A quarter of straight men and women under 40 in Japan are still virgins, and the number seems to be rising



More and more young adults in Japan aren’t having sex, according to a study by public health researchers at the University of Tokyo.

In the study, published in the journal BMC Public Health, the team analysed data from seven surveys conducted between 1987 and 2015, each with several thousand participants. They found that the number of women and men aged 18 to 39 years old who had never had heterosexual sex increased from 21.7% and 20% respectively in 1992 to 24.6% and 25.8% in 2015, which is an increase of about 4-5% in 23 years.

A breakdown of the figures revealed that 11.9% of women and 12.7% of men aged 30 to 34 were virgins, as were 8.9% of women and 9.5% of men aged 35 to 39.

According to the results, men were more likely to have had sex if they had a permanent job and lived in big cities of more than a million people. Those with the lowest income were between 10 and 20 times more likely to be virgins.

Women, on the other hand, were less likely to be virgins if they made less money. The researchers said this could be because they are married homemakers.

“Although the discussion around cause and effect becomes very complex when considering who becomes sexually experienced and who remains a virgin, we show that heterosexual inexperience is at least partly a socioeconomic issue for men,” said Cyrus Ghaznavi, one of the authors of the study. “Simply put, money talks.”

Compared to other countries, the rates of people with no heterosexual experience are about 1-5% of people in their 30s in the UK, US, and Australia.

“Sexual inactivity or inexperience, whether voluntary or not, should not be exoticized, ridiculed, or necessarily considered a concern for everyone,” said Peter Ueda, who led the research.

“More research is needed on reasons for sexual inactivity and how mating market dynamics might be evolving due to online dating, shifting expectations in romantic and sexual relationships, and changing values, lifestyles, and labour market trends.”

Japan’s population dropped by 394,373 people in 2017, leading some to refer to the country as a “demographic time bomb.” It has an ageing population, and the current birth rate is 1.44 children per woman, which is far below what the country needs to maintain its population.

Business Insider reporter Valentina Resetarits lived in Japan for a year, and she noticed how the culture seems to “emphasise hard work, and de-emphasise sex and relationships.”

“In addition, there is the strange Japanese relationship to sexuality,” Resetarits wrote. “You would think that people are looking for one-night stands if they don’t want to have a relationship, but many people are too uptight for that.

“When in doubt, they prefer to concentrate on fictional sex objects in manga porn or video games instead of chatting at a bar.”



In fact, last year a man married a hologram of a virtual reality singer called Hatsune Miku. Acting as a virtual assistant, the floating hologram device wakes Akihiko Kondo up, turns on his lights, and talks to him. In return, he keeps stuffed dolls of her in his bed.

“Miku-san is the woman I love a lot and also the one who saved me,” he said.

There is also an increasing population of “parasitic singles” in Japan – people in their 30s who still live with their parents, which is likely another factor in people not pairing up.

The new study didn’t look into same-sex experiences, or those who are not virgins but have become celibate later in life for different reasons.

“The most informative aspect of sexual inactivity involves those who have opted out of or are, for some reason they cannot control, excluded from the mating market, regardless of their previous sexual experience,” Ghaznavi said. “We’d like to investigate those dynamics in future work.”

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/the- ... ing-2019-4

RickyBobby wrote: ↑Tue Apr 09, 2019 10:06 pm Also, 'from research', it seems Japanese women make crying noises while having sex. That in itself seems off putting to me.

I don't think that's restricted to just Japanese women, it is very off-putting though. A gag is needed.

Little wonder the young Japanese have no time to hook up into a physical relationship when they are literally working themselves to death late at night at the office (so called 'Karoshi'), then the boss invites the staff to dinner and drinks after work and if they're lucky they catch the last train home..

https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is ... rk-2017-10

RickyBobby wrote: ↑Tue Apr 09, 2019 10:42 pm Where else do you see this phenomenon?

In the distant past I remember a few women in this general region who made similar exaggerated noises.