Japanese fetishes
26:26 Share

Thank you.

Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to another episode of your favorite kinky podcast, Spanky Next. I am one of your hosts, Anna, and I'm in the studio with Gregor, who is in a very far off land. Hello, Gregor. I'm literally in the land of the rising sun. Hello, everybody. Yeah, I'm speaking to you from a little, very tiny hotel room in Tokyo at the moment. Which is what inspired this episode, if you clicked onto it. Yeah. Yeah.

our listeners might know that I've been travelling for a couple of months now and this is now the last episode we'll bring you from the road basically and then I'll be back in Barcelona so all the future episodes will have me and Anna at least in the same city if not in the same studio so maybe we should

to tell the listeners a bit what this podcast is about, Anna. Yeah, exactly. So if you're new to the pod, this is a podcast where we sit down with all sorts of kinky guests, but we also do episodes about certain fetishes, certain kinks, certain trends in the BDSM world. And we are brought to you by Fetish.com and the FetApp.

which are online kinky communities where you can date, you can play, you can get educational resources. So I very much encourage you after this episode, not before, to go to fetish.com or download the Fet app and you can check out all the fun stuff going on over there. Yeah, that's actually where Anna and I met, like not really...

on the website, but we both worked for fetish.com and that's where we started this podcast and the rest is history. Definitely go back and listen to other episodes after this. You know, there's so many things that we've covered. How long have we, I think we have been going for about three years now, Greg, or I got a notification from our podcast platform. Yeah.

Yeah, we've done over 50 episodes. Yeah. Definitely over 50. I think even more because we did some sort of audio porn episodes. They're very fun, very popular. We do some educational short snippets like BDSM Basics, where we talk about things like, you know, the pillars of the community, such as spanking, consent, contracts and all those things. And then we have some fun guests as well. But today we don't have a guest, do we, Greg? Or we just have us? Yes.

Okay, I think Jas is a little belittling us. Oh, yes. Sorry, sorry. You have the honor to listen in to a private conversation between Anna and me when we talk about kink in Japan. Yes, I'm really excited because I've always wanted to go to Japan for various reasons, but I always found the kink scene very interesting. Oh, you haven't been? I wondered. No, I've never been. You know, I wondered if you've been. Ah, you have to go. I love it. Yeah. First of all, let's just...

start this as a love letter to Japan I really like it I mean you know there's so much to see but that's I think kind of the coolest thing is just being in Japan and just living the culture just ordering the food of course and but just watching how they behave how clean everything is how

well-organized everything is and how well-behaved people actually are. And this is already a little spoiler for the episode because I, in my mind, this has got a lot to do with why the Japanese are so kinky. Yeah, because what I've heard about Japanese culture is that crime is very

frowned upon like obviously it is in lots of places but as in it's it's got a really low not like in europe people love crime but you know like has a very low crime rate drugs are very much not tolerated even tattoos so a very different culture from you know barcelona where it's like weed is legal everyone has tattoos very sexually liberal people well some people live with their parents but a lot of people you know live in their own apartments

So I'm keen to hear about the intertwining of kink with the Japanese culture. You know, fun fact, because I always dreamt about going to Japan and this is actually one of the reasons why I never got a tattoo.

Really? Because I wanted to go to all the public baths and I went to seven of them. Seven? I even went to an onsen. Yeah, seven different ones. I kind of, I bathed in a World Heritage Onsen. I got a certificate. I got a certificate for bathing in a World Heritage Onsen. And then two days later, I went to an onsen island where you have this one hot spring

hot water pool and you look out to the it's in a cave and you look out to the Pacific oh sounds amazing like but wait wait it was stunning the headliner is that you can't go if you have tattoos um there's a lot of public baths yeah I mean there's others where that that are basically tattoo friendly so there's always tattoo friendly ones but a lot of times for instance I've been to two three hotels that also had public baths like Onsen's

And in two of them you weren't allowed in if you had tattoos. Wow. That's mad. I think it's something about gang culture, right? It goes back to the fact that gangs will have tattoos. Yeah, because the mafia, they have the tattoos. Okay. Well, anyway. Okay.

Let's get into it. Let's talk about kink and not tattoos. So Japan, you know, kind of Japan, I think it's really the country where you get everything and also the country that's very, very kind of controversial. Like they go to the extremes to every side. And I did not, I mean, on...

I've seen it before, but I didn't know that it was a thing. Did you know that Japan has one of the most strict censorship laws when it comes to porn? I think I did know that. I remember watching a documentary about a BDSM club in Japan. And I think I remember this. Yes. They have to pixelate the genitalia because they're not allowed to show it.

Is this why hentai is really big? Yes, we'll get to that later. Oh, sorry, sorry. I didn't want to jump the gun. No, no, no. So, you know, the thing with Japan is really like people are so organized, so...

well behaved. It's a real, it's also shame culture. Sorry to all the Japanese listening, but shame is very big in Japan. Like losing your face, losing kind of people's respect is a big thing. Nothing is worse in Japan than being humiliated in public. So it's a culture where you have to perform outwardly and that at the same time,

As we've seen it so many times with kind of people in very Catholic countries also, creates like really a breeding ground for fetishes. Absolutely. Repression. Exactly. So kind of Japanese culture in one way, especially when it comes to sex, is very much repressed.

So you have a very conservative dating culture. You have a very conservative, like just lifestyle in general. And that makes people go over to the more kinky side. Yes. So tell us like what's big there? Of course. Let's start talking a bit about Shibari, even though I think this is not the episode for this. We did an episode about rope bondage and Shibari like a couple of months back. So I'd encourage you to listen to that one.

But obviously shibari robe bondage comes from Japan. And it's said that it comes from the samurai. So kind of it really comes out of war. So many inventions came, sadly. And then it really in Japan, it really turned into art.

Like, while we in Europe just kind of tied people to the bedposts, Japanese were very kind of early on with their shibari art. And I think that there's some really, really big names when it comes to shibari artists. I forgot the name now, but there's one very famous artist in this Museum of Modern Art in Austria. I saw a whole exposition of his work. Oh, amazing. So like, in that sense...

It's art, but is it sexy? You know, like where do people do the shibari? Are there clubs or is it at home? Is it actually like an art thing? That's actually such a good thing. Like even though, and I think this goes for a lot of kink from Japan, even though a lot of the kinky stuff is very over the top, very visual,

It's not necessarily erotic. Okay, that's interesting. You know what I mean? It's just so exaggerated or so stylized or so visually beautiful.

that it loses the erotic a bit, that it's not so much about pleasure in itself. It's much more about kind of, yeah, appearance. So we talked about this in the Shibari and Rogue Bondage episode that it's always a lot about the experience you have because you're basically being made immobilized and very tough. It's a very tough experience. So all of that happens, but

I have the sense that it's not necessarily sexual in Japan. Okay, that makes sense. Let's maybe go to another aspect of Japan, but I really encourage you to listen to the Road Bonnets and Shibari episode. So, love hotels. Yes, I wrote an article about love hotels once, Gregor. Yeah, there is...

Loads of them. And kind of Japanese make it all very private for you. So sometimes you can even check in on a vending machine. You don't even need to speak to a person. But it's also, are they really kinky or is it more like a practical solution for a country that just has very, very small apartments and where you just might want to change for better?

you're kind of from your day-to-day kind of four walls. Yeah, and also people live with their families, right? So like you're living in close quarters with parents and things like that. Yeah. So you need a place to go and have sex. But at the same time, it's not not kinky. It's more like it's practical, but who knows what's going on there? I think it's definitely...

Well, if not kinky, then definitely it spices up your sex life a bit. Yeah, there's one in Barcelona, right? Near my house. Like it's, do you know the one? Yes, I know about that one. I told you about it. Sorry, this is a very private question. But we're planning on going. I actually know somebody who went. Yeah, we're planning on going. I'll get the info from you just because it looks actually super nice. Like the foyer is really fancy. And then apparently, so apparently like politicians like have affairs there, right?

and they have like sex workers or whatever so you there's like a curtain for each like car cubicle and then they black out your um license plate and you never see anyone

So like they deliver your food if you want to order food or champagne, but it goes through like a slot and stuff. So this does happen in other places, but it's super common in Japan, I guess. Honestly, I wonder why there's not more of them in Barcelona.

because a lot of people have flatmates, a lot of people, a lot of Spanish peoples, they live with their parents. So I don't get it. Where do they have sex? Where do they go? I mean, maybe they're seeing someone that doesn't live with their parents. I don't know.

Yeah, that's a good one. So if you are living in Spain and on a dating app and live alone, definitely write that in your profile. You'll get more attention. That might really help you find hookups. Definitely.

Okay, one thing that really struck me as interesting is that like Interpand is between 10,000 and 30,000 love hotels. Whoa, that is big. And they generate an average revenue of 40 billion US dollar annually. Jesus, that's huge business. Like...

The Japanese love hotel industry is huge, huge business. And are they nice looking? I guess there's some that are really fancy and then you probably have some more budget ones. Yeah.

You know, the thing about Japan is like the feeling that I had, like sometimes things are kind of you notice that it's not new. Like, for instance, like, I don't know, carpets or furniture, you see that they've been used for a long time, but everything is super clean. I do love this whole clean vibe. It sounds very nice. Yes, absolutely.

Everything is very organized and very clean. And I think this is also what makes love hotels in Japan work. It's not like seedy and dirty like we would think about maybe in a sex hotel. Because going back to Barcelona, I think you could only go to a very high class love hotel. Whereas in Japan, I think even if you are on the cheap side, it's kind of okay. Yeah. Okay. So we have love hotels. We have Shibari hotels.

What else, Greg? I was popping off over there. Let's get to hentai and the tentacle porn. Yes, let's. Let's.

It's big. It's so popular, Gregor, all around the world. It is. I kind of, while in Japan, I thought I might get into it. I might just, because there's so many manga and comic stores in Barcelona, I might just really get into reading hentai. And did you get into it? Why not? No, I still haven't. I still haven't. But this is my, you know, kind of when you're traveling for a long time and then you make lists in your mind what you want to do when you get back. And I would like to kind of...

and get into hentai. Okay. Well, that's a great resolution for you. Yeah. I think all of you kind of, for those who don't know what hentai is, like, you know, kind of Japanese comics, they're called manga and when they're animated, then they're called anime. And hentai is basically the porn version of them. And I did not know that the Japanese don't really use that term. Well,

What do they use? Like hentai is more a Western term. They might not be so explicit. They might say like porn comics or one term is called Echina manga. And that's basically just dirty manga. That's what they say. Dirty manga. Okay, great. So tell people that don't know. What is it? So basically a hentai can be any kind of manga that involves porn.

And it's animated, right? Or is this in like comics? No, also comics. Wow, this is on the metro in Japan and on the trains. You see so many people reading manga on their phone. Oh, so it's real. It's real. It's real.

I had no idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was kind of while we all just, I don't know, watch TikTok, the Japanese, they still read a lot of manga on the phone. You know, it can be a kind of a drawn comic. It can be animated. But of course, it's also a huge, huge search term on Pornhub. Yeah, I think it's like top five or something. Especially internationally. And...

I mean, as I said, it's basically any explicit porn action in a manga, but let's not kind of, let's not joke around. When we think of hentai, we think of kind of something weird, something kinky, something with tentacles, something with aliens, or also sometimes with kind of human-like animals involved when it comes to Japan. So let's speak a bit more about this whole tentacle porn and tentacle fetish. Let's. And we have to.

We have to start with a little history lesson. Do tell me. Because all of this goes back to a woodblock print from 1814 by an artist called Hokusai. And the print is called The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife. And I really encourage you to Google that painting. I need to Google it. Or print, sorry. Oh, yeah. Top search thing before I said dream of. Okay, great.

Ah, I see. I think I've seen this before. But yeah. It's basically a woman...

In a very erotic embrace with two octopuses. Yeah. One stimulating her and the other kissing her. Is that more or less what you're seeing, Anna? Yeah, something else came up and it's something... She's trying to kill the octopus. The original one, I think. Oh, that's not the one. The Dream of the Vicious One's wife is like other things. Yeah, I see now. She's getting basically eaten out by an octopus. That's it. Yeah.

Yeah, and there's another octopus kissing her. Exactly, yeah, that's the one. It's pretty wild. And the interesting thing is, this was not meant to be shocking or pervert. I know. This was just part of Japan's erotic art tradition. Okay, love that. So it's like imagined. This was completely normal. I imagine this didn't really happen. Until Western influences...

brought in new obscenity laws to Japan in the late 1800s. And then all of this kind of erotic art Japan had was very much restricted. Ah, okay. So we had stuff like the dream of the fisherman's wife. Like we had like octopuses eating out fishermen's wives.

And then suddenly everything was forbidden. Everything was very much restricted. And basically the laws put a stop to it. Classic prudes. Yes. Then came the 20th century and the laws that prohibited the depiction of genitals in pornography.

So that, of course, brought a new challenge to the porn industry. And we know that the porn industry loves a good challenge. And nobody is as creative as the porn industry. I totally agree. So kind of this is really when those laws entered the playing field that tentacle porn came up. Hmm.

Okay. Because it was like a way to show like very, very explicit contents without showing charitalia. And real people. And real people. Exactly. Exactly.

So really in the 1980s and 1990s, while also anime and anime manga got really famous, the hentai porn got kind of huge. On the one side, it's super popular because, you know, you have these very strong, flexible, multifunctional tentacles there. But on the other side, you also have this very primal,

dance around power and helplessness so you also have this submissive and dominant aspect there okay that makes sense and like that's you know people love that shit oh yeah they do the kind of South Park reference that I think there's one Guillermo del Toro film where he also mentions it and as he said before tentacle monster tentacle porn hentai

is like one of the top 10 or top 5 search terms on Pornhub. Yeah, it's getting big in the Western world as well, like for sure in the last few years. So yeah, we might need to get into this. We might have to check it out. Because, you know, it's always been something that I just really not interested me. But I want to kind of see what the fuss is about. It would be cool to talk to real hentai artists on a show. Yeah, yeah, we should do that one day.

But for now, let's maybe recap a bit what we talked about. So like on the one hand, you know, Japan makes a lot of money with love hotels. Japan's adult video industry produces more porn than any other country. Whoa. And at the same time, that's interesting, isn't it? And at the same time, many young Japanese people report very low sexual activity. So it's like,

a country that's kind of, a culture that's very kind of repressed in a sense because you have to behave in public. It gets kinky privately, but then sexually not so much happens, which is a very weird dynamic. Yeah. I think it's also, you know, the more you talk about sex, the less you have it, in a way. Yep. In my experience. I mean. I'm joking. I made it my job. I made it my job, so I never have it. Don't worry.

God, but no, I'm obviously kind of, I think it's different. I just thought this is all we're doing talking about sex. But then some people come into your mind when you say, when I said that. I kind of, I have examples of people who talk a lot about sex and you know, they don't have so much sex. Mostly straight men, for sure. But yeah, I was...

Reading as well about Japan is that they have a super aging population because of this issue. They do, yeah, because obviously you need to have sex to procreate. Yeah, and they need to do incentives now. I think I read that they're trying to say that if you have a baby, they'll cover a certain amount of cost up until a certain age to try to incentivize people to literally have sex and procreate. You know, before Japan, I was in South Korea and there...

they have the same problem. Nobody wants children anymore. So what they're doing now is also they want to make subway tickets cheaper for families and on every

every subway you have special seats seats for pregnant women love that because they say kind of they really need to support pregnancy in public and so they're doing all kinds of stuff to promote how cool it is to be pregnant to have children which is of course very good but i mean i get it like the world's in chaos and having a child is very expensive i

Exactly. I think it's more than that as well. It's like the having the family part, but it's also the like sex part. I think the younger generations...

are getting more and more detached, especially through technology. You have AI girlfriends now. You have all the porn you ever want to see in the world. You can chat with, you know, women online who you can have online sex with and stuff like that. So on top of it, you have like this lower sex in person, you know, and the availability of meeting people organically. Oh, yeah.

Definitely. It's interesting in a way, isn't it? That like this whole storyline of how you find the perfect life partner and will forever stay together like that savior idea really managed to get a lot of people together and make a lot of babies. And now

People have a lot more self-esteem. They know what they want. And they also don't think that one person can give them everything. So I think kind of people are now much... They take much more time when it comes to choosing a partner to maybe have babies with. Yeah, and good on them. Exactly, good for them. Yeah. So that's kind of just a little glimpse into Japan. Of course, there's so much more. I mean, there's...

as I said before kind of very kind of conservative relationship culture but then they have this very big celebrations where they celebrate fertility and carry around huge penises love that and and then you can actually rent a boyfriend in Japan oh yes I heard about this which is

Yes. I don't know this from experience. I've just seen it on Instagram. So I'm not telling you anything kind of that I know for sure. But apparently you can rent a boyfriend in Japan and just have somebody to spend time with you, which is very nice, I think. I mean, is there any difference for like escorting in a way? No, I think it's exactly. I mean, I think there's no sex involved, but it's basically a new kind of name for an escort. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. And also I heard that like some like schoolgirl bars are big in some parts of Tokyo. I don't know if you've seen any of them. They are. They're like maiden cafes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So there's all sorts, I'm sure. But these are the most popular, right? These are like the biggest kind of trends. I really have the feeling like everything you can think of, you can buy it in Japan.

Oh yeah, exactly. One statement that I read, and I think this might be a very nice way to close this episode, is that unlike the West, where kink is often linked to rebellion, Japan treats it more like a structured outlet for fantasy. And I think that describes it very beautifully. That is. I don't think we can top that. We probably can't.

Okay. Well, Gregor, thank you. I can actually hear the noise of Tokyo behind you. So it feels very authentic. Yeah, I hope this comes out okay. No, I mean, that's just... I miss you. I miss you too. You're back soon. Yeah, I can't wait to see you again. And obviously all my friends who are hopefully listening. They better be. Yeah, so next episode.

Could they better be? So the next episode, we'll bring you from Barcelona. Oh, that's so exciting. Yeah, we'll plan some really nice content where we're both on the same time zone again, because it has been fairly difficult. That makes things so much easier. Yeah, exactly. So if you're new, definitely go back and check out some episodes. If you're interested in Shibari, which is super popular, there's an episode. Definitely download the FET app and watch.

Until next time, keep it kinky. Keep it kinky. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe to Spanky Next on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also follow us on Instagram at Spanky Next Podcast. If you'd like to connect with people who share your kinks, sign up to Fetish.com for free or download the Fet app from Google Play Store and the App Store now.

And for any one of you who is looking to deepen their knowledge of kink, head to the BDSM training school on Fetish.com and enroll in a course now. And last but not least, shout out to our producer, Biddy Cragen, our kinky team, and everyone who makes this podcast possible.