I don’t have experience in Japan, but I think part of this must have to do with a double-standard in their office culture. Like maybe the women are socially required to wear pants or tights, or shave their leg hair. I get the feeling that gender norms in Japan are way more entrenched than in western countries.
I've been told that I have too much body hair and I've been told that I need to bath more but in the end they really seemed to like having sex with me multiple times so I'm not sure how real their complaints were.
This is one of those issues that I will refrain from opining on directly, because I like living in a world where different cultures have different attitudes ways of living. Far be it from me to tell the Japanese how to handle their attitudes toward dress and body hair. They can hash it out amongst themselves.
I think this article is a quite overblown. I don't think this is causing as many problems as the article implies. It's basically just quoting a few opinions from social media. The survey they quote was conducted by a men's beauty salon that sells hair removal services - not exactly unbiased and there is also no mention of sampling size or methodology:
> A survey conducted in June by Gorilla Clinic, a men's beauty salon, found that 53.5% of respondents – most of whom were women – opposed wearing shorts at work.
Women may find hairy legs unattractive, but so what. You're in the office to work. And wearing a suit in 40c temps is just silly.
But women have long been shaving their legs, and I think a lot of men would also say it's unattractive if women wore shorts with hairy legs. So before men get too outraged, it's worth acknowledging the double standard here.
And recently a lot of young men in Japan are shaving their legs. Even as young as elementary school, boys are removing hair on their legs to emulate their idols in pro soccer, etc. That seems to be the current fashion trend even before the government started encouraging people to wear shorts to work.
This and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome make me feel like Japanese culture has somehow induced a unique kind of coddling within their population. People there seem to build up severely idealized views on many different things, to which the real-world equivalents can never live up; and then they are then either repeatedly disappointed/frustrated/disgusted by reality, or they refuse to engage with the real versions of things altogether, holding out for the impossible ideal.
(And, for however much of this effect is accidental, there are also parts of it which are maintained consciously/intentionally by the population and cultural institutions. Consider, for example, the Japanese public's idealized view of musical-performer "idols" as being "pure" [i.e. never being in romantic relationships.] This isn't just a mistaken idealized assumption that garners disappointment when corrected by reality; it garners actual backlash toward idols violating the assumption, often so widespread and vicious that the performers are effectively forced out of the industry. Which has caused the idols' production companies to effectively require their talent stays single [or at least hides their relationships from the public] — making what was originally a mistaken idealized assumption into a social-norm-enforced truth.)
Just to keep things in perspective - it's common among people that move to Japan to suffer psychiatric distress similar to Paris syndrome. People build up an idealized view of Japan from watching anime, etc. - and then when they actually move to Japan that reality is very different. They find themselves in a foreign country unable to speak the language, with no family to support them, very few career prospects, etc. This can cause depression and other serious mental issues. Reddit is full of stories like this.
Regarding the issue with idols needing to conceal their relationships, you need to keep in mind that the whole "idol" industry basically caters to the Japanese equivalent of "incels" - men who have trouble socializing and who are often emotionally underdeveloped - not the broader Japanese population. I've seen similar unrealistic expectations of reality and coddled behavior from subcultures in the US, such as gamers. (To be clear - I'm not criticizing all gamers here, just certain controversies within the subculture that have gained media attention in recent years).
I don’t have experience in Japan, but I think part of this must have to do with a double-standard in their office culture. Like maybe the women are socially required to wear pants or tights, or shave their leg hair. I get the feeling that gender norms in Japan are way more entrenched than in western countries.
I've been told that I have too much body hair and I've been told that I need to bath more but in the end they really seemed to like having sex with me multiple times so I'm not sure how real their complaints were.
This is one of those issues that I will refrain from opining on directly, because I like living in a world where different cultures have different attitudes ways of living. Far be it from me to tell the Japanese how to handle their attitudes toward dress and body hair. They can hash it out amongst themselves.
Yet you took the effort to write a response with no prompting...
https://archive.is/BlLht
I think this article is a quite overblown. I don't think this is causing as many problems as the article implies. It's basically just quoting a few opinions from social media. The survey they quote was conducted by a men's beauty salon that sells hair removal services - not exactly unbiased and there is also no mention of sampling size or methodology:
> A survey conducted in June by Gorilla Clinic, a men's beauty salon, found that 53.5% of respondents – most of whom were women – opposed wearing shorts at work.
Women may find hairy legs unattractive, but so what. You're in the office to work. And wearing a suit in 40c temps is just silly.
But women have long been shaving their legs, and I think a lot of men would also say it's unattractive if women wore shorts with hairy legs. So before men get too outraged, it's worth acknowledging the double standard here.
And recently a lot of young men in Japan are shaving their legs. Even as young as elementary school, boys are removing hair on their legs to emulate their idols in pro soccer, etc. That seems to be the current fashion trend even before the government started encouraging people to wear shorts to work.
This and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome make me feel like Japanese culture has somehow induced a unique kind of coddling within their population. People there seem to build up severely idealized views on many different things, to which the real-world equivalents can never live up; and then they are then either repeatedly disappointed/frustrated/disgusted by reality, or they refuse to engage with the real versions of things altogether, holding out for the impossible ideal.
(And, for however much of this effect is accidental, there are also parts of it which are maintained consciously/intentionally by the population and cultural institutions. Consider, for example, the Japanese public's idealized view of musical-performer "idols" as being "pure" [i.e. never being in romantic relationships.] This isn't just a mistaken idealized assumption that garners disappointment when corrected by reality; it garners actual backlash toward idols violating the assumption, often so widespread and vicious that the performers are effectively forced out of the industry. Which has caused the idols' production companies to effectively require their talent stays single [or at least hides their relationships from the public] — making what was originally a mistaken idealized assumption into a social-norm-enforced truth.)
Just to keep things in perspective - it's common among people that move to Japan to suffer psychiatric distress similar to Paris syndrome. People build up an idealized view of Japan from watching anime, etc. - and then when they actually move to Japan that reality is very different. They find themselves in a foreign country unable to speak the language, with no family to support them, very few career prospects, etc. This can cause depression and other serious mental issues. Reddit is full of stories like this.
Regarding the issue with idols needing to conceal their relationships, you need to keep in mind that the whole "idol" industry basically caters to the Japanese equivalent of "incels" - men who have trouble socializing and who are often emotionally underdeveloped - not the broader Japanese population. I've seen similar unrealistic expectations of reality and coddled behavior from subcultures in the US, such as gamers. (To be clear - I'm not criticizing all gamers here, just certain controversies within the subculture that have gained media attention in recent years).
No wonder they’re going extinct