Despite specific restrictions on visas, Ukrainian females are flooding into Japan’s adult entertainment industry, which has caused issuance of warning by Japanese Justice Minister Yoshihisa Furukawa stating “There have been cases in which evacuees [from Ukraine] have been reported to be working at certain types of establishments they are not allowed”.
Adult entertainment establishments in Japan include hostess clubs, bars and other adult entertainment venues in Japan, the minister clarified.
The Immigration Services Agency has already sent written notifications to Ukrainian refugees informing them that their visas don’t allow them to take jobs that are covered by the adult entertainment law, he said.
The evacuees are allowed to switch their visa status to be able to stay in Japan for a year, but even residential status won’t make jobs in the adult entertainment sector available for them.
Some 14 million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian military operation in the country in late February, according to UN estimates. Over 1,000 of them have ended up in Japan. Furukawa has also expressed concerns that Ukrainian women could become victims f human trafficking, with such reports coming from other countries.
But, according to media reports, Ukrainian female, especially those who had worked as sex workers and escorts in Ukraine are not going to listen to the warning. They will show special interest of working in Japanese adult entertainment industry as would grant them the opportunity of making huge cash.
Another source said, Japanese porn industry is also showing interest in Ukrainian males – both youths and teens as the industry currently has only 90 Japanese male performers to over 20 thousand female actresses. With 4,000 new porn films every month, the number of male actors simply isn’t enough. This industry is like a hole in the wall that needs to get bigger.
Ukrainian males are hired by Japanese porn industry to participate in porn videos with one or multiple Japanese female actresses. As Ukrainians are not legally allowed to work in the adult entertainment industry, most of the porn films made with Ukrainian male and female are landing into the hands of western porn sites.
In 2021, the most common business type operating in the Japanese sex industry were the over 22 thousand non-store-based service providers, such as call girls. Business falling under adult entertainment include, among others, adult only bath houses, strip clubs, massage services, love hotels, escorts services etcetera.
Earlier this month, a researcher for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) revealed that online searches for sex workers from Ukraine spiked by 600 percent around the globe after the outbreak of the conflict.
According to reports, hundreds of Ukrainian females are voluntarily joining Japanese porn film industry, while some of them even are selling their minor girls for participating in porn films in exchange of huge cash.
Pornography in Japan has unique characteristics that readily distinguish it from western pornography. Pornographic films are known as “adult videos” (AV) in Japan, so Japanese adult videos are “JAV”, referring to the Japanese pornographic film industry. Animated films are referred to as hentai in English, but in Japan the terms “adult anime” and “erotic animation” (or ero anime) are used. In addition to pornographic videos and magazines featuring live actors, there are now categories of pornographic manga and anime anime (i.e., hentai), and pornographic computer games (eroge; for both PC and game consoles).
Reflecting Japan’s views on sexuality and culture, Japanese pornography delves into a wide spectrum of heterosexual, homosexual, and transgender sexual acts in addition to unique fetishes and paraphilias. Starting with erotic stories and wood block prints from before the 20th century, Japanese pornography evolved into distinct subcategories. Partly under attempts to circumvent Japanese laws regarding censorship, but also to cater to particular fetishes, actors and producers have featured subject matter unseen or rarely depicted in western pornography; bukkake (group ejaculation), gokkun (consuming semen), omorashi (needing to urinate), and tentacle erotica are a few uniquely Japanese genres of erotica. Lolicon (young girls), shotacon (young boys), and their contribution to the controversy regarding the regulation of cartoon pornography depicting minors has been a major issue concerning child protection, free speech, and public morality both inside and outside Japan.
In 2013, The Guardian reported that a huge swath of Japan’s younger generation was suffering from “celibacy syndrome,” with 45 percent of women ages 16 to 24 and more than 25 percent of men ages 16 to 24 reporting no interest in sex whatsoever. This comes on the heels of other apocalyptic erotic forecasts: Japan has the second-lowest birthrate in the world, one in four marriages is reportedly sexless, and a new term has cast a long shadow in the cultural conversation: soshokukei dansei, or grass-eating men, which is used to describe a generation of young males who are unassertive with women and uninterested in the intricacies of courtship and intimacy. In a recent poll, 60.5 percent of men between 20 and 34 identified as grass-eaters, which helps explain why Japan ranks as the world’s second-largest porn market (behind only South Korea—the US lags at a distant third).
