Japan's Booming Sex Niche: Elder Porn

While Japanese sex life sags, the porn industry is healthier than ever — even for septuagenarian stars

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The DVD box of a pornographic film starring Shigeo Tokuda, left

Besides his glowing complexion, Shigeo Tokuda looks like a typical 73-year-old Japanese man. Despite suffering a heart attack three years ago, the longtime salaryman now feels healthier and lives happily with his wife and a daughter in downtown Tokyo. He is, of course, more physically active than most retirees, but that's because of his part-time job--as a porn star.

Shigeo Tokuda is, in fact, his stage name. He prefers not to disclose his real name because, he insists, his wife and daughter have no idea that he has appeared in some 350 adult films over the past 14 years. And in his double life, Tokuda seems to embody the contemporary state of Japanese sexuality: in surveys by the World Health Organization (WHO) and condom maker Durex, among others, Japan is repeatedly found to be one of the most sexless societies in the industrialized world. A March WHO report found that 1 in 4 married couples in Japan had not made love in the previous year, while 37% of couples in their 50s no longer have sex at all--figures that some attribute, at least in part, to the stresses of Japanese working life. Yet at the same time, the country has seen a surging demand for pornography that has turned adult videos into a billion--dollar industry, with "elder porn" one of its fastest--growing genres.

Tokuda is rare among Japanese porn stars in that his name has become a brand. The Shigeo Tokuda series portrays him as a tactful elderly gentleman who instructs women of different ages in the erotic arts, and he boasts a body of work far more impressive than that of most porn actors in their prime.

Tokuda's exploits have been a gold mine for adult-film studio Glory Quest, which launched its "old man" series, Maniac Training of Lolitas, in December 2004. Its popularity led to the launch of a follow-up series, Forbidden Elderly Care--the first series in which Tokuda played a starring role--in August 2006. Other series followed as elder porn became a steady revenue generator. "The adult-video industry is very competitive," says Glory Quest p.r. representative Kayoko Iimura. "There were already adult videos with Lolitas or themes of incest, so we wanted to make something new." Director Gaichi Kono says the eroticism of elders is captivating to younger viewers. "It is because they lived that much more," he explains. "We should respect them and learn from them." Tokuda, meanwhile, stresses the appeal of his work among Japan's rapidly aging population. "Elderly people don't identify with school dramas," he says. "It's easier for them to relate to older-men-and--daughters-in-law series, so they tend to watch adult videos with older people in them."

With the pornography market booming, Japan's largest video-store chain, Tsutaya, is introducing about 1,000 new adult titles a month. And it's not just older men making inroads. Currently about 300 of the 1,000 titles Tsutaya adds every month feature "mature" women. Ryuichi Kadowaki, director of Ruby Inc., a movie-production and -distribution firm that specializes in mature-women porn, says that when the company started offering the genre 10 years ago, the term referred to actresses in their late 20s; it now includes those in their 70s. "Adult videos with young actresses sell well only in the first three months after the release," Kadowaki explains. "On the other hand, mature-women films enjoy a steady, long-term popularity." There are cost savings as well. A popular young actress can earn up to $100,000 per film, while a mature actress is paid only $2,000.

The market for elder porn has doubled over the past decade, according to Kadowaki. Given the graying of Japanese society--22% of the population is over 65, compared with 8% worldwide--he says, "I think that in the future, we will see a steady increase in demand." For his part, Tokuda plans to keep working until he's 80--or older, as long as the industry will cast him. "People of my age generally have shame, so they are very hesitant to show their private parts," he says. "But I am proud of myself doing something they cannot." Still, he says with a laugh, "that doesn't mean that I can tell them about my job."

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