of Education states that “The contents of education regarding sex (and sexuality) are distributed in various respective subjects (relevant to biology, sociology and health, etc.) and sex (and sexuality education) is certainly expected to be integrated in all these subject matters at each school.” Therefore, the promoters of sex (and sexuality) education, such as those involved in the Japanese Association for Sex Education (J.A.S.E.), have been advocating school instructional programs by developing and publishing Sex Education Guidelines for various school levels and various grades. J.A.S.E. was established and was officially approved by the Ministry of Education in 1972, and has since been the leading nonprofit organization in the field of sex education.

On the other hand, improvement in education for HIV and AIDS is increasing in Japan’s schools because of the rapid spread of HIV and AIDS throughout the world since the late 1980s. This in turn has strengthened the importance of sex education in the Japanese schools.

Since 1992, as a result of revisions in the elementary school Course of Study, childbirth has been introduced into the science textbook, and physical and psychological changes of adolescence into the health education textbook, indicating that some changes can be made in the Course of Study. Any changes in the Course of Study automatically means definite changes in the instructional contents at every school. At present, all upper-grade elementary schoolchildren are expected to be exposed to the physiological and psychological aspects of human sexuality. However, so far no textbook describes any aspects of sexual intercourse, which has prompted some criticism from classroom teachers about the incomplete vision and unrealistic attitude of the Ministry of Education.

In the junior high school level, certain topics in sex education are dealt with in health education, science (biology), social studies, and domestic science. However, these are handled less candidly and actively than in elementary schools in the same system or district. The case is similar as well in the senior high schools; the reason perhaps being that classroom instruction is regarded much less as an education for human living than as a preparation for the next entrance examination, i.e., senior high school for the junior high students, and colleges and universities in the case of senior high school students.

“Education indeed is the greatest prevention” is the standpoint of the Ministry of Education regarding HIV and AIDS prevention. Because of this viewpoint, elementary school faculty are strongly encouraged to teach that HIV and AIDS are not transmitted by mosquito bites or by shaking hands with others, and that no person with HIV or AIDS should be discriminated against. It is greatly regretted by many educators and members of J.A.S.E. that sex education in Japanese schools currently needs to be improved so much and that teaching the fact that HIV can be transmitted through sexual intercourse is still not well accepted among the schoolchildren. This has an impact also on a number of cases in which hemophiliac patients have become HIV-positive because of contaminated blood transfusions. [Update 1997: By 1985, about 40% of all Japanese hemophiliac patients, more than 2,000 people, had contracted HIV through contaminated imported blood products. As of 1995, hemophiliac patients accounted for 60% of Japanese people with HIV. See Section 10B on HIV/AIDS. (End of update by Y. Kaji)] Even these patients are hesitant, because of public ignorance, to admit they are HIV-positive. As a matter of fact, voluntary admission of HIV-positive status is almost nonexistent in Japanese society. This is because, for most Japanese people, admitting to being HIV-positive is viewed as a kind of social suicide and societal discrimination is definitely expected.

Because of centuries of a national isolation policy that rejected anything that might endanger cultural and religious harmony, a person with any unusual handicap or disease like HIV was commonly treated as an enemy of society, or at least rejected. It is, therefore, difficult to judge whether appropriate HIV-related education would produce any effects in changing the attitudes of children of any age to HIV-positive persons. [Comment 1997: An added problem is the great reluctance, especially among elementary schoolteachers, to mention, let alone discuss, sexuality in their classrooms (End of comment by Y. Kaji)] Even in junior and senior high schools, where one might expect teachers to be more open in dealing with sexual issues, and students to be more open to education about discrimination prevention, the effectiveness of education in reducing discrimination against persons with HIV is unclear.

The content of the sex education actually received by students was studied in 1981 and 1987 surveys; Table 3 shows a breakdown in the content of sexuality education by subject (IES2 Fig. 1, p. 784; J.A.S.E. 1988). When these subjects are clustered into three general categories, 1. physiobiological, 2. psychological, and 3. social, the youth surveyed reported that 29.4%—three out of every ten—had received no sexual education at all (type 0) while an identical figure of 29.4% received an education that covered all three general categories (type III). A little over 20% had sexuality education that covered only the physiological and biological aspects (type I), while 13.5% and 12.8% had instruction that covered the physiological-biological and social (type IIA), or psychological-biological and psychological (type IIB), respectively. In Table 3, the heavy concentration of responses on the top six items, which cover the physiological/biological background of sexuality, supports the conclusion that when Japanese children do receive sex education, it is more often limited to the facts of physiology and biology.

Table 4 presents the percentage of each type of sex education actually given to students of different school levels (IES2 Fig. 2, p. 785; J.A.S.E. 1988). Naturally, the amount of education, particularly that of type III, increases as the level of schooling advances. In addition, it is shown that in junior high school, the psychological aspects of sexuality are emphasized. This may be an understandable trend since the biological and psychological aspects of pubescent events occur just before or in the early stages of adolescence.

As mentioned earlier, the contents of sex education in Japanese school systems are more or less centered around physiological aspects and are, therefore, cognitive-oriented rather than attitudinal-behavior-oriented. In order for sex education in Japanese schools to become the comprehensive sexuality education it needs to be, more consideration must be given to the psychological and sociological aspects of sexuality. HIV and AIDS education and prevention needs to be incorporated in this framework as a well-balanced education within the national Course of Study.

C. Informal Sources of Sexual Knowledge

Teen sex magazines are popular and widely read by Japanese youth. They are noticeably different from their adult counterparts, comparatively wholesome, or at least harmless or insipid. Instead of the violent, sadistic, and degrading content common in adult pornography, teen sex magazines are filled with frivolous, inane, and unabashed boys’ club talk and candid cheerleader squat-shots and near-nudist pictorials. Since true sexuality education is absent from Japanese education, and parents and the community no longer communicate this essential information to youths, these magazines do perform an important function, providing limited but basic information about sexual anatomy. Unfortunately, their popularity depends on adolescent titillation that ignores the need to provide information on STD prevention and contraception. Japanese television is also a major informal source of limited sexual information, particularly in the early evening television cartoon programs that cater to adolescent male curiosities about female anatomy (Bornoff 1991, 71). (See Section 8C for comments on the Roricon or “Lolita complex” that is so widespread in Japanese sex magazines and can be said to constitute a national characteristic.)

4. Autoerotic Behaviors and Patterns

There are clear gender differences in terms of the masturbation fantasies and concrete activity that Japanese boys and girls pursue in their adolescent behavioral development. In reality, the great majority of the senior high school boys practice masturbation, while the majority of girls of ages 20 and 21 years still ignore masturbation after experiencing their first intercourse (J.A.S.E. 1994). The median 22-year-old female has not engaged in masturbation. This may indicate a difference in the degree of sexual drive between the two sexes. But another possible reason that females are not eager to engage in masturbation is the social pressure against the female’s self-motivated sexual activities that are unrelated to procreation, although this belief is steadily becoming weaker. The majority of young Japanese women perhaps do not give serious consideration to autoeroticism because of the subconscious expectation that a good Japanese woman should always be modest in any sexual activity. [Comment 1997: This may be changing as young Japanese women increasingly reject traditional female roles. (See Section 5C on adult heterosexual behavior, marriage, family, and divorce, below.) (End of comment by Y. Kaji)] According to the 1981 survey results, females discover and first experience masturbation as a result of “incidental touching of the genital organ by something” and/or “reading erotic articles.” For males, there is an indication that being “taught by some friend” is the more common inspiration.

[Comment 2003: In terms of the cumulative frequencies of masturbation experiences of Japanese youths in the 1987 and 1993 national surveys, 16% of the 1987 males had begun masturbating, while about 6% of the 1993 males and the same percentage of both 1987 and 1993 females had masturbated by age 12. For both groups of women, the cumulative totals rose slowly to about 13% at age 17, and then rose to 32% for 1987 females and 35% for 1993 females. After a sharp rise in masturbation experiences between ages 12 and 16, 1993 males held a plateau until age 19. Males surveyed in 1987 leveled off for a year and then moved ahead by 8% over their 1993 peers. At age 21, 92% of 1987 males, 95% of 1993 males, 34% of 1993 females, and 32% of 1987 females had masturbated (IES2 Fig. 3, p. 786; J.A.S.E. 1994). (End of comment by the Editors; percentages are approximations from the original line graph; see note at beginning of chapter.)]

The teen sex magazines mentioned above in Sections 3C, Knowledge and Education about Sexuality, Informal Sources of Sex Education, and 8C, Significant Unconventional Sexual Behaviors, Pornography and Erotica, which are used primarily by young males as a masturbatory stimulant, pose many societal and cultural questions. [Comment 1997: The sex magazines and comics targeted to young females are also popular and raise many controversial questions. (End of comment by Y. Kaji; see also Perper and Cornog’s observations on manga in Section 8D, Sex, Love, and Women in Japanese Comics.)] Apart from their relatively healthy content in terms of normal psychosexual development, one controversy centers on the degree to which the staggering amount of these magazines produced and their extensive use by teenagers and older males for masturbation is all that wholesome. Do these magazines promote normal psychosexual development, or do they support and promote an unhealthy, introverted social isolation? Is the plethora of teen sex magazines an unhealthy substitute for many young men who have not developed the interpersonal skills they need to relate to women on a mature and intimate adult level? (Bornoff 1991, 71).

5. Interpersonal Heterosexual Behaviors

A. Childhood Play and Sexual Behaviors

The Threat of a New Subspecies

Since education in sexuality and education for parenting share a common basis, it may be helpful to sketch the possible role and position these two aspects of education hold in the natural developmental sequences of play and sexual behaviors children pass through as they mature (see Table 5) (IES2 Fig. 4, p. 788; Hatano 1991bc). Throughout his or her growth and development, the child is expected to experience certain events and to develop certain skills, so that development of a mature consciousness and behavior will be promoted. Regular mother-child behavior like breastfeeding during infancy is believed to stimulate mental activity of the baby and to enhance a trustworthy relationship between parent and child. Based on this sort of relationship, the time spent in play and fun experiences between the two would promote a sense of playful exploration and form the basis of interpersonal relationships, as well as emotional security. This in turn enhances the ability of a child to play with other children and successfully join in peer-group activities.

Table 5                   [Also referred to later]

Human Developmental Stages and Assignments of Play and Sexual Behavior and Positions of Sex Education and Education for Parenting

(IES2 Fig. 4, p. 788)

Peer-group activities, especially involving play activities among young children, are believed to develop the social aspect of personality. It seems that social development of an individual includes acquisition of communication skills with others, procedures to maneuver human relations, leadership development within a group, and coping skills between boys and girls, between elders and the young, and between the strong and the weak. As a person grows and becomes ready to engage in heterosexual relationships and sexual behavior, these human relationship skills will become necessary to cope with the opposite sex. Likewise, the above skills are needed when a person becomes a parent.

Together with increasing urbanization and modernization, Japan, especially in recent years, is witnessing the emergence of a new type of young person—what may be termed Neo homo sapiens—who often does not accept traditional institutional human relationships and prefers living exclusively at the keyboard of a computer, communicating via networks, and avoiding direct human relations with the others. These young people are often cruel, lacking in interpersonal relationship skills in the sense of human relationships with the others, and unskilled in heterosexual or homosexual relations in later adolescent life. This is evidenced in the increase in older bachelors and in the increasing frequency of Narita divorce—divorce upon returning to Narita New Tokyo International Airport from a honeymoon trip outside of Japan—indicating the lack of patience, human relationship maneuvering skills, and inability to maintain a married relationship.

What usually happens [in a Narita divorce] is that newlyweds take a honeymoon in a place like Australia or Hawaii, and the husband is so intimidated by overseas travel that he scarcely wants to leave his hotel room.
            The wife, on the other hand, has already taken several foreign trips with girlfriends and is much more comfortable with the idea of being abroad. She wants to spend her days scuba diving and her nights bopping in the disco, and she finds her husband a dreadful bore. So she dumps him at the end of the honeymoon, and they say a final good-bye at Narita. (Kristof 1996a)

The need for sexuality and parenting education is expected to increase as technology continues to transform Japanese society.

The Past and Present Contrasted

According to the latest national statistics, the average married Japanese couple has 1.6 children, definitely one of the lowest rates in the modern world. This tendency to a small number of children is a reflection of urbanization and a high-economic, growth-centered family life with the wife being a highly educated career woman. [Comment 1997: This tendency for Japanese couples to have fewer children may also reflect the lack of sufficient social welfare and public childcare systems, which pressures mothers to stay home and take care of their children. Many Japanese women are reluctant to have more children because of inflexible working hours required by Japanese companies, long-distance commuting to work, the high cost of housing, and the lack of childcare facilities. (End of comment by Y. Kaji)] Apart from the need and preference of each individual family, this trend is not necessarily a healthy phenomenon for society in general, particularly because of the consequences of impediments that the individual single child encounters in his or her development (see the third column in Table 5).

In the past, the Japanese family was often situated in a large, family-tree system where several families related by kinship lived together on the same land but in different houses. This arrangement sometimes accommodated different families of three or four different generations. The children learned many important matters from the members of the various families, as well as from their own immediate brothers and sisters. With many children in each family, each child enjoyed excellent educational opportunities within the family community. Indeed, everyday life in the community functioned as the community education. The advent of modernization brought an urban life that forced the extended family and neighborhood community to abandon its educational function. In addition, the daily human exchanges and the network system with the neighbors were lost.

In the pre-modern community, children of similar ages formed peer groups and played together near their farm homes, in a backyard, an open field, or in the barn. The children often obtained interesting and helpful information related to sex from observing the farm animals; in this manner, sexuality education went on in an informal manner. The “doctor/nurse play” they often enjoyed within their peer group in a secret space provided sexual information and fantasy, which in turn helped them form a healthy sexual identity of their own.

Children in contemporary Japan, first of all, now have fewer brothers and sisters in their family so they seldom have opportunities to cope with a small baby, with a younger child, or with an older and stronger child. Some young children of 3 start special training in preparation for the entrance examination for kindergarten. In addition to public school, almost all elementary schoolchildren today attend Juku, or special training school, for entrance examination for some junior high school, that may provide a better opportunity for future school advancement. In addition, training in piano, ballet, and swimming, for example, is becoming a common practice among children of all ages. As a result, the children have very little time for spontaneous activities such as playing and spending time together with the children of the peer group. One’s ability to live socially and peacefully with other people of different types and capabilities is usually cultivated in these childhood circumstances; however, contemporary Japanese children are not in the position to experience such education. It may not be surprising then to find young grownups today who lack the usual skills of living, playing, and communicating with young people of the same and/or other sex. Human relations require skills in sexuality-related behaviors, such as talking with and obtaining trust from the peers of the other sex, and these are skills that may not be attained by merely reading books or watching television programs.

Contemporary children, who are busy with Juku and extracurricular training programs, must watch television programs, play television/computer games, and read comic books during the precious free activity hours, perhaps an hour or so in the late evening, after finishing all the previously scheduled programs. While there is much information related to sex and sexual behaviors on television and in comic books, exposure to this information is not sufficient when they have to use it on their own, cognitively and affectively. They need to perceive this information in the context of actual human relations and experiences. In actuality, most contemporary Japanese children build their knowledge pertaining to sex in a passive manner that results in distortion and inflexibility. The sex-related knowledge should be actively acquired by each individual with a positive attitude in order for one to handle sexuality in later life constructively and with enjoyment. The reality in Japan today seems to be quite different from what it should be.

This is not to imply or suggest that today’s children will grow up to become sexual deviants or criminals. However, it is obvious that attention needs to be paid to the fact that in Japan today, the psychosexual developmental processes of the infants and children are experienced in abstract textbooks rather than in actual experience-oriented activities.

B. The Sexuality of Adolescents

[Note from the CCIES Website Editor:  See Last-Minute Developments for updates related to this topic that were added after this chapter had been typeset.]

The Results of Four National Surveys

The office of the Prime Minister sponsored nationwide surveys of sexual development and sexual behaviors of Japanese youths in 1974, 1981, 1987, and 1993. The surveys, conducted by the Japanese Association for Sex Education (J.A.S.E.), mobilized nearly 30,000 youths of ages between 12 and 22 years each time. The reports provide a substantial picture of the sexuality of Japanese youth. The full reports were published in Japanese by J.A.S.E. (1975, 1983, 1988, and 1994) and summarized for the international community on several occasions by Yoshiro Hatano (1988, 1991ab, 1993).

[Comment 2003: In comparing the ages of menarche in girls and the start of ejaculation in boys, about 5% of all four groups had menstruated or ejaculated before age 10. According to the 1993 survey, a majority of 54% of the 12-year-old girls had already experienced their first menstruation. The menarche curve for girls then quickly declines to a few percent at age 16 and beyond; by age 19, close to 100% of the girls were menstruating. Girls mature a year or more earlier than the boys (IES2 Fig. 5, p. 791; J.A.S.E. 1994). At age 12, 19% of males had experienced ejaculation. For boys, the peak ejaculation onset occurs at age 13, with about 38% of boys experiencing ejaculation for the first time at that age. At age 15, 76% of the 1993 boys and 64% of the 1987 boys were experiencing ejaculation. By age 21, 96% of the boys surveyed in 1993 and 84% of the boys surveyed in 1987 had experienced ejaculation (IES2 Fig. 6, p. 792; Shimazaki 1994-95).

[In the cumulative frequencies of the development of “interest in sex” among Japanese youths in the 1987 and 1993 surveys, at age 13, 37% of 1987 girls and 42% of the 1993 girls, and 42% of both the 1987 and 1993 boys experienced an “interest in sex.” Between ages 15 and 18 the cumulative total for boys rose from about 78% to 93%. At age 20, 100% of 1993 males and 96% of 1987 males expressed an interest in sex. Between ages 15 and 18, the cumulative male totals rose from 58% the 75%, peaking at about 90% at age 21 (IES2 Fig. 7, p. 792; J.A.S.E. 1994).

[As for the cumulative “interest in approaching the opposite sex,” 25% of 12-year-old males surveyed in 1993 and 34% of 1987 males were interested in approaching a girl, while 55.5% of 1993 girls and 48% of 1987 girls had experienced an interest in approaching someone of the opposite sex. At 16, the cumulative totals were 75% to 80%; by age 21, the cumulative totals for all four groups ranged from 89% for 1987 females to 91% for 1993 girls, and 94% for 1987 males and 96% for 1993 males (IES2 Fig. 8, p. 793). As for the cumulative frequencies of “desire for physical contact with the opposite sex,” the survey results are shown in Table 6 (IES2 Fig. 9, p. 793). There is a clear difference between an interest in approaching a member of the opposite sex and the desire for physical contact, in that the boys are strongly interested in direct physical contact with the opposite sex while the girls are only interested in becoming closer with the other sex.

[Although these young people, both male and female, seem to start their adolescence with heterosexual “interests” by age 13 or 14, this interest does not have a concrete outcome in social activity, namely dating, for some years. In 1993, 3% of the males and 2% of the females reported dating. Twenty percent of both 1993 males and females started dating at age 14 or 15, and 40% of the Japanese youth, both males and females, surveyed in 1993 had their first dating at age 14 or 15. The tail for the age-of-first-date curve dropped to 7% at age 17 and to 1% at age 21, for both males and females (IES2 Fig. 10 & Fig. 11, p. 794; J.A.S.E. 1994).

[In the 1987 and 1993 national surveys, between 5% and 9% of the males and females had experienced dating. From age 13 to age 21, cumulative statistics for males surveyed in 1987 lagged behind their 1993 counterparts by 3% to 8%. Females surveyed in 1993 led in cumulative frequency of dating experience at all age levels.

[Further analysis of these statistics suggests that the girls do not necessarily pursue real love-seeking activities, but prefer spending some time with a friend of the opposite sex. As a matter of fact, they are slow in becoming involved in sexual arousal experiences, while their male counterparts demonstrate a different developmental trend: Sexual arousal comes ahead of dating for males and after dating for the females. Between ages 12 and 14, males surveyed in 1993 have a significant lead of up to 12% over the same-age females in experiencing sexual arousal. At age 14, 1993 females overtake and surpass their male counterparts by about 5% until the two populations match at ages 20 and 21 in their experiences of sexual arousal and first dating.

[As for the onset of dating, nearly equal numbers of males and females surveyed in 1993 reported having their first date at the same ages, being neatly matched from age 11 to 21. Ages 14 and 15 marked the peak years for having one’s first date, with 20% of males and females having their first dates at age 14 and another 20% at age 15. After age 15, the curve for first date gradually declines in the late teens. About 3% of the boys and girls surveyed in 1993 had their first date at age 10 or 11. Ages 14 and 15 were the most common ages for first dates, with 20% of boys and girls having this experience at age 14 and another 20% at age 15. About 6% of boys and girls reported their first dates at age 17.

[For the cumulative frequencies of being sexually aroused reported in the two national youth studies, see Table 7 and Table 8 (IES2 Fig. 12 & Table 3, p. 795; J.A.S.E. 1994).

[An examination of cumulative frequencies for kissing and touching the body of the other sex indicates that for boys, kissing and touching the body of the other sex occurs at the same age level, very probably with the two activities occurring as part of the same encounter. In the meantime, the girls are again slower in the physical-contact behaviors, and they perhaps consider kissing itself and their first kissing experience very seriously. Males and females demonstrate a difference in their developmental trend: Sexual arousal comes ahead of dating for males and after dating for the females (IES2 Fig. 13, p. 795; Shimazaki 1994-95).

[Three percent to 8% of males and females in both surveys reported having their first kissing experience sometime by age 13 (see Table 9) (IES2 Fig. 14, p. 796; Shimazaki 1994-95). (End of comment by the Editors; percentages are approximations from the original line graphs; see note at beginning of chapter.)]

Japanese youths, both male and female, show a remarkably slow development in sexual behaviors in comparison to other societies. There are no clear antisexual activity policies existent in the nation, nor any discouragement of male-female relations in the nation’s limited sexuality education. The most probable reasons behind the slow psychosexual development lie in the traditional societal attitude toward the free sexual activities, particularly when they involve educated, upper-class women, and the society’s strong respect for education, which results in suppression of sexual behaviors among the youths.

[Comment 2003: The 1987 and 1993 males were about even in experiences of touching the body of the opposite sex until age 16, after which the 1993 males reported between 6% and 11% more physical sexual contact with females than did the 1987 males. With some fluctuations, 1987 and 1993 females remained about on a par in touching experiences with males until age 19. At age 19, about 20% of both groups of females reported touching experiences. Between ages 19 and 21, the two female groups diverged with 1987 females, rising to 54%, while only 24% of 1993 females reported touching experiences (IES2 Fig. 15, p. 796).

[A comparison of cumulative frequencies of petting and intercourse experiences by age progression shows a smooth curve for petting experiences for 1993 males and 1993 females, increasing with age to age 21, where females are about 11% below their male peers. The four curves for intercourse experiences are very similar up to age 16, when 1993 males and females show a distinct increase at age 16, a slowdown at 17, and a second increase from age 18, to 69% for 1993 men and 64% for 1993 women. For the 1987 men and women, the cumulative intercourse-experience curve shows a steady rise to age 17, when the male and female lines continue to rise but diverge (both with an increase at age 20), until the 1987 men reached 59% and the 1987 women reached 36%. Table 10 shows the cumulative percentages reported (IES2 Fig. 16 & Fig. 17, p. 797).

[In comparing the male/female cumulative frequencies of kissing, petting, and intercourse (see Table 11), survey results for males show, as might be expected, an experience gap of 1% to 3% at ages 12 to 15, with the gaps between kissing experiences and petting/intercourse for ages 15 and 19 increasing to 10% to 15%. After age 20, the frequency gaps for all three experiences narrow. For males at all ages, cumulative experiences for petting are a few percentage points higher than for intercourse. There is no crossing over in the cumulative order, i.e., for males, kissing experiences are highest and intercourse lowest at each age. For females, survey results at all ages show a close approximation of the cumulative frequencies for petting and intercourse, with a 2% to 3% edge for petting over intercourse. At age 13, females reported slightly more intercourse experiences than petting experiences. Between age 14 and 15, petting and intercourse experiences were closely linked. At ages 16 and 18, females reported more experience with petting than with intercourse; at age 17, females reported more cumulative experience with intercourse than with petting. Overall, males reported a steady increase in all three experiences from age 12 to 21. Females showed a similar steady increase, with a slight slowdown in the upward curve for all three experiences between ages 17 and 18 (IES2 Fig. 18 & Fig. 19, p. 798; Shimazaki 1994-95).

[Table 12 provides survey data on the total number of coital partners classified by sex and school levels (IES2 Table 4, p. 799; Shimazaki 1994-95). As with previously cited results, these data indicate more-active behavior for males than for females. Psychologically, the girls seem to develop their interest in the other sex earlier in adolescence: By 12 years of age, 50% of girls already demonstrate a general interest in boys, as opposed to the 14-year-old median-age boy. But such interest in the other sex among the girls is more mental and fantasy-based, and not necessarily accompanied by actual physical activities, such as physical contact, in which the boys are four years ahead of the girls, and sexual arousal, in which boys are five years ahead of the girls (see Table 13) (IES2 Fig. 20, p. 800). (End of comment by the Editors; percentages are approximations from the original line graphs; see note at beginning of chapter.)]

Table 13                   [Also referred to later]

Sequential Developmental Model of Various Sexual Events and Experiences of the Average Japanese Youth as Seen in the Age of the Median Person for Respective Events (as of the 1988 Survey)

(IES2 Fig. 20, p. 800)

The sexual difference in the cumulative experience rate of dating in the age progression does not seem to be very great, but the women’s special activeness, far surpassing men’s activeness, has been consistently noticed in all of the four surveys. The similarity between the sexes on this behavior very probably occurs because males and females of roughly the same age level are generally dating each other. On the other hand, the increased dating activity of females 15 years and older may have come about because older males start proposing dates to younger females who became more accepting than in earlier times.

In terms of actual heterosexual behaviors, the a