SEX & NIGHTLIFE
Oppai Bars: How Japan’s “Sexy Cabaret” Stay Legal, and Whether Foreigners Can Go
What oppai bars are, how they work, and how Japan's ever-changing entertainment laws helped bring them into being.
nightlife
SEX & NIGHTLIFE
INSIDER
A Japanese Soapland Fired Her. So She Turned Them In to the Cops
A soapland allegedly fired a worker after she was sent home with a fever. Here's the story of how she got her…
INSIDER
The Museum of Roadside Art: Inside The Tokyo Museum Where Sex and Kitsch Collide
Inside Tokyo's Museum of Roadside Art, a Japanese photojournalist's mission to save erotic art others consider too "lowbrow" to preserve.
SEX & NIGHTLIFE
Soaplands Explained: Are They Legal, and Can Foreigners Actually Go?
Soaplands are one of Japan's most euphemistic open secrets: “special bathhouses” where sex is sold under a legal fiction the country has…
SEX & NIGHTLIFE
Hihōkan: Japan’s Vanishing Roadside Sex Museums, and the Tokyo Bar Keeping Them Alive
Learn more about the hihōkan, the erotic museums where drunken salarymen used to while away their time before dinner.
SEX & NIGHTLIFE
Why Japanese Nightlife’s “Attention Economy” Is Better Than Sex
Why do people in Japan pay so much for non-sexual companionship? A look at how an industry born in the Edo Era…
SEX & NIGHTLIFE
Is Kabukicho Safe? How to Navigate Tokyo’s Raucous Nightlife District
The answer is yes - but you should be aware of a few rules and these common traps before stepping foot inside…
SEX & NIGHTLIFE
Japan Tried to End the Host Club to Sex Work Pipeline. It Hasn’t Worked
It's been a year since the crackdown, but data show that host clubs haven't changed. If anything, some say they've become "more…