Petting Party

I first became vaguely aware of this phenomenon as a mere youth devouring any anime I could get my hands on. My first experience with hentai was, like most, the OVAs Urotsukidoji. With child-like characters being penetrated by demon penises (sometimes by characters with multiple tentacle like phalluses who could bring a lot of, erm, ‘creativity’ to a DP scene) and a plot line so convoluted that it makes Naked Lunch look like it was written by Delia Smith, Urotsukidoji is the sort of home-viewing experience that is seared everlastingly into the brain. Being only a whipper-snapper with a limited experience of pornography, I just couldn’t fathom how films like this were widely available and, well, acceptable.

Fast-forward a few years to the comic-book store era when I had my Juxtapoz subscription and I saw a brief review of a book called Pink Box: Inside Japan’s Sex Clubs by Joan Sinclair. I saw it, coveted it, promptly forgot about it and was delighted to find it in my stocking one Christmas morning. If you ever chance upon this book, please please buy it as it is a fantastic book that I have never stopped picking up and enjoying. One of the things outlined by the photographer in her intro is:

“…sex in Japan is both startling and paradoxical. It is startling in its ubiquity (a red-light district near almost every major train station and catalogues for sexual services  sold in local convenience stores), in its audacity (colourful leaflets advertising call girls deposited in household mailboxes and pamphlets handed out in the street), and in it’s variety (see the pictures in the book).”

I think it is their reservedly casual attitude to sex that fascinates us Brits so much. For example, the other day I stumbled up a website which sold a mixture of Japanese cooking products, like Gyoza dumpling makers and bento boxes, nestles happily alongside DVDs like this…

With a title like Invisible Man Loves Female Newscaster and a description that includes the sentence “Everything from fellatio to hardcore sex, all with an invisible lover that leaves them all breathless.”, how could you not add this to your shopping basket with those Hello Kitty chopsticks and the hard boiled egg makers that shapes the yokes into stars and hearts (I’m not even joking, you can buy it here).

When a nation can produce such imaginative creations over such a broad spectrum, it does make England seem rather dull. I do so hope I can visit Tokyo this year (*hint hint*).

***”Green Gel Play” image from Pink Box***

***Invisible Man DVD from J-List***

Please please buy Joan Sinclair’s wonderful book Pink Box. You can buy it from Amazon here.

Filed under: porn, travel