Healing Labor: Japanese Sex Work in the Gendered Economy
Contemporary Japan is home to one of the world's largest and most diversified markets for sex. Widely understood to be socially necessary, the sex industry operates and recruits openly, staffed by a diverse group of women who are attracted by its high pay and the promise of autonomy—but whose work remains stigmatized and unmentionable. Based on fieldwork with adult Japanese women in Tokyo's sex industry, Healing Labor explores the relationship between how sex workers think about what sex is and what it does and the political-economic roles and possibilities that they imagine for themselves. Gabriele Koch reveals how Japanese sex workers regard sex as a deeply feminized care—a healing labor—that is both necessary and significant for the well-being and productivity of men. In this nuanced ethnography that approaches sex as a social practice with political and economic effects, Koch compellingly illustrates the linkages between women's work, sex, and the gendered economy.
Gender Studies
Anthropology
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Review
[Healing Labor] is an incisive exploration of sex work as both a form of gendered work and care that is helpful to scholars of Japan in particular, and East Asia more generally; scholars interested in health, caregiving, and labor or economics regardless of geographic focus; and scholars interested in sex and sexuality, gender, and social justice.--Pamela Runestad "H-Japan"
Koch's well-organized and fluently written book will not only enlighten anthropologists with an interest in gender issues, the sex industry, labor relations, and women's rights, but will also provide valuable insights for anyone interested in the Japanese economic system and workplace. It should certainly be recommended reading for anyone planning to work in Japan.--Brigitte Steger "The Journal of Japanese Studies"
[Rather] than simply use her interviews as interesting details to supplement an analysis that lies elsewhere, a problem present in many ethnographies, [Koch] grounds her argument about the Japanese economy firmly in the methodology of anthropology....Koch strikes the perfect balance between detail and analysis. Highly recommended.--M. J. Wert "CHOICE"
Exceptional sensibility and true originality characterize Gabriele Koch's Healing Labor, which has sex workers tell their stories on their own terms while bringing to life the globally most pertinent debates about labor, care, and sexual commerce. An elegantly written, pathbreaking book that carries its theoretical sophistication and great erudition lightly.--Sabine Frühstück "University of California, Santa Barbara"
One of the pleasures of Gabriele Koch's new book...is how its erudition is mixed with an anthropologist's ear on the ground.--Nicolas Gattig "The Japan Times"
This is an intelligent and insightful study of Japanese female sex workers who provide iyashi or 'healing care' to Japan's depleted male workers. Koch makes a compelling and provocative case for the productive role of sex work in the Japanese gendered economy. It is both marginalized and necessary, caught in a gray area between legality and illegality, and dependent on the perception that it is done by amateurs. Yet, these characteristics shape the risks sex workers face and undermine their claims to labor rights. In contrast to anti-trafficking and anti-prostitution activists, they do not consider themselves as exploited and coerced.--Nicole Constable "University of Pittsburgh"
About the Author
Gabriele Koch is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Yale-NUS College.
From other countries
nibby
2.0 out of 5 stars Square peg in a round hole
Reviewed in Japan on 20 July 2020
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The square peg is American feminism and the round hole is the Japanese sex business. Koch did her 'deep' research and, apparently against expectations, found that most Japanese women in the sex business were young good looking woman voluntarily making good money for a short period. Of course there are exceptions, but indeed, as Koch discovered they are mostly saving to get married or for money to travel and so on. The good part of this book is the honest direct accounts from a few of these women. Unfortunately this is not the message feminists want to hear. A chapter is devoted to such a group in Japan supposedly supporting sex workers, with an American feminist rhetoric, that has essentially no support from the women concerned.
The message American feminists want to hear is that Japan is a "gendered society", a fact we are reminded of in each and every page. As if this was something special to Japan. The next time you find an non-gendered society please let me know. It full of "cisheterosexual" men, whatever that means. According to Koch, in this gendered society the only way young women can make good money quickly, with few working hours and lots of flexibility, is via the sex business. Excuse me, just how are young Japanese males or older Japanese of any gender or anyone else in the world able to make good money quickly? Let us know.
Then Koch tries to explain her central thesis of "healing labor" or iwashi in Japanese. The poor overworked Japanese salary man (of which there are many, like anywhere else) need some tender sex therapy to be able to work the next day. Yes, this is a nice idea, and probably true in some cases. But the reality is that most customers are men who pay good money to have sex with extremely attractive young women, whether they are salary men or not. And young Japanese women are savvy enough to understand that for a shortish period of time they can earn a lot of money this way. For them the idea of western women having sex for free with a stranger that picked them up in a nightclub is totally bizarre. Why would you?
What this book lacks is a discussion with these sex workers of how they feel about the job itself. Is it always distasteful? Do they like having sex (of one form or another) with their regular customers, who get dressed, go away and don't bother them afterwards? Is it in fact conceivable that in Japanese society many women in their 20s and 30s do not have easy sexual outlets and these jobs both provide these and plenty of money to go with it. At least do the research and let us know. I suspect you did and are not telling us. The square peg absolutely does not want to hear these answers. And you do need your oh so politically correct job.
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RJW
2.0 out of 5 stars book is mis-titled..... only 1 chapter on "healing labor"
Reviewed in the United States on 17 December 2020
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This is an overview of sex work in Japan, with only 1 chapter on what the author calls "healing labor". Strange that it includes a chapter on trafficking and the politics surrounding it, which is out of place in a book supposedly devoted to other aspects of sex work. Readers thinking that they will find lots of coverage of the ways in which Japanese sex workers strive to support their clients not only sexually but also emotionally, will be disappointed with this book. And the book only focuses on one type of sex work, escorting, not what occurs in erotic businesses. Author does not clarify why she focused, again in only one chapter, on escorting. And the quotes from escorts are fairly few and scattered. Book is a therefore disappointment.
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