Who wants to be a woman in Japan? Misery can't get much worse than the sexless relationships, dreary marriages, loneliness, patriarchal blues and stressed out women portrayed in these riveting interviews. These ordinary women, and one rather different man, tell it like it is and force us to reconsider contemporary Japan and its modern pathologies.
Sumie Kawakami is an experienced and intelligent reporter who manages to get her subjects to bare their souls and share their anxieties in a book I found hard to put down. Early on she draws our attention to a sad paradox: Japan has a world beating sex industry while most Japanese don't seem to be having much sex, at least according to a Durex survey. And, those who are getting their share are not very enthusiastic; Japan ranks second to last in the satisfaction category, just above China.
Sexless relationships are on the rise, apparently because its just too much bother. Horny housewives and lascivious "OLs" are a media induced fantasy as most women, Kawakami writes, "wanted their lovers to fill their loneliness, emptiness and lack of self-worth." Apparently, this is nigh upon mission impossible in Japan.