One of the types of sex businesses that seems to have been sorely impacted by last year’s Great East Japan Earthquake is SM clubs.
Nikkan Gendai (July 3) reports that because SM clubs have the type of business that have enjoyed a hard-core following of dedicated sadists and masochists, they have, until now, been largely immune from economic ups and downs. But for reasons not fully understood, from around last autumn demand began to drop precipitously.
“Up to the year before last, I never cleared less than 500,000 yen per month,” says a 32-year-old woman who works as a “queen” at a Tokyo SM emporium. “But these days my income’s down to around 300,000 yen a month. In my seven years in this business, it’s the first time business has been so slow. It’s even worse now that it was right after the ‘Lehman Shock.’”
A veteran reporter covering the sex trade thinks the drop in demand for bondage and discipline may stem from “dread.”