When I think about sex-related scams in Japan, the first thing I (and, I imagine, most people in Japan) remember is the Sugar Baby Riri (頂き女子りり; itadaki joshi riri) case.
Watanabe Mai didn’t just seek financial support from men in exchange for sex (get that bag, girl). She used fake romantic feelings and fake crises to get as much money from her clients as she could. She then turned around and created a “manual” instructing other women on how to run the same racket.
Watanabe is now serving an eight-and-a-half-year prison sentence. That’s more than most men get for statutory rape.
On the more comical side of prostitution fraud, there are the women in Okubo Park who simply took men’s money and ran. Literally. As far as I ever discovered, these queens are still at large, living their best lives.
The case I’m writing about today, however, is a new one for me. It came to my attention thanks to the lurid but ever-entertaining Takizawa Gareso and centers on a self-proclaimed polygamous threesome who targeted and extracted a 3 million yen ($19K) payout from an unsuspecting woman.
How’d they do it? By relying on a law little known outside Japan that adds an expensive “find out” to fucking around with someone else’s spouse. The victim? A sugar baby whose payday turned south, thanks to the throuple’s machinations.
The right not to be homewrecked
I’ve written before how affairs are rampant in Japan – it’s just that no one talks about them. One reason that I didn’t cover in my previous article is that an affair here can literally cost you.
Civil Code Article 709 establishes the basis for tort law, or civil lawsuits, in Japan. The law establishes that reparations may be due in cases where someone causes emotional damage to a victim.
This includes, in certain cases, affairs. A husband or wife can sue their spouse for damages if they cheat. But – and this is important for our story today – they can also sue the lover for causing damage to their marriage.
