About this episode: “Often we are very talented to divert the conversation. Because that’s the way we speak. We don’t directly address on something. But we always kind of divert it.” says Terra, a Japanese man living in the Netherlands. In this episode we talk about how Japanese society does not discuss sex. We also talk to an English teacher, Lizzie who experienced the Japanese way of not talking about sex when she introduced western literature to her students.

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Transcript

INTRO

Terra: Often we are very talented to divert the conversation. Because that’s the way we speak. We don’t directly address on something. But we always kind of divert it.  

Kaho Koda: Every episode, we unpack one controversial opinion about the Japanese mindset, culture, and custom. 

Today’s controversial statement explores how the Japanese society talks about sex.  

From Human Burrito Productions, I’m your host Kaho Koda, and this is ‘Controversial Japan’. 

THE STORY

Kaho Koda: Terra is a Japanese storyteller and nature farmer. Right when we started the video call, I could tell that he was a storyteller. He was expressive and his body language during the interview screamed ‘storyteller’. It was like I was watching him perform ‘a bit’ in a good way. 

Terra is Japanese and he’s lived overseas for more than 15 years now. Israel, Germany, and now the Netherlands. 

His first stop overseas was Israel where he studied Theatre & Speech. There, he felt a huge culture shock. He said that Israelis were outspoken and very social. 

Terra: They say everything.. Yeah, they are loud. 

Kaho Koda: Coming from Japan, where modesty and not saying too much are virtuous traits, living in Israel was definitely an adjustment for him. Apparently, Israelis wanted to know every single detail about him. 

Terra: How are you? How’s your life? How’s your mom? How’s your dad? How’s your brother? How’s your sister? Do you have any grandparents and if you do, how they are. How’s your finance? And how’s your future scope? How do you wanna live? How’s your relationship with your girlfriend and how’s your night life? Are you thinking of getting married soon? 

They can shoot all of those questions in one go. 

Kaho Koda: Terra says Israelis pushed him to talk. For instance, when Terra looked like he was worried about something, they wanted to know the entire story from the beginning to the end. They didn’t want a summary of the story. They needed the story in its entirety in order to understand his situation. And after the story was told, they wanted to offer some solutions.

In the beginning, it was a lot for Terra, but he started to enjoy these deep conversations and connections that he made. Because the Japanese are not used to opening up about personal things or being vulnerable, it was a new way of social interaction for him. He compared the two cultures with a saying.

Terra: Even they have a saying. It’s a saying of: we are very honest and we express everything. “We put everything on the table”. In Japan, we are introverts. We are not too… social creatures. As we all know in Japan we have the saying, the same saying as “Sweep everything under the carpet” but “put lid on the stinks”. 

Kaho Koda: “Put a lid on the stinks”, that’s the Japanese proverb that’s equivalent to “sweep something under the carpet”. It means to cover up the issue for the time being, which is not the solution. It doesn’t help in the long run… 

According to Terra, mentioning every small detail and talking about the issue is the Israeli way. Not addressing the issue is the Japanese way.  

After getting used to the Israeli norm of talking about very personal things, he said that interacting with his Japanese friends became harder. For example, the topic of sex.

How do Japanese people talk about sex? The short answer is: they don’t…  

The controversial statement today is from Terra. You heard it at the beginning of the show.

Terra: Often we are very talented to divert the conversation. Because that’s the way that we speak. We don’t directly address on something. But we always kind of divert it. 

Kaho Koda: When he was back in Japan for a visit, he had a night out with a childhood best friend. His friend was not as expressive as Terra hoped he would be when Terra started to talk about sex. 

Terra:  I really struggled with that. It makes me feel awkward all the time. Every time that I try to do that. I’m often portrayed as the “naughty” or “very rude” guy. How dare you asking about this to me? attitude.  

Kaho Koda: Because it’s not the norm to talk about sex in Japan, he was portrayed as the naughty guy. And his friends would respond by saying「あー、そうだね」meaning “Right…” Agreeing to him, but also not adding anything of value to the conversation.

Terra: I guess that the best one that I often hear is 「そうだね」and they just leave the blanks as long as they link. Or they immediately divert to something else. Like I’m talking about something and they say “Ohhhh ya she seems nice la la la la la la la la la…” 

Kaho Koda: No one wants to talk about sex. 

During the interview, I asked him how he shows love to a significant other. I asked him questions like: Do you say “I love you”? Or do you hug? How do you show that you care?

I noticed that he made a distinction between Japanese women and women who are from other countries. So I asked him why he made that distinction, and he… he hesitated. 

Terra:  Whaaa na, ya, no, yaaaa…  I will consider it. I will consider how the other person reacts…That’s something I will do very carefully first. Like… 

Can I say this word? Let me shoot it. It landed. Good. Maybe I can say this next time. Oh this didn’t land. Okay, God damn, I shouldn’t say that. Okay. Okay. 

Once I manage to make the bridge or break the ice, I’ll just say “Love you” or 「大好きだよ」「愛してるよ」or like I’ll start to adjust it for the ladies.. Yeah.

Sound of a rice cooker in the background. 

Kaho Koda: Wait, was that your rice cooker?

Terra: Sorry? 

Kaho Koda: Was that your rice cooker? 

Terra: Yes. hahaha. Rice cooker is important thing, isn’t it? 

Kaho Koda: That was his rice cooker telling him his rice was ready. My rice cooker sings the same way. 

Anyway, back to what Terra was telling me before. He sounded perplexed. It was as if he wanted to explain why he makes the distinction, but at the same time, he didn’t know what to explain? 

We moved onto a new topic and continued the interview. 

Two weeks after the interview, I received an email from Terra. In the past week he was also trying to find the answer as to why he changed how he expresses love depending on the person of interest. And he realized that there was something that happened between him and his Japanese ex-girlfriend that could be an explanation. And he wanted to tell me about it over email. 

In the beginning of his twenties, he dated a Japanese woman who had sexual trauma. For the two, sex was about love and happiness, but also pain. 

They eventually broke up and went their separate ways. He moved onto new relationships and so did she. He left Japan and moved to Israel. They kept in touch. He said he’s the kind of person to keep some form of contact with most of his ex girlfriends. And so that’s what he did with her as well. 

Years passed. And they had a moment to talk over the phone. At this point, he had lived in Israel for a while and was used to having deep honest conversations. And so when he had the opportunity to talk to her, he reflected on their relationship and sex life. Personally he thought that he was doing good. One way or another, perhaps this could help her current or future relationships. There was good intention from his end.

But this phone call was the last he heard from her. 

Now, reflecting back on this phone call, he knows he shouldn’t have talked about their sex life. It wasn’t his place. 

I understood. Terra lives in a new universe now. A universe where honest and deep conversations are normal and encouraged. And when he briefly steps back into his old universe, Japan, where you’re expected to sweep certain things under the rug, it doesn’t quite work. He unintentionally becomes an alien to his Japanese friends and ex-girlfriend. 

I understand his frustration. When you go back to Japan, you realize how much you’ve changed. You are still Japanese and yet you don’t think or act like a “Japanese”. It’s inevitable when you live outside of Japan where the culture is just so different. It’s bittersweet and frustrating.   

This experience with his ex-girlfriend shaped how he approaches people today. He looks at how the other person responds before making the next step. He’s careful. 

Terra: Often we are very talented to divert the conversation. Because that’s the way that we speak. We don’t directly address on something. But we always kind of divert it.

Kaho Koda: Today I wanna discuss how the Japanese discuss sex. Or rather, how the Japanese avoid talking about sex. And then later, I want to talk about an expat English teacher who had to navigate that concept in the education sector. But that’s for later. 

For now, let’s talk about how we don’t talk about sex in Japan. 

JAPANESE PERSPECTIVE

Kaho Koda: So, how do we talk about sex in Japan? 

I want to start off by talking about what happens at home. The kind of things parents will say to their child. 

Sachi Lovatt is a Canadian actor. She was born and raised in Canada and her mother is Japanese and her father is British. I asked her if her Japanese mom talked about sex to her as a kid. 

Sachi: I think a group of friends who I went to theatre school with, we all kinda went around and told the group how the sitdown about the sex talk with our parents went. And I’m like “Well my mom gave me this animated book” And they all had the reaction like you, they all laughed. And only then did I realize “Oh is that weird?”. I didn’t even know! And then  I remember I had a question or I was confused about something and then I tenderly or tentatively brought up the subject to her and she said “Oh, I gave you the book. It’s in the book.” And I’m like “Oh, right. I guess so.” My memory is a little bit clouded but… I don’t remember ever having a sex talk with… Definitely not with my dad. That’s out of the question. With my mom, it was the book.  

Kaho Koda: The funny thing is… my mom did the exact same thing. When I was 11 or 12 years old, my mom handed me a picture book. It illustrated the human reproductive system. The journey of the sperm and the egg. There were cute illustrations of a naked man and a woman on top of each other. I didn’t know what it meant but I was somehow scared to ask my mom questions. It just felt wrong to, so I didn’t. 

Also, this book was checked out from the local library. I felt ashamed about it and the book was returned with the other books. I made sure the book was at the bottom of the pile so no one would see what I was returning. 

Anyway, I told Sachi that that’s how my mom had the talk with me. Without talking. 

Sachi: That’s kind of comforting that you had that kind of experience too. Mine was an animated book. It was actually in Japanese as well. I remember little images of sperm swimming. They were really cute.

Kaho Koda: And keep in mind, this is probably not how all families do it. But at least for some, handing a book to your child is one way to do sex education at home. 

How does sex education look like in school? 

Sanhi and I went to the same middle school and high school. She’s originally from Seoul, South Korea, but has lived in Japan since she was 4 years old. 

I asked her if she remembers the one sex education class we had in our first year. We were 13 years old. And she knew exactly what I was talking about. 

It was at the school auditorium with the entire student population, so approximately 1,200 female students – we went to an all girls’ school. So basically all students from the school between the ages 13 and 18 year olds were gathered for the sex ed class. What an intimate setting, right? And we watched five different video clips that were projected onto the huge screen. 

She said her memory from it is clouded but remembers one slide from this video.

Sanhi: 覚えてる、覚えてる〜。「　○ックス、ここには何が入るでしょう？」みたいなやつ。

Kaho Koda: The slide had a little quiz on it. In Japanese writing, the sound “○ックス” was written. It had a little bubble that represented 1 character that should go before the “○ックス” sound. The video asked the students,“Can you guess the word? Does it make out the word: Socks? Sax? No, it’s sex!”  

She remembered that moment and the embarrassed scream that came after. All the giggles from the 1,200 students watching this video. 

She didn’t remember the content of the series of videos we watched, but I do. It was about sexually transmitted diseases and drugs. It followed the story of a young woman who had an STD and eventually became addicted to drugs. It was one of those bad quality reenactment videos. 

Sanhi: 覚えてる、あれ結構衝撃的だった。何これ？でも何か全然わかんなかった。。。

Kaho Koda: Sanhi said that the video was quite shocking. She didn’t understand it. What did the video want to say?  At age 13, she didn’t know exactly what sex was. She knew it was something embarrassing, what adults did naked, but that was it. 

The video didn’t describe how she got the STD in the first place. They just used that fill-in-the-bubble quiz and threw us the word “sex” and moved on to the danger of STDs and drug addiction. 

To tell you the truth, because they didn’t explain what sex was, my brain didn’t register that sexually transmitted disease has something to do with having sex… I didn’t even know what the act of sex was, just like Sanhi. 

After watching each clip, we had to write a small essay on what we learned. I remember it was difficult to write about it because most of the time I had no idea what was happening. But I must have written something… And that was that. After we handed in our paper, there were no discussions. 

A series of video clips that lectured us on the dangers of sexually transmitted disease and drugs… 

If you get STDs, it’s painful. You’ll be destroyed. Your life is over.

That was the message we received. 

Next, I wanted to know about her present. I asked Sanhi about the topic of sex amongst her friends. 

She told me that she hates the atmosphere at a get together when men start to ask women about sex. The topic comes up when they’re drinking. Someone will ask things like “what position do you like?” to all the women. Most women will giggle and respond, “You’re such a pervert” and avoid answering. Some women answer the question and follow along with the joke. This atmosphere in its entirety – she hates it. 

In this kind of group dynamic, a big group of men and women, sex is treated as part of a joke. You’re a pervert if you wanted to talk about sex. And it’s not the best environment to talk about it in a mature way. 

Sanhi said that she doesn’t talk about it with her close female friends either.  

Sachi: うちらの年代で、悩んだり、いろいろ経験するのは当たり前だから。。。

Kaho Koda: She said “it’s normal to worry about sex and I want to talk about it with my close female friends, but that’s not really the atmosphere amongst the group”.

And that a lot of conversations amongst the group are quite shallow. Nothing deep. Surface level conversations. She said she doesn’t talk about her own family and her friends don’t either.. 

Yeah, I’m going into a bit of a side note here, but I promise it’s relevant. 

Sanhi told me that she doesn’t know much about her friend’s families. Her friend’s parents could be divorced. She doesn’t know. But divorce is still a taboo in Japan. And maybe her friend is hiding that or doesn’t want to get into the details. Maybe there’s a complicated situation. And Sanhi doesn’t know what her friend is going through… Sanhi wants to talk about her own family, but she also doesn’t want to make her friend uncomfortable by talking about her own happy family. She doesn’t want to show off her happiness. 

Modesty is a virtue in Japan. And talking about how happy you are, how you have an amazing family, you can be seen as a show-off.

In the first episode, which was about the Japanese office, I explained how Japan is a collectivist culture and the concept of 協調性 – the state of being harmonious. Following the group harmony. That applies here as well. You don’t want to stand out and show off your happiness. It’s seen as rude and annoying.

Sanhi doesn’t want to show off her happy family to her friend. She also cares about her friend. She’s being considerate, but also modest. 

So Sanhi won’t talk about her own family. And she won’t ask about her friend’s family. So they never talk about family. Period. That’s what she means about surface level conversations. And Sanhi wasn’t the only one who said this. Other Japanese people or expats who made Japanese friends said the same thing. The conversations never get deep. 

But do keep in mind, this is not everyone nor the majority. But these opinions stood out in the interview. 

So imagine, if you can’t discuss ‘family’ with your close friends, how would the topic of ‘sex’ even appear in the conversation?

What she said about the topic of ‘sex’ and ‘family’, respectively, reminds me of what Terra said about Japanese people. Japanese people are talented at diverting conversation. Sweeping things under the carpet. 

I will note that Sanhi has one friend who she can turn to. They talk openly about sex and relationship problems that they are going through. They can be honest with each other. And I think it’s great that she has a safe environment to talk about it.

Sanhi and I never learned to talk about sex at school..

But the sex ed that Sanhi and I received was more than a decade ago. Times have changed, right? There must be some kind of sex ed now. The current sex education in Japan from an English teacher’s perspective. That’s next. 

Right after the break. 

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ENGLISH TEACHER’S PERSPECTIVE

Kaho Koda: The current sex education in Japan… From the western point of view. How is it? 

And we are recording! Can you just say something? 

Lizzie: Hello… Did that work?

Kaho Koda: I spoke with an English teacher in a Japanese middle school and high school. Lizzie. She was born and raised in London and has been teaching English in Japan since 2019. We talked about sex education in Japanese schools.

Lizzie: I think I asked them as well. I was like, “Do you get sex ed?” And they’re like, “We get biology.” And I’m like, “That’s not the same thing”. Not that my own school’s sex ed was great either.. I don’t know. It does seem like they don’t really talk about it at all in school either.  

So I was telling these kids like, I think it’s important for everyone to have someone they can talk to openly about that kind of thing with. It doesn’t need to be your parent but. Cause otherwise you’re in your own head thinking.. You get spiraly of like “This must be really weird” or “Am I normal?” And you just need someone to be like “I do that too” or “I have that feeling too”. 

Kaho Koda: The school that she works at is an international school and one of the classes that she teaches is an English literature class.  

Lizzie: I know there have been problems in the past. A teacher, I don’t know how before me it was but. They did “The Fault in our Stars” with the first years so that’s 13, 14 year olds. So not kids really. They’re teenagers at that point. 

Kaho Koda: For those of you who don’t know the book, “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green: it’s about a teenage girl who has cancer and her relationship with a boy who she meets at a support group. You might have seen the movie adaptation too. The story explores themes like the meaning of life and death, friendship, and love. 

The problem with this book was not really how the main character processed death, or how heavy the content was, but rather the sex scene. 

Lizzie: There is a sex scene in it. I can’t remember how explicit it is. I don’t think it was that explicit? I think it’s one of those things where it’s clear what happens… But I don’t think it’s graphic? I think I would remember if it was graphic and I don’t think it was? There was a big uproar from parents about the fact that they were doing this book with a sex scene in it.

Kaho Koda: I read the book many years ago as a teenager and I enjoyed it. Like Lizzie, I didn’t remember how the sex between the two main characters were portrayed, so I went to the book. For those of you who want to read the actual text, the sex scene is at the end of chapter 12. 

In my opinion, from my westernized point of view, it was not explicit at all. The two undress, but right after, the actual sex bit is skipped. Fast forward, the main character reflects on her sexual experience as “slow and patient and quiet and neither particularly painful nor particularly ecstatic”. She does mention in the same paragraph that he struggled with his condom. The sex scene in question is three pages at most. Also keep in mind this is a young adult novel. 

The parents got mad because they didn’t think it was age appropriate for their 13 year old kids. And this incident happened before Lizzie came to this school. She was told about this matter as a cautionary tale. Don’t use this book. And don’t use a book that contains a sex scene. 

So she didn’t. But then, Lizzie learned that her co-English teacher is using “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky with her 15 year old class.

Lizzie:  “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” is much more graphic and much darker than “That Fault in our Stars”. Like hmmm? 

Kaho Koda: Because Lizzie knew about what happened with “The Fault in Our Stars”, she talked to her colleague about it. And her colleague said she checked the parent reviews on the internet. And it said that it was perfect for the age group, for 15 year olds. But Lizzie pointed out that the parent review is from a western parent’s point of view. Not Japanese parents. So they decided to bring it up to the school and see what they would say. 

Lizzie: We were quite disappointed with the response, which was, they’re still using the book, but any time there’s something that’s related to sex, they skip it. We were both a bit like “it would have been better to just can the book entirely. And do a different book”. But I guess they had already ordered it? 

And my co-worker had her hands tied a bit because she can’t be like, “I’m going to defy the school and teach all the sex scenes! She can’t do that. So I think she just said to the kids, “We won’t be studying those parts, but obviously if you read them on your own and have questions, please ask me after class.” So she tried to make it like, “we’re not going to study this, but it’s not for-” Cause I think if you make it forbidden, they’re gonna read it anyway. And on top of that, they’re going to absorb all these ideas and not necessarily discuss it with anybody or learn about it in a- They’re gonna form their own opinions. The whole point of studying it is to kind of have a discussion about it and point out things they may not realize on their own.   

Kaho Koda: The school’s response was “Don’t talk about sex, skip it”. 

I wondered if the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science, and Technology in Japan had a guideline for sex education at school. So I looked it up. 

According to NHK, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, it’s stated in the national curriculum standards that the school shall not teach how a woman becomes pregnant. Apparently when the government decided to add a chapter on pregnancy back in 1998, it was deemed inappropriate to mention sexual intercourse to 13 year olds. For now, there is no mention of sexual intercourse in textbooks or classes. They’ll describe it in biological terms instead. For example, the sperm enters into the egg, and that is the start of life. 

Fast forward to April 2021 – so that’s this year, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology announced its first set of educational recources for sexual violence prevention. They published six different age appropriate resources that teachers can use for elementary school students up to university students.  

Okay so I read the various materials that the Ministry shared on their website. I want to share some examples here. 

For example, elementary school and middle school kids learn that they should not show the areas of their body that their bathing suit covers. 

For middle school and high school kids, they cover sexual violence. They emphasize the message, “It’s always the perpetrator’s fault. Never the victim’s.” 

And for university students, they cover alcoholism and date-rape drugs.   

Is this sexual education? Maybe it’s part of it. But these are topics that demonstrate the dangers related to sex. They tiptoe around what sex is. What it means to have sex. If they don’t talk about it in one way or another, where do the students turn to? 

Lizzie: I also think if they don’t explain it properly, someone’s going to google it! And as we all know, stuff on the internet is both not true and really quite dodgy. You can get into really weird places if you google that kind of thing.  

Kaho Koda: Lizzie, the English teacher, tells me that she is teaching “The Great Gatsby” in her class right now. 

Lizzie: There’s a bit where one of the character’s like “I met another careless driver” and I’m quite close to the students and I like to teach them slang, and I’m like, “Look, you can’t swear in front of me, but I’m not going to pretend it’s not a thing. If you have any questions, ask me.” So I was like, “Basically, he’s calling him a fuckboi”. And then I had to try and explain that to them. 

And I googled it, not really thinking about it, just looking up, “Japanese word for fuckboi”. And none of them saw that, it was all on my phone. And then all these porn sites came up. And I thought, “This is not what I wanted! Waaaah! I just wanted the translation. I wasn’t looking for that!” 

But I’m like, if a kid googles something and they come across that kind of thing, and then you learn sex from that… I’m leading on to like… I’m quite passionate about sex education being so really important, so I’m getting distracted from the Japanese issue, cause this is a worldwide- not world wide, but it’s a common problem in lots of different places. 

TAKE AWAY

Terra: Often we are very talented to divert the conversation. Because that’s the way that we speak. We don’t directly address on something. But we always kind of divert it. 

Kaho Koda: The act of sex is not explained to kids at school. Teachers are not allowed to teach it. And eventually, when students grow up, some don’t know how to talk about sex in a mature way.

During the pandemic, many schools cancelled in-person teaching. According to ピッコラーレ, a non-profit organization that supports women with unwanted pregnancies in Japan, their emergency hotline calls from teenagers increased in volume by 60% between March and May of 2020 compared to usual years. Many teens didn’t have the correct information on pregnancy and contraception methods. 

Can Japan keep saying that it’s just not in the culture to talk about sex? Or should Japan finally start talking about sex?

CREDITS

Kaho Koda: Controversial Japan is produced by Human Burrito Productions. 

We interviewed Terra Norihiro Terazawa, Sachi Lovatt, Lizzie, and an anonymous individual for this episode.

Our sound designer is Junan and you can listen to more of her tunes on spotify. Our theme song, ‘Coast to Coast’ is by Mikara and you can also check out her music via Spotify. Artwork by Macie Matthews, you can see more of Macie’s design on her website maciematthews.com

Technical support by Rutger Wink.

If you’d like to support our podcast by purchasing our merch – designed by the talented Macie Matthews who also created our podcast cover, visit our webstore: shop.humanburrito.com. We have a lot of cute things like tote bags and t-shirts. 

Check out our website for more info at humanburrito.com and if you’d like to send us a message, you can email us at humanburritoproductions@gmail.com . 

We’ll be back with more controversial opinions about Japan. Till next time.