One awful consequence of the COVID-19 crisis is its lopsided impact on women. In country after country, women face the prospect of economic ruin as the low-paying jobs many have found themselves shunted into disappear. This is especially true in Japan, where government policy under the Abe administration funneled women into temporary contract and part-time work for years.
Sadly, some men look upon this development, not with sadness, but with eager glee. As Rachel Moss recently reported for Huffington Post UK, more women find themselves joining the sex industry just to make ends meet. In Japan, comedian Okamura Takashi even went so far as to tell his radio show listeners they should wait until “pretty girls become sex workers” out of economic desperation before returning to Japan’s brothels.
A recent case in Tokyo shows why Okamura’s “advice” is no laughing matter. The case demonstrates how obscenely wealthy men use their power to take advantage of economically disadvantaged women for nothing but the sake of their own amusement.
“Tequila Game”
At the center of the case is 40-year-old industrialist Mitsumoto Yusuke (光本勇介). Estimates put Mitsumoto’s total net worth at around 10 billion yen (around USD $92 million). Mitsumoto has made his money starting up and selling off various online financial services, such as CASH and BANK. (He sold BANK to popular online video streaming and gaming service DMM for a reported USD $70 million.)
Mitsumoto, it turns out, is a frequent attendee of an upscale lounge in Tokyo’s Ebisu neighborhood named S. According to the newspaper Daily Shincho, S is known as a frequent site for “papa-katsu” (パパ活) hookups – i.e., sugar daddying. S is a members-only club that, according to one customer, maintains a high grade “cast” of female companions who drink with the club’s clientele. The customer compares the venue more to a high-end club in Ginza than to traditional “cabaret clubs” built on a similar model.
Daily Shincho reported on the basic facts of the incident in a long interview with Mitsumoto. While I’m hesitant to give so much attention to an article that focuses on the perp in this incident, it’s important to hear how Mitsumoto spins the story – and how he justifies his actions.
The basic facts are as follows. The incident occurred on the evening of November 27th. At some point, Mitsumoto offered one of the female employees drinking with Mitsumoto – referred to in Japanese media as A – almost $1,000 dollars (￥100,000 – the same amount the government gave to citizens for COVID-19 relief) if she could drink a bottle of tequila in 15 minutes. A made it partway through and stopped. Mitsumoto gave her a “consolation prize” of around USD $300.
A seemed fine for a while but eventually threw up. After she seemed to have recovered, Mitsumoto left the bar. But A’s condition deteriorated from there. She died several hours later.
The exact cause of A’s death is unknown. An unnamed police officer interviewed by Biz-Journal says that it appears A died, not from alcohol poisoning, but from pneumonia caused by something she threw up falling back down into her trachea. The officer told the newspaper that the cause of death would make it very difficult to bring charges against Mitsumoto. (Mitsumoto himself says police told him that the case isn’t being treated as a crime.) Rather, charges are more likely to come against S lounge for dereliction of duty.
“Like Paying Someone to Jump Out a Second Story Window”
In his interview with Daily Shincho, Mitsumoto put up a half-defense of his actions. He maintains the idea to start a drinking game wasn’t his, but A’s. However, Mitsumoto also admits that he’s the one who set the rules for the game. (I.e., he came up with the guidelines that ultimately killed his companion.)
While describing himself as “shocked”, Mitsumoto spends most of his time in the Daily Shincho article throwing himself a pity party over the criticism he’s received on Twitter and Instagram. “It’s really created a lot of emotional stress. I’ve deleted the app itself off of my phone.” (His Instagram is currently private; his Twitter, for some reason, remains public.)
But no one, it seems, is willing to pity Mitsumoto – including the author of his interview.
以上が光本氏の話であるが、当事者の一人としての告白であり、彼の話が全て真実であるとは限らない。だが仮に彼が言う通り、A子さんが自らの意思でテキーラを煽った事実があったとしても、彼に責任がないと言えるのだろうか。
これまで日本社会では、若者たちのコンパなどで行われるイッキ飲みで多くの尊い命を失ってきた。その度、遺族の悲しみの声に耳を傾け、二度とこのような悲劇が起こらぬよう社会問題として再確認してきたはずである。その重い歴史を、四十路に差し掛かろうとする光本氏が知らなかったとは言わせない。
The above should be taken as Mitsumoto’s personal confession, and not necessarily swallowed hook, line and sinker. But even if, as he says, it was A who kicked off the tequila incident, that doesn’t mean we can absolve him of responsibility.
We’ve lost many precious young lives in Japan to binge drinking at parties. You’d think that, when this happens, we would have heeded the anguished voices of the victim’s families and worked to ensure that such an awful tragedy never happened again. You can’t tell me that Mitsumoto Yusuke, a man who’s just entered his 40s, was oblivious to this history.
That’s quite a rebuke for a reporter conducting an interview. But, as you might expect, it’s mild in comparison to the invective Mitsumoto’s receiving on Twitter. Daily Shincho’s post of its own article has over 2,700 likes and 300 comments. The top comment reads:
Giving someone 100K yen to drink a bottle of tequila in 15 minutes feels akin to giving them 100K yen to jump out a second-story window. Even if this didn’t end in death (which sadly, in this case, it did), you can easily see it leading to serious injury.
The response doesn’t stop there. His last post on December 6th was an innocuous news article about Singapore delivery service grab receiving permission to start up online banking services. (That Mitsumoto spent 10 days or so after A died tweeting as if nothing ever happened speaks volumes about his character, in my opinion.)
That tweet has garnered over 500 comments. One of the top tweets is simply an emoji of a police car. The top-voted comment is from a user, also named Yusuke, who cries: “You’re a disgrace to the world of Yusukes. Change your name.”
The Dangers of Being a Drinking Gallery Woman
Around the same time as this incident occurred, the NHK show Nehorin Pahorin did a segment that highlighted how women were turning to work in clubs like S to make ends meet – and just how dangerous such work can be for them.
Nehorin Pahorin is a 30-minute segment hosted by comedian Yamasato Ryota and actress YOU. If you’re a Terrace House fan, you’re familiar with both personalities, who served as commentators on the now-defunct show. On Nehorin Pahorin, however, the actors are rendered as puppets who take the form of moles. Their guests are rendered as pig puppets with their voices scrambled. This conceit is done to protect the identity of their guests and give them the opportunity to speak freely.
In the show’s latest episode, Yamasato and YOU interviewed two young women from the “Minato Girls” scene (港区女子). The two women, Kyoko and Yuri (pseudonyms), work as “gallery drinkers” (ギャラ飲み; gyara-nomi) in the popular Tokyo ward. Both women, in general, seem to enjoy their work of drinking with wealthier men. Kyoko in particular hyped up her positive experiences, such as the time a Japanese celebrity took her on a cruise with his personal chef.
Both women, however, also discussed the “many” terrible experiences they’ve suffered. Unlike cabaret club workers or the woman who worked as S, Kyoko and Yuri aren’t attached to a fixed club or bar. That means, as Yuri tells the hosts, that “there’s no one there to protect you.” Both women shared some of their worst experiences, such as the time a customer tried to make Kyoko drink his urine. Nearly all of their customers, they said, expect sex at the end of the night – and get pissed if it isn’t part of the “package” they paid for: “The men who come to drink,” says Kyoko, “think they can do anything they want to us.”
In a write-up on the Mitsumoto incident and the Nehorin episode, write Taguchi Rui ties the permissive attitude of men towards the “Minato Girls” back to several recent high-profile sex scandals. In particular, Taguchi notes the case of Watabe Ken, who admitted to having affairs with multiple women. Watabe’s tactic? Inviting women to multi-purpose toilets, where he’d pay them ￥10K (around USD $92) to have sex with him. Watabe described the women he was introduced to as “girls you can freely play with”.
This sentiment is the logical consequence of the worldwide hypocrisy regarding sex work. Men encourage women to be sex workers while simultaneously spitting on those who chose to do so. Society aids and abets this abuse by failing to protect women in the industry. (In Japan, many right-wing pundits railed against sex workers receiving COVID-19 benefits from the government.) Women are treated, not as human beings, but as playthings of the rich.
As Taguchi says so eloquently at the end of her article:
だが“安全に遊べる子”というのは、金さえ渡せば何をしても文句を言わず、無茶苦茶なことをさせても問題にならない対象ではない。まず、その相手も一人の人間だということを前提にすべきではないのか。
We can’t act like there’s no problem with thinking you can do anything to “girls you can safely play with” without blowback and make them do anything just because you gave them money. Shouldn’t such people be treated, first and foremost, as human beings?
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