It seems as if Japan is losing its sex drive – which wouldn’t be a bad thing considering they have 126 million people crammed into an area the size of California, but still, the fact that millions of people under 40 aren’t even dating is cause for alarm. Population estimates suggest that their current population is set to drop by a third by 2060 – which basically means that around 40 million Japanese will perish without spreading their seed.

Ai Aoyama, a sex counsellor and ex-dominatrix in Japan, believes that the country is going through what she calls,”a flight from human intimacy”, and the numbers back her up. A 2011 survey found that 61% of unmarried men and 49% of women aged 18 to 34 were not in any kind of romantic relationship, which represents a rise of 10% from last year (so even last year was pretty bad). A further study revealed that a third of Japanese people under 30 had never dated at all.

The Japan Family Planning Association found some scary results, when they revealed that 45% of women aged 16 to 24 “were not interested in, or despised sexual contact” – while more than a quarter of men felt the same way (what?!). Not wanting to have sex is one thing, but despising it? Really?

Part of the problem lies in Japan’s reliance on uber-exotic animated porn. Aoyama claims that one of her clients, a virgin man in his 30s, can’t get aroused unless he watches female robots on a game “similar to Power Rangers”. With the rise of Hentai (anime porn) and the ubiquitous nature of internet access in Japan, many users find it easier to go online for sexual satisfaction, rather than get tangled up with the inevitable emotional roller-coaster that comes with real sex.

Another problem, apparently, is that women who get married have almost no chance in Japan’s corporate world. “The bosses assume you’ll get pregnant. You have to resign because you end up being a housewife with no independent income”, claims 32 year-old Eri Tomita.

Whether or not sexual activity in Japan picks up after the age of 40 is uncertain, but what is clear is that there’s nothing happening downstairs for a lot of Japan’s 30 year-olds.

[Source : The Guardian]