The Japanese situation is merely a variant on the same theme: Young men
can't afford to form a family and society disintegrates starting with the
bedrock of society in all sexual
species<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/young-people-japan-stopped-having-sex>
:
"Both men and women say to me they don't see the point of love. They don't
believe it can lead anywhere," says Aoyama. "Relationships have become too
hard."
Marriage has become a minefield of unattractive choices. Japanese men have
become less career-driven, and less solvent, as lifetime job security has
waned. Japanese women have become more independent and ambitious. Yet
conservative attitudes in the home and workplace persist. Japan's punishing
corporate world makes it almost impossible for women to combine a career
and family, while children are unaffordable unless both parents work.
Cohabiting or unmarried parenthood is still unusual, dogged by bureaucratic
disapproval.
Aoyama says the sexes, especially in Japan's giant cities, are "spiralling
away from each other". Lacking long-term shared goals, many are turning to
what she terms "Pot Noodle love" – easy or instant gratification, in the
form of casual sex, short-term trysts and the usual technological suspects:
online porn, virtual-reality "girlfriends", anime cartoons. Or else they're
opting out altogether and replacing love and sex with other urban pastimes.
Some of Aoyama's clients are among the small minority who have taken social
withdrawal to a pathological extreme. They are recovering*hikikomori*
("shut-ins"
or recluses) taking the first steps to rejoining the outside world,
*otaku *(geeks),
and long-term *parasaito shingurus*(parasite singles) who have reached
their mid-30s without managing to move out of home. (Of the estimated 13
million unmarried people in Japan who currently live with their parents,
around three million are over the age of
35<http://japandailypress.com/over-3-million-parasite-singles-in-japan-over-35-still-living-with-parents-031659/>.)
"A few people can't relate to the opposite sex physically or in any other
way. They flinch if I touch them," she says. "Most are men, but I'm
starting to see more women."
On Mon, Oct 21, 2013 at 3:02 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote:
> James Bowery <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>> Debtors declare bankruptcy. The banks use the money to buy up the
>> bankruptcy-liquidated assets. The banks now own a greater percentage of
>> the total asset base but it does them no good because there is no demand to
>> put them to use.
>>
>
> This has not been happening in Japan. It is not like the U.S. They may
> have a liquidity crisis but there are not a lot personal debtors declaring
> bankruptcy or people being thrown out of their houses.
>
> - Jed
>
>
