Another month, another damning survey that says Japanese couples are sexless.
The latest, conducted with 4,000 married people, concludes that two in three marriages in Japan are sexless.
The survey asked people in their twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties (500 men and women from each age group).
The results show that 68.2% engage in little or no sexual intercourse: 43.9% of respondents said they had fully “sexless” marriages, while 24.3% were “nearly sexless.”
Of course, like with all surveys, there are issues here, not least how they define “sexless” (zero sexual contact, obviously, but we have seen previously surveys that were more generous with the definition and defined sex every few weeks as “sexless”).
As summarized by Nippon.com, the breakdown by age is revealing.
By gender and age, 51.0% of married women in their twenties are sexless or nearly sexless, and this percentage jumps to 67.8% among women in their thirties. The percentage more than doubles from 16.4% for women in their twenties to 39.2% for those in their thirties whose marriages are completely sexless. Among men as well, the percentage of those whose marriages are sexless or nearly sexless increases from 53.4% among those in their twenties to 71.4% for those in their thirties, while the percentage of men in those age groups with completely sexless marriages jumps from 25.2% to 41.8%.
Is any of this surprising?
Not really, given the work culture of long hours, and the relatively small homes (if you live in a city) that make it hard for a couple to enjoy privacy once they have kids (to say nothing of the culture of sleeping together as a family on futons laid next to each other).
Moreover, research seems to suggest that (like with many other countries), young people aren’t dating much in general, let alone having sex. So the sexlessness might even be setting in earlier on.
And with the porn industry so big here and with its output easily accessible in the era of the smartphone, and prostitution also readily available, there are plenty of options for releasing sexual frustration via masturbation or a session with a professional at a love hotel.
Moreover, adultery is common in Japan (like many other places), among celebs as well as plebs.
Note, though, that this latest survey does not suggest that a sexless marriage is not loveless. Actually, 57.2% of sexless couples characterized their relationship as good or fairly good, which is not much less than the couples who still have sex.
