So you read Spa! and believe them....
Check the latest STUDIOVOICE,good ol'80's are back again.

sounds like the sex isn't the remedy for ennui, but in fact one of it's causes, in this case?

also, this notion of an identity crisis outside of your job is a huge thing to ponder in contrast to, say, plenty of americans who might confess to working only for money and having their real identity only OUTSIDE of their work. alas, it's a huge topic in itself: letting what you "do" define who you "are" (or not), etc. there's some echoes of ol' karl marx himself in that, now that i think about it.

A few points:

1) Interesting that this "Weekend Blues Syndrome" is not written as a subset of salarymen, but something that "we all" are experiencing.

2) There is the classic stereotype of Japanese men being workaholics and having their identities being set by their firm affiliation. This story suggests not only that this is unchanging, but now (with lower marriage rates and less family duties to occupy non-work time) it's getting worse!

3) So you read Spa! and believe them....

I am not sure I "believe" the article - could be a groundless trend piece. But I think the headline says something about either a) Japanese male norms (I'm particularly interested in the idea that paying for sex is pedestrian) or b) the media construction of the "average" middle-aged male identity (white collar, market sex, "desperate"). There are plenty of Japanese men who do not fit this profile at all - I bet successful and female-friendly salarymen would not admit to the syndrome - but I was struck by the magazine's appeal for a "we" in terms of this problem. This is not, "some men" but "all us guys."

4) there's some echoes of ol' karl marx himself in that, now that i think about it.

Again, Japan is either a place where the firm has taken a positive social role above raw capitalism to become a family or is a dystopian nightmare where labor is denied all identity outside of their occupational obligations. I guess it could be both. Certainly the rigidity of the market and difficulty to change jobs makes an American-style fluidity of identity much less natural.

"Certainly the rigidity of the market and difficulty to change jobs makes an American-style fluidity of identity much less natural."

good point. my wife and i are moving back to osaka in the fall of this year, so i'm looking forward (i think) to navigating through the work world of japan--seeing what this japanese workaday routine business is all about. it'll take some adjusting to i'm sure, even coming from hi-tech, fancy-pants silicon valley here. (kinda looking forward to spending less of my time on freeways, etc.).

- I bet successful and female-friendly salarymen would not admit to the syndrome -

Maybe they'd go with the slightly more PG-rated サザエさん症候群.

http://tinyurl.com/hq5zo

(Interesting note on the mayhem brought about by this proliferation of "syndromes" at the end of the article.)

By the way, I have a question about the publication itself. Who is it targeted to? Although the phrase 我々 does refer to the generalized first-person, "we" in this example is also confined to the readership of Spa. I'll follow this up with a native-speaker, but I was wondering if a Japanese person would read 我々 in the sense you imply (i.e., carrying the baggage of inclusion leftover from 我々日本人), or if there are class considerations.

In Britain, for example, if I read "we" on the cover of, say, "The Sun", I might not include myself (as much) in that identification as if I saw it on the cover of "The Guardian" or "The Independent". Even then, as a Canadian, I would still feel not quite included (as you point out - but I just want to suggest that this is not necessarily an "ex-pat in Japan" so much as a more general "ex-pat" thing).

I'm not trying to argue against your point, just trying to get a better handle on understanding how the options for self-identification (through Japanese-language print media, which I understand is a necessarily limited set) are so limited for サラリーマン系. What does this imply for people who aren't white-collar workers?

I miss Japan. Keep up the good work.

Perhaps "desperately visit prostitutes" isn't the best translation of "必死で風俗通い". Certainly if you google for "風俗" then you'll find any number of "health" sites but the term encompasses more than that.

The 風俗営業等の規制及び業務の適正化等に関する法律 - "Law Regulating Adult Entertainment Businesses" covers clubs, night clubs, cabaret clubs, pachinko, mah jong parlours, game centres, adult video and sex goods shops, soaplands, strip shows, "delivery health", love hotels as well as some kinds of bars, restaurants and coffee shops.

風俗　CAN mean more than sexual services, but clearly they mean "sexual services" in this context. In a formal context, it has a broader meaning, but it's fair to say it's going to be interpreted as "sexual services." I really doubt they mean "going to pachinkoなど."

我々 is going to be "we" in a formal "speaking to a crowd/we are a nation" kind of "we," but actually even in English, the "we" is going to sound like this automatically on a magazine cover. Context.

From what I know of Spa!, from a friend who writes a lot for them (and also helping that friend out on several articles), most of their stories like this are total bullshit. As in, completely made up by the writers and editors, with a few surveys and such (usually of the writers and editors friends) throw in to make it sound believeable.

I wouldn't read too much into it.

Ha, my full name looks odd for some reason.

Context was what I was after. If I see "We won!" on the front page of a St. Louis daily, and I'm from Detroit, I don't include myself in the "we". In fact, I strenuously dissociate myself. Yes, that's a totally different context, but my point is that it depends on how much you identify yourself with the publication in question. I was just wondering about Spa!'s target market (I've since figured that one out).

The point you are making stands - as far as "the boys" are concerned, the sex industry is just another diversion. But the ability of the media to valorize an idea of the "average urban Japanese male" only goes as far as the extent to which men self-identify as a consumer of that medium. I think that, especially as a man enters middle-age, interest in certain lifestyles is going to be cross-cut by a lot of other interests and commitments (i.e. family).

That said, if Spa! is onto something (as most people here seem to doubt) and the syndrome is bona fide, that would support the idea that masculine identity is becoming increasingly defined around the office and blowing off steam.

I think I'll go hang out with the doubters.

Actually, i found the "wareware" to have the opposite effect; i like spa but i would never use the word ware to describe myself, being neither in my 40s nor a taxi driver, and i found it to be exclusive in that sense. I wonder if the propensity of a speaker to use ware is directly proportional to the number of trips they make to a fuzoku in a year..?

most of their stories like this are total bullshit.

Yeah, I don't want to claim that Japanese men are all suffering from this weekend disease or that the article is doing excellent anthropological analysis of the Japanese male, but I think the assumptions made in defining the group identity are interesting.

From what I have seen in the way stories are fabricated, results in the fake surveys are always bent to tell the reader what they already want to hear. So if this story is fake, it at least is speaking to what the editors believe will connect to their audience - and that involves constant patronage of sexual services.

Also, 風俗通い translation - I am still convinced that the 風俗 is pointing solely at "sexual services" but 通い is less "visiting" and more "frequenting" or "constantly attending." It definitely denotes repeated patronage, because it's often used for going to work and school - things that are essentially daily.

Why can't 我々 just mean those who self-identify with the wareware defined by the context that follows?
（This weekend I will hold a marathon viewing of Lost...with a prostitute...at a country-club.）

I don't know. How would you feel if GQ had the headline, "Why do we have such urinary problems???" I don't think all readers of magazines are clearly defined in in-group/out-group automatically - especially with a magazine like Spa! which I would assume is picked up once in a while by dudes but not always.

風俗通い is definitely frequenting adult services (in all their variations). The "pedestrian" manner in which the services are used is harder for people from the west to grasp than the concept of the services themselves. Do a search for 風俗 plus your 区 and you're sure to find a site that reviews and ranks the local cathouses in a manner not much different than ramen shops.

I'd think... "Boy, good thing I'm not a GQ reader."

wareware is definitely (even in 我々日本人) an exclusive rather than all-inclusive term but this is a great example of misreading a nuance leading to XXL (american-sized) hysteric interpretation and shifting the focus miles away from where the issue may actually be.

It is exclusive to women, children, etc. definitely, but what mainstream magazine would intentionally exclude "normal guys" from joining in? Spa! of all people? We are interested in where the excluding line starts, where the group begins and ends. My point was that I think the patronage of sexual services as a product/cause of modern ennui is a pretty mainstream/widespread concept - not just affecting a niche segment of male society.

i agree but i don't take with your implied "feminism" (basically poor little jap girl kind).
i really recommend you some of miyadai shinji's stuff. he talks about this kind of stuff but also about swapping etc as part of a larger phenomenon.

i mean , say, your (otherwise rather nice) song about saving the little jap girl from the horror of her own libidinal/political investment , your dwelling and dwelling on stuff like this post yet failing to see that the host phenomenon might have a lot to do with actual female enjoyment/desire/ennui etc etc make your dubious gender politics pretty obvious.

I agree, it is pretty pedestrian. Not something men speak of in mixed company, but I young mens magazines give advice on dealing with these girls right alongside their nanpa advice. incidentally, right next to their advice on keeping your girlfriend unaware of one another.

The tv is just filled with casual furin... and unsubtle references to fuzoku. It's glamorous.

"song about saving the little jap girl from the horror of her own libidinal/political investment"

Why are you assuming that I am the I in the song, that the girl in the song is Japanese, or that it should be best summarized as "a little jap girl" which is clearly loaded in phrasing to make me sound like an imperialist/racist monster? Here is the essential problem with mixing songwriting with essay writing - you are going to bring in all this political baggage onto the meaning of my songs, which are much more ambiguous and open to interpretation. I wouldn't really bring that in this arena unless you just like pulling out my fingernails.

"the host phenomenon"

We've talked about this - the host phenomenon is marginal in terms of participation (almost wholly for women in the industry to start with). You'd have to at least agree that buying women or sexual services from women is way more established and normal and diversified than the other way around. Sure, there are SOME host clubs in recent years, compared to centuries of pretty stable ideas of male-focused prostitution.

Hey, but the young men and women who fill out the hosts and hostess ranks at least find it in their hearts to agree to come from the same socioeconomic class background! Thanks guys!

"Not something men speak of in mixed company"

This isn't always true. I am surprised about how many guys I have heard talk about fuzoku in front of their own girlfriends, but they kind of seem like shitheads.

//I am the I in the song, //

oh, gee, i didn't quite assume that, but still..

//I wouldn't really bring that in this arena //

find this kind of odd in a way. both here (and click opera for that matter) are highly critical places run by creative people yet the actual creative output is supposed to kind of freely float immaculate. (love yr. album !)

///the host phenomenon is marginal in terms of participation (almost wholly for women in the industry to start with). ///

you're wrong. that might have been so 10 or more years ago.

It's a term of degree. Are there non-industry girls going to hostess clubs? Sure, but everyone keeps repeating the idea that even though they are being pushed as mainstream places, the core customers are still rich baishun chicks. Do we need some stats to settle this?

it's not about stats or degree, it's like i'm saying about dubious gender politics you're putting forward. as it comes across from various bits and pieces here and there rather than just one essay your view of japanese women seems rather close to the most conservative right japanese male view: a pure thing lacking own desire and own ability to do/be evil.

those who do become either laughable (say juliana bodicon girls) or 'evil' only because contaminated by real male evil (say the 'rich baishun chicks.' you speak of above). i don't actually understand what you're trying to say in the last reply.

'Are there non-industry girls going to host[ess?!] clubs? -- YES, and that's an answer in itself if it means anything -- now your Scarlet Letter way of drawing the line between 'industry girls' and human beings is , well a bit puritan in an old-fashioned way, to put it mildly.

I mean i'm aware how sick post-modern logic can get (eg. while pole-dancing can be seen as empowering thing for some women say in the US the same logic can't be applied to sex-traffic in eastern europe ) but you seem to be drawing those purital lines way before dealing with the content and its specifics.

alin,
I'm a champion of prostitution from way back, and I mostly agree with you... but you are a bit too zealous in declaring these women "willing".
Anyone that has to keep their job absolute secret for fear of their children suffering ignominy is not in a seat of power. Now while they are young, alive, and not interested in love, the job might be grand, but the community won't give these girls an apartment, a heartfelt kiss, or comparable insurance rates. There are so many major sacrifices for an industry whose legions don't earn more than I do.

nate, sure and i find what you're saying sensible and reasonable at least for sectors of 'the industry' - it is a massive and complex industry and so is the society it's part of. i just find mr M's approach lame and to say the least.
i'm not really championing prostitution nor did i say everything was allright.

Fine, read me as a Puritan and my argument as solely a moral one if you want to, but my real problem with the massive Japanese sex business is more that 1) there is a clear class-bias in who's staffing it (and this has been true for centuries) 2) it's very much based on (or at least originated from) a patriarchal concept where "poor girls" sacrifice themselves to protect "good girls" from the libido of men and 3) that the opportunity to always buy women's affection (in myriad ways) does not have many positive effects on gender relations in society. Couldn't there possibly be a connection between the Japanese having the least amount of non-market sex and then having an enormous and open sex market?

If you do see host clubs as (at least at one time) primarily a way to return a lot of the cash paid out to sex workers back into employers' hands, then I think it's hard to see that they started in order to give women more equal access to to the market. My "bad gender politics" is just a skepticism of how "post-modern" the sex culture is here - it looks a lot like the feudal sex culture to me. In both post-modernism and feudalism, women are products, I guess.

you do seem to see this world of (male) heroes, villians and fair maids to be rescued.

obviously since you don't watch tv you wouldn't have had the chance for example to see any stuff recently looking at the life of male hosts.

in all honesty and no offence meant i think your perception is more feudal than anything going on in this country.

"in all honesty and no offence meant i think your perception is more feudal than anything going on in this country."

This is the 21st century, post-modern version of saying "You have cooties."