Sex myths without substance: Mislabelling Japan

[joshcryer]

1. The Non-Financial Cost of Stagnation: "Social Recession" and Japan's "Lost Generations"

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A bestselling book titled The Herbivorous Ladylike Men Who Are Changing Japan by Megumi Ushikubo, president of Tokyo marketing firm Infinity, claims that about two-thirds of all Japanese men aged 20-34 are now partial or total grass-eaters. "People who grew up in the bubble era (of the 1980s) really feel like they were let down. They worked so hard and it all came to nothing," says Ms Ushikubo. "So the men who came after them have changed."

This has spawned a disconnect between genders so pervasive that Japan is experiencing a "social recession" in marriage, births, and even sex, all of which are declining.

With a wealth and income divide widening along generational lines, many young Japanese are attaching themselves to their parents, the generation that accumulated home and savings during the boom years of the 1970's and 1980's. Surveys indicate that roughly two-thirds of freeters live at home.

Freeters "who have no children, no dreams, hope or job skills could become a major burden on society, as they contribute to the decline in the birthrate and in social insurance contributions," Masahiro Yamada, a sociology professor wrote in a magazine essay titled, Parasite Singles Feed on Family System.

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http://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug10/Japan-lost-generations08-10.html

The statistics weren't hard to find, I suppose the article person didn't look. I just think she's being too hard on Vice because The Guardian is the one who asked them about it and all Vice could talk about was what they knew, and they were being asked about the Sex Industry in particular. The details are of course far more complicated than that.

Smith does credit the overworked overstressed cultural environment more than some magical cultural shift of lazy guys playing video games. But the connection is still there, the culture has shifted.