Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?
In Japan, both men and women are actively seeking potential mates. The problem is that there are not enough men who make enough money to support a family, and not enough women who will accept a non-traditional marriage that requires that she work full-time
Japanese Herbivores
Media Shakers, a consulting company that is a subsidiary of Dentsu, the country's largest advertising agency, estimates that 60 percent of men in their early 20s and at least 42 percent of men aged 23 to 34 consider themselves grass-eating men. Partner Agent, a Japanese dating agency, found in a survey that 61 percent of unmarried men in their 30s identified themselves as herbivores. Of the 1,000 single men in their 20s and 30s polled by Lifenet, a Japanese life-insurance company, 75 percent described themselves as grass-eating men.
Japanese companies are worried that herbivorous boys aren't the status-conscious consumers their parents once were. They love to putter around the house. According to Media Shakers' research, they are more likely to want to spend time by themselves or with close friends, more likely to shop for things to decorate their homes, and more likely to buy little luxuries than big-ticket items. They prefer vacationing in Japan to venturing abroad. They're often close to their mothers and have female friends, but they're in no rush to get married themselves, according to Maki Fukasawa, the Japanese editor and columnist who coined the term in NB Online in 2006.
Grass-eating boys' commitment phobia is not the only thing that's worrying Japanese women. Unlike earlier generations of Japanese men, they prefer not to make the first move, they like to split the bill, and they're not particularly motivated by sex. "I spent the night at one guy's house, and nothing happened—we just went to sleep!" moaned one incredulous woman on a TV program devoted to herbivores. "It's like something's missing with them," said Yoko Yatsu, a 34-year-old housewife, in an interview. "If they were more normal, they'd be more interested in women. They'd at least want to talk to women."
Many of Hosho's friends spend so much time playing computer games that they prefer the company of cyber women to the real thing. And the Internet, he says, has helped make alternative lifestyles more acceptable.
Keep in mind that Japan is ground zero with respect to Love Dolls, too. If only a certain type of man meets the requirements of women, the men who don't have a chance of meeting that threshold just give up. They retreat into a world of playing games, living minimally, paying for hookers, and hanging with friends. There's definitely something weird happening here. The aversion to sex which sometimes creeps in looks like more guys are not bothering to try because they don't want to fail, either in their attempt or if successful in getting sex they don't want to be rejected as failures in life by the woman, so simply easier to withdraw than to be humiliated. Honor and loss of face is a terrible blow.
