One
fine day in a crowded Yokohama department store, our friends Chris
and Kim were shopping. Suffering from the usual Saturday hangover
and lack of sleep, Kim dealt with her exhaustion by leaning into
Chris and hugging him for support -- a gesture more expressive
of fatigue than any kind of romantic inclination. No sooner had
they put their arms around each other, though, than a tiny old
grandmother came up to them and, laying her hands on them, pried
them apart and commenced berating them for such a wanton public
display of physical familiarity. Kim, shocked and offended by
what she interpreted as a moral outrage to her person, cried,
"Noooo!", turned her back on the woman and hugged Chris even harder.
After a few moments the woman gave up and went on her way, still
muttering deprecations about the foreigners' shameless exhibitionism.
Clearly there
is a wide difference in the cultural attitudes held by Canadians
and Japanese regarding sex and romance, what belongs in the public
arena and what does not. On hearing tales of Japanese disgust
at the loose and lazy sexuality of western cultures, it is easy
to assume that Japan does indeed conform to the Vapors’ vision
of physical denial; but one only has to take a trip through one
of Japan's ubiquitous love hotel districts to understand what
goes on behind closed doors is an entirely different matter.
Just off the
periphery of the popular Tokyo shopping and club district of Shibuya
lies a range of low-lying hills, through which wind roads scarcely
large than Canadian sidewalks. It soon becomes obvious in this
area that Japanese cities were not built on a grid pattern. Instead,
the streets are all intentionally misleading, built that way to
repel invaders in the feudal days. Along these narrow streets
a steady stream in traffic walks in either direction, two by two
like animals heading off to an ark. Middle-aged couples laden
with shopping bags; elderly couples still enveloped in the pachinko
stink of stale sweat and smoke; suited salarymen being clutched
by a high school girls whose platform shoes are so high they cannot
balance in them on their own; young, well-dressed couples walking
a distance apart from each other, their hands flashing with still
untarnished wedding rings¾ all of these disparate pairs avert
each other's eyes as they roam the love hotel district, all hunting
for the same thing: a private room in which to engage in some
particularly private activities.
In North America,
illicit sexual encounters in motels usually smack of something
seedy, immoral and unclean. Well, right along with the stereo
and the cell phone, here’s another thing the Japanese do
better than us. Love hotels are usually large windowless (or curtained)
multistorey buildings; often squat, square, and nondescript (except
for the obvious neon signs) places one or two streets off the
main drag of every big city or town in Japan, although more and
more they are gaudily decorated and seen for blocks. One in Shibuya,
for example, looks remarkably similar to Disneyland’s Cinderella
castle.
Despite their
loud visual presence, the buildings are designed to with their
guests' desire for privacy in mind. The parking garages are always
curtained to prevent passers by from seeing the colours and license
plates of the cars inside. There is no front door to speak of,
but always several quiet doors that are often hidden by plants,
trellises, or a structural partition. All this redirection, to
use an illusionists’ term, is to prevent people from being
seen actually entering or leaving the establishment; hence the
separate exits too. Very convenient…
Although a
couple would probably rather commit ritualized suicide than actually
be caught patronizing a love hotel by an acquaintance, these romantic
refuges are not run-down abodes of sin and squalor, but are actually
really quite charming and functional. In many ways, they offer
a practical solution to one of Japan's most pressing (literally!)
social problems: a dire lack of space. In a traditionally large
family unit, there are frequently three or four generations comprising
6-8 people sharing one home. A young couple with children living
in the same house as their parents (hopefully only one set!) doesn’t
get much privacy. The time-honoured solution to this is the love
hotel. Frequently the site of dates and assignations, they are
also a respectable place for a couple to go for a few hours of
intimacy.
Once inside
the lobby, the initial impression is that of a giant vending machine.
Almost all Love hotels are automated these days, and have been
for decades. On the wall is a giant grid with anywhere from twenty
to eighty (or more!) rooms pictured as you would expect to see
in a furniture catalogue. All rooms are overheated to make naked
frolic more comfortable, feature vending machines selling sex
toys worth anywhere from two to one hundred and eighty dollars
in value, and offer bathrooms with huge showers and giant bathtubs
built for two - a plus for the oversized foreigner! Beyond these
commonalities, though, every room is unique. Decorated in a wide
variety of styles, the vast selection of rooms is intended to
enable customers to choose a room that fits their mood: ultra-modern,
traditional Japanese, or art deco, perhaps; rooms with karaoke
machines cost extra. From tasteful to tacky, folks can pick a
room just like the one at home, or they can go for the room of
their dreams. Specialty theme rooms are often available as well:
jungle rooms, prison cells, and doctors’ offices being some
of the more predominant ones. The mythical zero-gravity room (everyone’s
heard of it, no one knows where it is…) is guaranteed to
be put to good use as soon as it becomes possible to build one.
Strangely enough, there is a love hotel in Shin-Yokohama with
36 rooms all decorated in Hello Kitty motifs. Can Pokemon be far
behind?
For those
who have already satiated themselves in other ways, or are peculiar
in what they like to do to, um, work up an appetite, the rooms
come equipped with VCR's, televisions showing a variety of - ahem!
- interesting programs, and those all-important aphrodisiac forms
of entertainment, video games and karaoke machines. However, aside
from the obvious purpose, love hotels cater to other needs as
well. Again, in the increasingly crowded Japan, they offer a quiet,
totally private place to relax. Since Love hotels can be rented
by the "Rest" (two or three hours in the day or evening)
or the "Stay" (from ten or midnight until morning) they
provide an inexpensive afternoon of entertainment even if people
do keep their clothes on. Foreigners in Japan (myself included)
and unconventional Japanese use them as inexpensive alternatives
to cheap hotels as well. A warning, though: although any combination
of multiple members of both sexes are openly welcomed to engage
in whatever activities they desire behind the closed doors of
the love hotel room, same sex couples are not allowed. Go figure.
While
we in the west may consider the flagrant neon presence of such
buildings designed specifically to cater to sex outside of the
home to be odd, kinky, or bizarre at first, the general idea of
the Love hotel is a healthy one. If people like my friends Kim
and Chris can’t display their affection in public, and most
Japanese don’t have the space to do it at home, then it’s
obvious that an outlet is needed. America’s great contribution
to this dilemma, the automobile, may have worked in the wide open
spaces, but let’s face it, until Ford installs a shower built
for two, it just won’t measure up.
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