Japan: Male hosts and female customers who love them

Found via today’s 3Yen [dot] com

“The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief is a 2006 documentary film by Jake Clennell, describing a host club in Osaka. The male hosts and their female customers are interviewed, and through the interviews we learn about the nature of hosts clubs and why the customers are coming there.”

Issei, the number one host in Minami ward claims “I’ve done whatever girls ask of me. Sure I had sex. I was having non-stop sex. I had sex with 365 girls a year.”

Say the hosts who have to hustle for customers on the streets (this solicitation needs to be seen or experienced to be believed, particularly in certain regions of Osaka – there are public complaints) “When we look at girls, we can tell which girls have money. They carry brand name stuff. We can tell which girls are party animals. We talk to girls on the street and do ‘nampa’ (pick up girls). If they like us, we ask them to come to the club for a drink.”

Says one woman walking holding hands with another, rebuffing a host’s advances in her Osaka accent,  “As long as you have a penis, we don’t like you.”

LOL.

Back to Issei, a self proclaimed and acknowledged master by his peers, “If she wants a humble, cool guy, I will be like that. If she wants a funny guy, I can be like that, too. That’s how I make girls fall for me. Once she is in love, she is hooked. Some people are clumsy at it. I find it easy. That’s why I have a lot of customers.”

Cut to female customers declaring their love for Issei. Says one: “My life without Issei is unimaginable right now . . . When I met Issei, I already had a fiance. I had promised to marry him. But I fell in love with Issei. So I broke up with my boyfriend.” Others: “I want to tell him ‘Look at me! Love me!” Another: “I want him to be only mine, right?”

What should be obvious to viewers and prospective customers, is as with hostesses, the charm of the host is an act, for the purpose of finding and keeping paying customers. Issei admits, “When people ask me what a host does, I say it’s a business of selling dreams to people. In other words, we have fake love relationships.”

That is the host’s view. His female customers appear to feel the real thing: “The girls fall in love.”

Issei: “The world of the host club, to make it sound cool, we can call it Neverland. Peter Pan . . . He took people to a world that doesn’t exist. We take the girls to a dream world. That’s the best way to describe it. Girls spend their money to buy a product, ‘Dream.'”

He is then immediately shown bullshitting a customer who asks, “So do you fall in love with your clients?” Issei: “I guess I do. It would be weird if I didn’t. There’s nowhere else for me to meet girls other than this club. This is the only place I meet girls. This is the only place I can fall in love, right? All my ex-girlfriends were customers. There’s no other way.” Customer: “How does a relationship develop?” Issei: “I don’t know. Just a feeling. But you have to be a long term customer . . . So you’re in a good spot.”

Issei narrating: “We have to keep them dreaming so when we have to lie, we lie.”

Kaching. So ends part one of eight.

So many issues. One: these hosts are shown selecting those they want as customers (“party girls” with emphasis on girls), then aggressively soliciting them on the street, resulting in a different sort of customer (traditionally attractive) than men with enough money to seek out female hostesses in clubs. The hosts must put on the same act as hostesses (have fake love relationships/sell a dream/lie) to keep in business, but for popular hosts, it certainly appears less creepy, and less like exploitation of the host. Issei doesn’t sound bothered having sex with “365 girls a year” who ask him, either.

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

Join the Conversation