It’s been several weeks since reports surfaced that Kabuki and TV actor Kagawa Teruyuki (99.9%, Hanzawa Naoki) sexually harassed and even assaulted a hostess in a high-end Ginza cabaret club.
Kagawa tried to brush off the incident – but it didn’t work. He’s been losing acting and commercial gigs left and right, thanks in part to a live on-air “apology” that never even mentioned his victim.
As usual, people (mostly men) have come out of the woodwork to defend Kagawa. The most prominent is probably 2-chan founder Hiroyuki, who said that women shouldn’t work in Japan’s mizushoubai (水商売) world if they can’t handle sexual harassment.
Author Suzuki Suzumi (鈴木涼美) isn’t having any of that.
Suzuki is a graduate of Keio University and a former staff writer for the Nikkei. She’s a novelist whose first novelette, Gifted, was a candidate for Japan’s coveted Akutagawa Prize.
Suzuki is also a former hostess and Japanese adult video star. Indeed, her master’s thesis at Keio was on Japan’s AV world. (She later turned it into a book.) And she draws on her experience to talk about why this assumption is not only offensive, but fundamentally contradicts the way the cabaret club world in Japan works.
Note: This article may contain graphic descriptions of sexual harassment and sexual assault.
The unspoken rules of cabaret
Suzuki starts off her piece referencing a 1987 incident in Ikebukuro. I can’t find other references to this online, so I’ll have to go with her account. A sex worker met with a customer who engaged in hardcore BDSM/knife play without her consent. At some point, she wrestled the knife away from him and killed him.
In court, she pleaded self-defense. But the court decided that, since she was a prostitute, she’d put herself in danger due to her choice of profession. Or, as Suzuki summarizes it: “Getting raped is part of the job, right?”
Despite this ruling, says Suzuki, Japan’s sex and nightlife industry didn’t become a hotbed of murder. Quite the contrary. And this, she says, is where people like Hiroyuki deviate from reality.
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The cabaret/host world is different from Japan’s sex industry in that there’s no explicit sexual activity. Few clubs explain all of the rules in detail. However, customers understand the unwritten rules: “you must behave like a gentleman and sex is off limits” – even though the price for cabaret runs far higher than it would at sex businesses.
Incidents do happen, of course, says Suzuki. And they’re bound to happen more lately, as troubled economic times means clubs staff more women with less experience in the cabaret world. Clubs will also likely be more lenient towards customers who are dropping lots of cash.
But, she says, that doesn’t mean a club would put up with the kind of behavior that Kagawa Teruyuki exhibited. Among other offenses, Kagawa’s victim said he forcibly unhooked and removed her bra. Suzuki writes:
そんな中、先般週刊誌でクラブホステスに対する過度なセクハラが報じられた俳優の振る舞いは、記事を読む限りにおいては、場末のキャバクラでもつまみ出されるレベルではある。私が人生で出会った最も許し難い痴漢は、ラッシュ時の横須賀線でスカートの中に手を入れてきた挙句、生理用ナプキンをべりっと剥がして持っていってしまったヤツなのだが、それは性加害である以前に窃盗でもあるわけで、ブラジャーを一瞬でも勝手に奪うのはそれに準ずる犯罪行為に思える。好意的に見ても「酒癖の悪い銀座の客」という枠に収まり切らず、最もよく似ているのはゼロ年代初期のタチの悪いイベサーの飲み会なので、歌舞伎の血統や高学歴な背景が役者としての品格に大きなハクを与えていた彼の場合、イメージの世紀末的な悪化は免れ得ないだろう。
So just by reading the recent articles about the actor who engaged in extreme sexual harassment towards a hostess, his actions are at a level where he’d be tossed out of even down-and-out clubs. The worst sexual harassment I’ve ever seen was at rush hour on the Yokosuka Line [from Kakamura to Yokosuka] where some dude put his hand up a woman’s skirt and took out her sanitary pad. Taking someone’s bra off without permission seems like a crime of not just sexual assault but theft equivalent to that. Even looking at this favorably, he doesn’t fit the mold of a “Ginza customer with a bad drinking habit”. It”s more like a college drinkling circle from the early 2000s. In this case, with someone such as Kagawa whose Kabuki pedigree and his high educational status are greatly impacted, a catastrophic deterioration of his reputation seems unavoidable.
Suzuki also brushes off any suggestion that Kagawa’s drunkenness excuses his actions. “I’ve heard it 500 times. Getting drunk is his decision and bears no relation to me.”
Finally, Suzuki addresses the pundits and loudmouths who say that women working in nightlife or sex clubs should know this type of treatment is a risk:
それは航空会社のクルーが一般的な仕事よりも飛行機事故に遭うリスクが高いとか、バスガイドが交通事故に巻き込まれるリスクを伴うとか、アイドルは変質的なストーカーに狙われがちだとかいう時と似ていて、そのリスクが高いからって実際にそうなって良い訳はない。だからホステスはブラジャー取られていいなんていう論理は池袋事件の判決の根底にあったような、その産業の中にあるアリナシの機微に全く無自覚な者たちの、雑な認識の押し付けなのである。
It’s the same as a flight crew being at greater risk of being involved in a plane crash, a bus guide risking involvement in a traffic accident, or an idol at risk of being targeted by a degenerate stalker. Just because the risk is higher doesn’t mean it should actually happen. Thinking it’s fine if a hostess has her bra stripped is a crude consciousness imposed by those who, as in the Ikebukuro decision, have absolutely zero awareness of the fine points of what does or doesn’t happen in the industry.
Furthermore, Suzuki says, no one should be under the assumption that beign the subject of sexual harassment is “included in the fee”. “Touching is outright forbidden as a rule, and hostesses are told this in detail when they sign up.”
So what’s the value prop, Suzuki asks? What’s the difference between someone at an izakaya who makes 1200 yen/hour versus a high-end hostess who makes 7000 yen? “If you took a survey [of customers]…you’d get a thousand different answers.” And hostesses would give a completely different set of answers. “What the customer is buying and what the hostess are selling are two different things.”
That notwithstanding, concludes Suzuki:
しかし、どのような投票をしてもひっくり返せないダメな行為というのはある。しかもそれも多くが明文化はされていない。当然、この人は許されてこの人は許されないなんてこと、俗に言うカッコ・イケメンに限るの法則だって起こる。
But there are some actions that can’t be overturned by any vote. And most of those aren’t written down. And of course, there are some rules that pertain to some people and not others (the so-called “cool-and-educated rule”).
That’s the way the hostessing world works, says Suzuki. And if you don’t like it, you can always choose not to participate.
That sounds like advice Kagawa Teruyuki should have used.
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