Japanese Documentary "Boys for Sale"

Anything and everything about gay life anywhere in the world, especially Asia, other than Thailand.
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fountainhall

Japanese Documentary "Boys for Sale"

Post by fountainhall »

I am sure it is not only visitors to Tokyo, Osaka and the other main Japanese cities who have come across the gay host bars. The web has a number of sites giving full details of these establishments including photos of all the available hosts and their times of availability. One such is Tokyo Kids (although Kids is an unfortunate name since all the hosts are always 18 and over) with branches in Osaka, Nagoya and other cities. Another is this one also with branches in various cities –

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If you are in luck you will occasionally find one of the great looking boys who takes part in some of the Japanese gay movies. The first icon in the listing above even tells if they have been in a porn movie or magazine. The benefit of these sites compared to host bars in, say, Bangkok and Pattaya is that they give a great deal of personal information about each host, as for example their sexuality – increasingly the majority are straight or bisexual – the exact services they will or will not provide, the cost for in and out calls and the time allocated for your tryst. In fact, all the information you might want for a pleasurable hour or so with a very cute companion.

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http://lang.dgdgdg.com/top.php

So it is all so well organized and so typically Japanese. Or so it seems, for it is not all as simple as it sounds. For the typical foreign tourist, the first problem will be the issue of language. Most of the boys themselves will speak little if any English. The mamasans usually will, though, and will help you find the type of boy you are looking for. Some of the bar websites are also in English with forms which can be emailed in advance to ensure the one you like will either be waiting for you in the bar or arrive at your hotel room as promptly as a Japanese shinkansen – i.e. on the dot! The alternative is to go to the bar itself. That’s another problem for only a few of the boys are likely to be there. More than a few of those listed as available at the time of your visit will already have been offed. So booking in advance is always recommended, leaving you hoping that the photos give you a pretty good idea of what your chosen one actually looks like.

Nor is all what you think it probably is. These boys are all gay? Most are not! They have been instructed about STDs and know the risks they are taking> Many have not! As this recent article in The Japan Times makes clear, for some months now a film has been doing the rounds of the world's film festivals – 27 so far. “Boys for Sale” examines the lives of the boys – or urisen - who make their living in these types of host bar.
Many urisen interviewed for the film, whose more intimate on-the-job moments are cleverly represented by often-explicit animation sequences, are uneducated, occasionally homeless young men who cite financial hardships, even crippling debts, for taking on the work. It also highlights how some bar owners and managers willfully conceal crucial information about the nature of the work and potential health risks.

“I think the film tells a lot about the vulnerability of young people, particularly when they are economically disadvantaged and how they can be taken advantage of,” says Ian Thomas Ash, a Tokyo-based filmmaker from New York and executive producer of the film, which will make its Japan premiere on Nov. 26 during Tokyo AIDS Week . . .

While urisen clients are invariably homosexual, urisen themselves are mostly straight, though even those who are gay are told to pretend they are heterosexual as it provides an enticing challenge for many clients, according to Shingo, 28, a manager at First Dash who until recently worked as an urisen.

“We have 42 boys here, aged between 18 and 20,” says Shingo, passing over an iPad showing pictures and profiles of each of them. None of them knows exactly what’s required until they come for an interview, and some even have the impression that they will be paid to have sex with women, he says . . .

"The place I worked at employed about 100 urisen, 10 of whom, including me, were gay, the rest are straight,” says Ko, who spent three years as an urisen and whose tip size would depend on what he was prepared to do.

“Regardless of sexual orientation, though, financial problems along with criminal convictions were common reasons for going into this work . . .”

The article points out an issue that is also relatively common here in Thailand. Those under 25 who are poorly educated have little knowledge of HIV. Says the President on an AIDS awareness programme -
when it comes to the under-25s, surveys have unveiled a steep upward curve “of the kind never seen before"
The website for “Boys for Sale” includes clips from the film with English sub-titles - http://boysforsale.com

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/ ... hjQPjOB1QM
Jun

Re: Japanese Documentary "Boys for Sale"

Post by Jun »

That's a very impressive website (the one with the boys).

I've not used this particular company, but the service from others has been excellent, as one would expect in Japan.
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