Lovesick Japan: Sex, Marriage, Romance, Law

"Yes, the topic itself is interesting, but I also found this very entertaining while being a serious academic book. It’s very enjoyable and some of the examples are very—I shouldn’t say funny, because many of the cases are actually cases where somebody might end up being killed or committing suicide—but fascinating. He uses the term ‘lovesick’ not to describe something like teenagers in love, but rather to describe how Japanese judges see Japanese society. He showcases a particular kind of lovesickness in Japan, love being seen as a disruptive emotion or something painful. Even within marital relations, love is expected only in an abstract way, not something that necessarily characterises marriage in real life. Probably it is hard to change what he calls a ‘lovesick Japanese society’ because those judges make decisions not only to reflect the social realities, but also based on ideas of what society should be. He is interested in how law saturates sexual life, including things like prostitution, not only in terms of what is legal and illegal, but also in relation to whether or not people’s emotions are involved and so on. Yes, although I think that’s also changing. But there’s still an idea that if you are watching or reading these things in your private life, that is okay, but you have to separate what you do in your private life from what you do in public. Maybe twenty years ago some Japanese businessmen would have read pornographic magazines openly on the train. That would have been considered okay, although not ideal, because he was not at his company and he was not at home, so it was not really seen as sexual harassment, as many people might characterise it now. But we can still observe those pornographic magazines lined up in convenient stores, so that people can see them as they walk by. Japan’s divorce rate is around 37%, so significantly lower than in other developed countries, but also there’s an idea that, from the beginning of the marriage, there’s a kind of separation of marital life and love. It’s ideal if you have love in your marital life. But love is not the most essential thing within the marriage. That also means a lack of love does not necessarily mean divorce follows. Absence of love in marital relations is to some extent expected and not a tragedy. Love as emotional and physical intimacy or affection. But West shows that for judges, such love often becomes a disorienting force. Sex and love are not always linked. If emotional love and sex exist outside of marital relations, that can be a problem. Yet, as often featured in the international media, Japanese marriages are seen as kind of sexless and loveless. It could be partly true. In Japan the role of sex in married life is often seen as reproductive. People think it’s ideal to have passionate love within marriage, but not having that is not a disaster. I think his analysis reveals underlying cultural understandings. While he talks about law and judges, they are part of Japanese society, and judges often use the idea of social belief. Sometimes such beliefs might not be reflected in practice, but reflect what people believe society should be."