In a country so populous that entire families share the same bedroom and youngsters live with their parents well into their twenties, it must be quite a mammoth challenge to have a good shag in privacy. That’s why love hotels are so successful in Japan. These gaudy sex palaces, where randy couples can go for uninhibited nookie, can be easily spotted in the backstreets and roadsides of Japan, and are a source of fascination and amusement to westerners like me. To cater for this curiosity, Ed Jacob has lovingly written an entire book about the places, and the titillating tome makes for an entertaining read.
In “Love Hotels”, Jacob traces the history of the love hotel from its roots in the discreet backrooms of the tearooms and noodle shops of the Edo and Meiji Eras, before beds and lockable doors had made it to Japan (prior to the tea-rooms, people used to openly rut in parks like wild beasts. Sadly, the pesky white folks put a stop to this charming ancient custom when they arrived in their black ships and disapproved of the al-fresco action); all the way up to the hi-tech Disneyland-influenced pleasure pits of today, with their 50-inch flatscreen TVs, playstations, mind-boggling sex toys, and karaoke machines.
Ed Jacob lets us know the social context, fads and fashions of the times, and he fills us in on the hoteliers’ battles with the law, as well as prevailing Japanese attitudes to sex and romance. And there are plenty of pictures (which makes reading the book on the train difficult, as I discovered!)
One voyeuristic pleasure is the translation of the hotel guestbook comments, with thrilling confessions like “my husband doesn’t know I’m here,” “I love my 60 year old sugar daddy,” and “I’m going to to kill myself.”
Equally entertaining, are the lists of inexplicable and un-sexy love-hotel names, such as “The Hippo Doctor”, “Hello Clown”, “Penguin Town”, “Love Monster’s Room” and “Banana and Donuts”.
Ed clearly has an encyclopedic knowledge of Japanese weirdness, and can now lay claim to the dubious honour of being the English speaking world’s leading authority on love hotels.
The book is so well researched that the guy has either really done his homework, or gets laid more often than Gene Simmons.
We even learn about the poor bastards who have to clean the rooms after the guests leave.
Indeed, the love hotel business is not all fun and games, as we learn from dark news reports of prostitution, adultery, murder and blackmail.
How would you feel if you discovered a rotting corpse under the mattress you’d just made sweet love on?; or if you walked into a video shop, only to discover a DVD on the adult shelf, featuring secretly filmed footage of you shagging somebody in a love hotel? These things have actually happened. Yikes!
Nevertheless, any adventurous couple traveling to Japan should definitely add a trip to a love hotel to their “to do” list.
The most useful part of Ed’s book is the listings and reviews of love hotels, ranging from the romantic to the totally bat-shit bonkers.
Among some of the more demented destinations that I’m keen to investigate (for a laugh, honest!) are a “Hello Kitty S & M”-themed room (?!), and an entire hotel themed around Yakuza-Snowmen (which can surely be erotic for no-one but the criminally insane).
“Love Hotels” is certainly an education, even for the most jaded of Japanophiles. You might, however, need to take a shower after reading it!
You can order the book or read samples at Ed’s site, Quirky Japan.
My last apartment was in a neighborhood with several love hotels. An ex-girlfriend even suggested we go to one of them. I protested that my own little shag shack was already nearby and that there was no need to fork over 10,000 yen for what could be done for free right around the corner. She said, “You don’t get it, do you?” and that was our last shag at my place or anywhere?
Haha!
A great story for Valentine’s day, buddy.
I had a similar experience with my ex, too. On our sole trip to a love hotel I almost immediately fell asleep for several hours (the big, warm double bed was so much more comfortable than my futon at home).
The relationship didn’t last much longer.
So you got a free promo copy?
I was offered one but I didn’t reply as I was toying with shutting down my site.
Should I say yes and do the review?
Yeah, I got a copy. It’s a good read!
OMG THIS IS WHERE I WANT TO lOOSE MY VIRGINITY!!!
wat will they think of next………….
Excellent article, I enjoy every article I read here. Thanks,
and keep bloggin!
This was a very good read, please keep updating!
[...] A good book about these places is “Love Hotels” by Ed Jacob. [...]
Your Blog is great. I will bookmark it.
dear zelah, I’m exltemery insulted and disappointed as a Chinese. Not that I lived that miserable period of time or anything, it’s enough if we accept there’s some truth in history records and documentaries. You’re being exltemery over-simple minded and ridiculously decorating the Japanese’s anti-human crimes during WWII in China. It is in a sense true the Japanese probably did not exterminate the Chinese, as you might/could/would have been suggesting them to. But they did kill millions of Chinese for FUN, for bloodthirst, for developing biological weapons, as quantoken has mentioned. In a culture not encouraging stem cell research, you may want to use your brain more effeciently than a pipe for right-wing nuts’ view on WWII history. And for the record, it’s not just human rights violated in China by Japanese invasion, it’s human lives. It’s not just Chinese lives, there were western lives too, esp. American ones. It’s surely war time, but I guess you are not suggesting people should forget about all human rules and principles even then. I also disagree completely on the comment regarding Chinese rights to complain against these distorted history education in Japan. It’s one thing that China is formally a communist country, it’s a seperate issue whether its people can say something. Are you saying whatever we say don’t count because we have a communist government? That’s nonthing short of outrageous. You sure have learned enough math to calculate what will and shall happen in Taiwan. I congratulate you on that. And I sure encourage you to update your asian history and world history understandings. For people out there who would like to victimize China again whenever the chance comes, we feel rightful to call you guys bandits as we have been! I do not consider that a racist point of view.
mBjNOe svfhtwskfzgl
Appreciation to my father who informed me regarding this webpage, this blog is actually amazing.
hey there and thank you for your info I’ve definitely picked up anything new from right here. I did however expertise some technical points using this website, since I experienced to reload the website many times previous to I could get it to load properly. I had been wondering if your hosting is OK? Not that I am complaining, but slow loading instances times will sometimes affect your placement in google and could damage your high quality score if ads and marketing with Adwords. Well I am adding this RSS to my email and can look out for much more of your respective interesting content. Make sure you update this again very soon.