Women Affairs

Changing attitudes about love and marriage in rich Asian countries such as Taiwan, Japan and South Korea are pushing many desperate bachelors to seek out brides in other, poorer nations around the region. Many Asian men, particularly those in rural areas, tend to seek traditional wives who will stay home, doing chores and raising children, says Mika Toyota, a research fellow at the National University of Singapore's Asia Research Institute, and other experts who study the region. An economic boom in recent decades means women have options their mothers didn't. Better educated, they can have careers - and opt to stay single until Prince Charming shows up, if he ever does. "Most Japanese women would prefer to live and work in the city," says Jeff Kingston, author of Japan's Quiet Transformation. "A guy out there in the boonies . has a tough job selling the wonders of being a farmer's wife." Instead, the men increasingly seek women from countries such a...

Robert Poole and Chikako Kato Serenely and alluringly, the lotus flower opens. Unabashed, the temptress strides out, brimming with sexual beauty and proclaiming that the age of the Japanese lolita has passed. She has blossomed instead into a modern Aphrodite, a woman whose physical beauty exudes power, confidence and charisma. The "kawaii" generation watches in awe as she transforms into something startlingly sexy yet still adorable. She is erotic yet cool — "ero-kakkoii." J-pop star and fashion icon Kumi Koda may be the omnipresent face of the new Japanese woman, but she certainly isn’t alone. R&B stars like Double helped bring Western-style sexiness in Japan, paving the way for independent-minded women to recognize that seductive needn’t be synonymous with submissive. TV actresses like Aya Sugimoto are reversing the tables by flaunting their extreme sexuality in middle age, symbolizing the feminine empowerment that’s been sweeping Japan. And if Aphrodite had a...

Japanese women will frequently open up about their sex lives with partners, but when it comes to mentioning their masturbation habits, they tend to clam up, according to Cyzo. A survey the monthly carried out among 50 women in their 20s or 30s found that 90 percent felt it was perfectly natural for men to masturbate, but only 56 percent felt women should bring themselves off. Among the reasons women gave for believing sisters shouldn't be doing it for themselves were that female masturbation is "dirty," "embarrassing" and "something only women who can't find a guy would do." Sex therapist Kim Myung Gun tries to explain why masturbation has become such a taboo topic for Japanese women. "Masturbation for men involves expelling the pleasure outside of their bodies in an action that's kind of like expunging any other waste product. But for women, there's no ejaculation involved and all the pleasure remains inside them, so talking about mas...

The 28-year-old woman's life started to change about three years ago when she was picked to become an important part of her company's systems management project. The work was demanding and kept her busy until the last train every night. When she got home, her boyfriend often wanted a bit of slap and tickle, but she wasn't interested. All she wanted, AERA says, was every possible moment of sleep she could get. Months passed and she completely lost interest in sex, which had been a once-a-week affair before she got busy. Soon she even stopped getting wet. When she did try to go along with her lover, it was so painful, she bled. Then she didn't bleed any more as her periods stopped. She was suffering from what's called Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD), an ailment affecting a growing number of women, especially those under enormous stress. FSD is being used to describe the situation where women are unable to obtain satisfaction from sex. Women are often in a passive sit...