In 1996, on a late-night news programme, a schoolgirl with her face blurred speaks calmly about enjo kosai. Nearly thirty years on, the centre of what the word names has shifted to paying off host-club debts, and matching by social media has become group calls on LINE. But the structure of the act, a woman receiving money from a man in exchange for companionship and sexual involvement, persists in altered form.

Enjo kosai (援助交際, “compensated dating,” shortened to enko) is the general term for a woman, especially in the 1990s context a young female minor, who receives money or goods from a man in exchange for companionship and a sexual relationship. This article centres on the “youth enjo kosai” that surfaced as a social problem in the mid-1990s, covering its media infrastructure of telephone clubs, voice-mail dials, and pagers, the regulatory response of the Tokyo youth-development ordinance, and its relation to modern papa-katsu and dating services.

Overview

The typical form of enjo kosai runs as follows: a man and woman make contact through a telephone club, voice-mail dial, dating site, or social media; they combine “companionship” such as a meal, karaoke, or shopping with a sexual relationship; and the man provides the woman with money or goods (cash, brand items, clothing).

From a legal standpoint there is a two-tier structure. Sex with a girl under eighteen is subject to punishment under the Act on Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (1999) and each prefecture’s youth-protection ordinance, whether or not compensation is exchanged. Even with a woman of eighteen or over, where the exchange of compensation amounts to “prostitution” under the Anti-Prostitution Act, the woman and any intermediary are subject to punishment.

Etymology

The term enjo kosai arose as slang in the sex and dating trades around 1985 to 1990. Combining enjo (support: money or goods) with kosai (a relationship between man and woman), it settled in as a euphemism for a relationship involving compensation. Derived terms such as “pocket-money earning” and the abbreviation enko circulate alongside it.

The sociologist Shinji Miyadai and others, in the mid-1990s, advanced a view describing enjo kosai as “compensated companionship based on the autonomous will of young women,” arguing that it was a modern social phenomenon distinct from the traditional frame of “youth prostitution” or “child prostitution.” This view drew controversy and became the focus of late-1990s social debate.

History

Prehistory: telephone clubs and voice-mail dials (1985–1995)

The “telephone club” that opened in Tokyo and Osaka in 1985 was a dating business in which a male customer took calls in a booth and answered calls from unspecified women. In 1986, NTT launched the “message dial,” enabling encounters through message exchange among the public. In 1989 the two-shot dial of “Dial Q2” spread, enabling non-face-to-face conversation from home. These services functioned as the contact infrastructure for enjo kosai. In the early 1990s, contact through pagers spread among young women, completing the physical and communicative infrastructure.

Becoming a social problem (1995–2000)

In 1996 a reportage series on enjo kosai ran in a weekly magazine, and the reality of junior-high and high-school girls’ enjo kosai was widely reported as a major social problem. That same year “enjo kosai” entered the top ten of the vogue-word awards and became a leading media topic. A 1996 Tokyo survey reported that 3.3 percent of junior-high and high-school students (both sexes) had experience of enjo kosai; a 1997 survey reported 4.4 percent among high-school girls. These figures accelerated the social response to the youth-prostitution problem.

In May 1999 the Act on Child Prostitution and Child Pornography was enacted, making sex with a minor under eighteen involving the exchange of money a criminal offence. From the 2000s, the youth-development ordinances of Tokyo, Osaka, and other jurisdictions were amended and strengthened, bringing compensated companionship between youth and adult men broadly under regulation.

Regulation and social change (2000–2010)

In the 2000s, the enforcement of the child-prostitution law, the strengthening of youth-development ordinances, and intensified policing greatly reduced the visible enjo kosai of young women. The Dating Site Regulation Act (enacted 2003, amended 2008) institutionally restricted contact between youth and adult men through dating sites. Enjo kosai itself did not disappear, however: it changed form through a shift of the principal toward women aged eighteen and over, a shift of infrastructure to online matching apps and social media, and rebranding as papa-katsu.

Transition to the present (2010–present)

In the 2010s the word “enjo kosai” came to be seen among young women as an old expression, and “papa-katsu” became the mainstream name. The factual content of the two is continuous, but differences are recognised: papa-katsu is based on encounters via social media and matching apps, includes “meal only” or “tea only” sessions that do not necessarily presume sex, and is more strongly framed as an autonomous means of economic independence for those eighteen and over. From the 2020s, women engaging in papa-katsu or street solicitation in order to pay off host-club debts have surfaced as a social problem, and coordinated responses among Shinjuku Ward, the Tokyo government, and the National Police Agency have begun.

Legal position

The legal problem of enjo kosai differs greatly by the age of the partner.

With a child under eighteen, sex involving the exchange of money is punished as prostitution under Article 4 of the Act on Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (up to three years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to one million yen). Prefectural youth-development ordinances also regulate it as “lewd conduct.” Criminal liability falls on the man regardless of consent.

With a woman aged eighteen or over, what the Anti-Prostitution Act directly punishes is the exchange of compensation for intercourse; where there is no compensation, or where the relationship involves no intercourse, the act is not subject to punishment under that law. Solicitation, procurement, and the provision of premises are, however, punishable.

Intermediaries and providers of premises, telephone-club operators, dating-site operators, and hotels, may be punished for aiding child prostitution or for procurement and provision of premises under the Anti-Prostitution Act.

Cultural references

Enjo kosai became a central topic of 1990s Japanese discourse on social problems, youth, and gender. Miyadai’s The Sociology of Enjo Kosai (1996), late-1990s youth studies, and feminist criticism discussed it from many angles. In media representation, Shunji Iwai’s film All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001) and Ryu Murakami’s novel Love & Pop (1996, later filmed) depicted the feelings of young women in the enjo-kosai era. As an intersection of postwar Japanese youth, sexuality, and economics, and as the starting point of a phenomenon continuous with present-day papa-katsu, it remains an ongoing object of research and debate.

See also

• Papa-katsu
• Anti-Prostitution Act
• Street solicitation (tachinbo)