U Not Gonna Like This

This post from soc.men via Google Groups:

Straight girls look to gays for a little fun
By GEOFF BOTTING

For decades, the Shinjuku Ni-chome district in Tokyo has been the place for
gay men to go barhopping, mingle and find new friends.

In the last few months, however, the patrons have found themselves jostling
for elbow space at bar counters with a new breed of customer -- straight
women.

The district, reputedly Asia's biggest gay hangout, has long had its fair
share of female "tourists" who drop into the bars just for the fun it. But
the latest female arrivals are different; they're bona fide denizens.
Why do they come? Primarily to purchase the services of urisen, Japanese
slang for male prostitutes, according to Spa! (Aug. 15-22).

To clarify exactly who these women are and what kind of shenanigans they get
up to, the magazine dispatches nonfiction writer Ayumi Sakai, who admits to
hiring a gay man in the past, and Nameko Shinsan, a manga artist, to venture
into an urisen bar.

"I'm surprised that so many of the guys are so good looking. And there's no
trace of dimly lit sleaze about the place," says Shinsan, who is on her
first trip to such an establishment.

On this night, there are three male customers, aged from around 30 to 50,
plus two women. The numbers may be low, but the gender ratio is not unusual
for urisen bars these days, according to Sakai. "Usually the customer ratio
is around 60 percent men and 40 percent women," she says.

One of the female customers is a 32-year-old housewife named Saki, who has
been patronizing urisen bars for the past six months. She has no children
and her husband works in an accounting firm.

"My husband thinks it's OK to buy these urisen boys," she tells the other
women, after explaining that the couple has an open and very liberal
relationship.

And why the preference for young gay men, instead of, say, hosts? "Because
hosts reek of alcohol and their skin is leathery," she giggles.

More importantly, though, she appreciates the more laid-back style of gay
bars as opposed to host bars. "I was surprised when I first went to an
urisen bar. Although there were a lot of guys, none of them were trying to
push themselves onto me."

The other female customer is Emi, who's 26 and works as a secretary at a
foreign-owned pharmaceutical company. Emi has a boyfriend, with whom she has
sex only about once every two months. Even so, sex isn't the prime reason
for cavorting with gay men.

"Mostly, it's due to stress from work," she explains. "My work schedule
doesn't mesh well with my boyfriend's, and even when we do meet, I'm really
tired and go right off to sleep."

Perhaps Japan's most famous urisen patron is Usagi Nakamura, a 48-year-old
celebrity writer. In Shincho 45 (August), she relates a couple of attempts
at hiring and having sex with guys half her age whom she'd encountered in
Ni-chome.

Both experiences were a disaster. The first guy couldn't perform, blaming it
on the copious amount of beer he'd consumed that night. The second stud
needed a few lessons in either sincerity or the dramatic arts.

" 'Oooh, that feels sooo good. You are really great!' he told me. That corny
performance just made me bitter," Nakamura complains.

But in that respect, Nakamura may have been a rare case. Like Emi, most of
the female patrons of urisen bars never get around to having sex with the
men they hire, according to Spa!

Part of the reason is that the women are seeking merely companionship, while
another is that they're reluctant to disclose to a bar's management or its
workers that they're looking for sex.

Still, when sex doesn't happen, a young guy can be useful to a woman in
need. "I guess they'd be handy to have around if you were moving house,"
quips Shinsai.