Synchronized sex. Those two words pretty much sum up what was hot at Tokyo’s Adult Treasure Expo that’s treasure spelled P.O.R.N. Japan’s first – at least according to the expo’s PR machine. http://adultexpo.jp/
This had to be the weirdest assignment ever. A Japanese think tank I work for on a project basis had sent me out here to see if there were any ties between IT, wireless technology and the world of adult entertainment. They were throwing down five hundred dollars and expenses for one afternoon’s work so who was I to question their motives. I picked up my photographer Jake ‘On the Make’ Sullivan near Shiba Park and we headed out in my car on the expressway to the wilds of Chiba and the Makuhari Messe Convention Center the Klaxons (rock group not horn) screaming over the stereo speakers. Hot and humid the rainy season had finally blown through several weeks later than usual and it was great to see the sun again, at least filtered through my Michael Kors sunglasses.
Makuhari Messe car park is a long, long walk from the actual convention center especially if you are a woman in heels, and I was always in heels. The Adult Treasure Expo to my surprise was not in the vast main group of auditoriums but one of the far side halls reserved for less important events thus adding another kilometer’s worth of walking to the journey. From the expo’s build up I had expected something on the scale of the Japanese Game Show which takes over the entire central Convention Center for three days in October. Obviously I was going to have to scale back my expectations.
Jake wore his jeans low on his hips and carried his morality next to the condoms in his back pocket. Six feet tall, lean and muscular from years of Aikido, with strategically groomed stubble on his chin, bushy blonde Jew Boy ‘Fro and a nearly permanent erection. The man had earned the reputation of one of those annoying Labrador retrievers that would hump anything moving or stationary. Despite or maybe because of that, he was a lot of fun to work with, an engaging combination of art smart and street smarts with a great eye for his work – photographical or otherwise…
As Jake and I walked (and walked and walked) we encountered groups of soberly clad adults who looked nothing like the sort of people I expected to attend this sort of thing.
As yet one more large group of plumpish women all in dresses midway down their calves chattered by us on sensible low heeled shoes, Jake looked at me bewildered saying, “Where are the strippers?”
Shrugging I said, “Maybe they bused them in.”
Jake was of course overjoyed with this assignment. What straight guy wouldn’t be? I had given him a legitimate reason to photograph porn. Talk about a dream come true. Actually I would have preferred to go with a girl photographer who could distance herself a little from the subject but Sara, one of my regulars, was off on assignment in Okinawa.
“Yea, buses,” he sighed. It was impossible to miss the gleam in his eye. “Bused them in. Lots of them.”
Oh Christ, I thought.
We exited the main walkway en route to the side halls and that was when we learned where all the plainly dressed people were going. There was a huge hallelujah Christian Worship Convention here today. A Christian Worship Convention across the road from Japan’s first Adult Entertainment Expo open to the public. What were the odds on that?
If this was America I would have said someone arranged it on purpose but being Japan the idea that the pursuits of prayer and porn might not be entirely compatible probably never occurred to anyone.
Jake and I stared at the banner for a few moments before walking on in silence, almost in silence. Every once in awhile Jake breathed “bused” as he envisioned an army of strippers and pole dancers. .
Trade shows are great fun in this country, all the company’s domestic and international engage in visual shoving matches with each other to construct the most exciting testosterone-powered pavilion ever seen by human eyes overflowing with costumed girls, staff, shows, presentations and giveaways. I went to them a lot. It was part of my job: Tokyo Game Show; CEATEC; Wireless Japan; Amusement Machine Show; etc., etc.
Signing in at the press booth I reflected this was the first trade related venue in my career however that required ID to prove you were of legal age to enter.
At Makuhari Messe everyone enters from a floor above, descending stairs or escalator to the actual show floor below thus getting a quick overview of the layout. I walked in expecting a vast darkened hall illuminated by electronic marquees and large eye popping booths of structural complexity bursting with video screens, flashing lights, sexy pole dancers with their custom-made breasts, and international porn stars signing autographs and naughty body parts. Instead I was blinded by overhead halogens turned up unbearably bright shining down on plain box-like structures most if which were smaller than my living room.
Jake and I rode the escalator past posters warning of the dangers of AIDS and death by sex. Honestly. ‘Be careful of dieing during sex’ the latter said in Japanese. Little chance of that, dieing from lack of sex was a more likely option with Japanese men I reflected.
The booths were full of all things wiggly and jiggly though not, to Jake’s regret, the Campaign Girls who were painfully thin and looked about 16. I’m a 34B and I swear to god I had the biggest breasts there that afternoon.
“Where are the porn stars? “ Jake whined.
Not here, seemed to be the answer though there was plenty of Japanese porn. Much of it – both for sale and as product demonstrations — involving bondage sex and or masturbation often performed by other girls many of whom were filmed in pink nurses’ uniforms. What is that fantasy about? Why nurses? Guys and nurses I understand, but these girls looked more like estheticians than medical attendants. ‘I’ll have the pedicure, facial and full body bondage and masturbation program please…’ No. Not sexy.
For a woman porn is pretty prosaic at the best of times but under industrial strength lighting it’s positively lethal.
Wandering by the booths we also saw far too many truly, deeply creepy items including child-like dolls catering to that very, very dark side of the human psyche.
Jake’s camera lens was drooping. “Sacha, this is not fun, you promised me fun,” he declared.
“Actually I promised you 300 dollars and lunch if you would come to the Porn Convention and shoot for me. You supplied the ‘fun’ part all by yourself.”
Advanced promotion for the Adult Treasure Expo had touted a number of concerts to be held on the huge stage dominating one side of the painfully empty hall. Boys II Men were scheduled to give an anti-AIDS concert sometime during the three-day event. (You know times are tough when you have to perform at the porn convention….) Right now though the stage held one small Japanese man in black face and an oversized afro wig singing Michael Jackson songs to an audience of around ten people.
Next door one of the paid models – looking very much like a pork chop in a piranha pool — was surrounded by sweating men taking pictures under her miniskirt with their cell phones.
It was going to be a very long day.
To be continued
