J-idol "dating", successfully sued

ding73ding

Akiba Citizen
Oct 25, 2009
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I know I know this is not strictly a JAV topic, but it's very much related to several issues that came up in previous thread about fresh faces and amateurs joining AV, and AV idols engaging in prostitution, how it's supposed to be quite commonplace for young Japanese women to work a stint in the sex industry, and IMHO also tell some insight into J-pop fandom and relates to AV fandom.

Japanese Girl Band Member Ordered to Pay Damages for Going to Hotel Room With Male Fans


Now so so many facts in this report is so fucked up, where to begin?

Firstly it's implied that the group was disband due to the report of the girl's dating. Now... is that fucked up? Ok junior idol may need to keep a cleaner image than grown up celebrity, so fine if report of dating hits the records and concert sales a bit. But disbanding the group for it? Something is the matter with the (male) fandom. Or... as I always contend (sorry to offend fans of J-pop), a lot of J-pop studios and group has no relationship to art, talent or even entertainment (while some Japanese musicians are amazingly good). The singing and dancing is all packaging and no substance or sincerity. Oops don't mean to rant. I might be wrong about J-pop, but something's fucked up about this story.

Secondly... how many times have you heard of a celebrity dating a fan? Outside of Japan, I have never heard of such a thing. Yes maybe it has happened before, but no one ever report it as such. Is it just one-off singularity? No. "Last year, two members of girl band Aoyama Saint Hachamecha High School were sued for dating fans and expelled from the group." So it's not exactly rare event. Is it a translation problem? I think not. It's too easy to let it slide since it's a foreign culture and a foreign language. But I have a dark suspicion...

Thirdly, how odd that plurals are involved in both cases. The DokiDoki idol, 15 years old, her "dating" in question wasn't a date in ice cream shop (quite a moe thing to do for Japanese teens), nor dinner and a movie. But going to a hotel with TWO male fans. Hmm... very liberal for an underaged girl. Then the Aoyama case, was TWO members dating FANS. The plural FANS is starting to raise eyebrows. I wonder if it was two un-related (and forbidden by contract) romantic relationships coincidentally exposed at the same time? Or they were caught during a double-date? Or both girls take turn "dating" a number of fans (and really how many fans were involved).

I am no fan of these J-pop junior idols. But I wouldn't mind being a "fan" if that means getting a date with a couple of them in a hotel room, if you know what I mean.

That might also explain why some idol groups expand to over a hundred members cumulatively.

Sorry if my imagination has gone berserk, but a part of me gets so excited when I read about these fans dating idols.
 

Supmop

Akiba Citizen
Oct 23, 2012
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do you mean some japanese girl band members are doing prostitution activities ?
 

Electromog

Akiba Citizen
Dec 7, 2009
4,643
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It didn't say anything in that article about prostitution. Isn't it possible she was just a horny teenager getting it on with some fanboys because she wanted to? You hear that often enough with boybands and female groupies, so why wouldn't the opposite happen as well?
 
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lordsuperjesus

The Great Gokkun Sage.
Jan 29, 2015
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because double standards
because those girls must be seen as pure Japanese girls and not a part of the large underage sex worker trend thats seems to be overtaking japan. we all do know about the kiddie porn made from 12 year olds selling themselves for shopping money right? RIGHT!? or about how easy it is to buy sex with young maybe underage girls there. or is that just the western media over-hyping it?

i know some of you live in the land of the rising sun (and rising avg age, btw is japan the oldest country in the world with the oldest population? just wondering if thats still true i know it was for years) so if you know more about this let us know.

EDIT: by the by the above is only true if you are native Japanese. from all that i have heard and read they don't take to kindly to gaijin fucking they're whore's over there, only old Chinese and Koreans for the gaijin. unless you have lots o cash or have a good Japanese friend that will rep you.
 
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ding73ding

Akiba Citizen
Oct 25, 2009
2,337
2,092
Here is my not-at-all-authoritative take on it. Even to those of us familiar with Japanese culture that may seem strange to the outside world, this date-ban seems pretty draconian. Japanese likes to maintain an immaculate outward appearance but they allow a lot of room for private life. Say a famous artist is a pedophile, as long as he's discrete and keep up his immaculate persona the media and the public would not dig for dirt.

Teen idols are especially highly-managed artificial constructs of the media machines. There are so many of them and so many new faces come out each year, it's quite easy for each of them, once they take off the on-stage make-up and costume, to blend into the masses and have a normal private life. The gossip mags and the idol industry is pretty much one and the same, there is every reason to keep the idols' private life private if (A HUGE IF) dating would really hurt her money-making popularity. So I've always suspected the reports about the dating ban as either suspicious or a PR gimmick.

Having read that article, I'm now convinced "dating" is euphemism for something else, exactly what, I can't be sure.

First, a celebrity dating a fan, as I argued is unheard of, outside of Japan... Well not quite true... it's known also in old China and Taiwan. A woman who's a family friend, well she's quite old by now. But when I was a kid she was a minor star, a singer who was on radio and TV for a while. Then she dated a fan, or a patron, and became his mistress and had a couple kids with him. The media never went for a manhunt, starlets in the TV and music industry retires and fades away all the time, becoming wealthy men's mistresses or wives (if she's extremely lucky). The less lucky ones simply transition to a lifetime career as lounge singers and hostesses in bars and nightclubs. Japan is a bit different but by how much? Geishas had always been offering paid services to patrons, e.g. eating and drinking, and chatting with the patrons, and one thing may lead to another... relaxing, massage and perhaps full-on intercourse. To distinguish the geishas from common whores (also to enhance the sense of romance/conquest for the patron) no money ever change hands between the patron and the geisha. And of course there wasn't any killjoy process of negotiating or haggling over fees. Instead the patron buys overpriced goods and service from the establishment and offer gifts and other means of transferring value to the geisha's "agent". A high class geisha may never even touch such "dirty" thing as money in her adult life but still... I think she's classified as a prostitute to most people in the world. And the patron... what he's giving is material not emotional and what he wants is physical but he can maintain an illusion to himself that he's romancing a celebrity. So that's why it's not too far-fetched to euphemize "patron" as "fan" and "pimping" as "dating".

In that context, the contracts and law suits may not be as draconian as you initial thought. If the idols are moonlighting as prostitutes that may injure the studio or even the whole industry. So disbanding a group for the exposure of prostitution may not be an over-reaction, especially (in a different case) two girls from the same group were caught at the same time implying it's done in an organized manner. One could understood a devote fan of a group may like to date all of the members, perhaps one at a time. This could really get out of hand.

Maybe there's more twist to it... maybe the studio does already offer some kind of paid service (compensated dating, I've heard) and what these girls are getting sued of isn't so much they went on dates and made money, but because they tried to do it on their own and denies the studio/agency's cut in the fees. After all, it's common to sell tickets to events to get autograph, take selfie and shake hands with celebrity, surely there're more expensive but also more close and personal access to the idols. Where's the limit?
 
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Ceewan

Famished
Jul 23, 2008
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Sounds like a lot of conjecture to me. If the girls broke the conditions of their contract that might make the news but I did not see any proof that they did anything "whorish" or "akin to prostitution". Bans on dating are not uncommon among young J-Pop groups.

I know this is primarily a porn sharing site but that doesn't mean we have to keep our mind in the gutter. Telling a young girl she can't date is like telling a girl she can't wear make-up or say what is on her mind. They are just young kids and the young are prone to foolish behavior, it comes with the territory. It doesn't "mean" anything except that the contract stipulations are perhaps a bit unrealistic, strict, and written by money-hungry-bastards who are willing to make examples out of some girls to keep others in-line.
 

Ceewan

Famished
Jul 23, 2008
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eeeewwwwww