Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club

by Anne Allison

In Nightwork , Anne Allison opens a window onto Japanese corporate culture and gender identities. Allison performed the ritualized tasks of a hostess in one of Tokyo's many "hostess clubs": pouring drinks, lighting cigarettes, and making flattering or titillating conversation with the businessmen who came there on company expense accounts. Her book critically examines how such establishments create bonds among white-collar men and forge a masculine identity that suits the needs of their corporations.

Allison describes in detail a typical company outing to such a club—what the men do, how they interact with the hostesses, the role the hostess is expected to play, and the extent to which all of this involves "play" rather than "work." Unlike previous books on Japanese nightlife, Allison's ethnography of one specific hostess club (here referred to as Bijo) views the general phenomenon from the eyes of a woman, hostess, and feminist anthropologist.

Observing that clubs like Bijo further a kind of masculinity dependent on the gestures and labors of women, Allison seeks to uncover connections between such behavior and other social, economic, sexual, and gendered relations. She argues that Japanese corporate nightlife enables and institutionalizes a particular form of ritualized male dominance: in paying for this entertainment, Japanese corporations not only give their male workers a self-image as phallic man, but also develop relationships to work that are unconditional and unbreakable. This is a book that will appeal to anyone interested in gender roles or in contemporary Japanese society.

Genres: Japan, Anthropology, Nonfiction, Sexuality, Sociology, Feminism, History

228 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 1994

Reviews

[Bob Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Massage Parlors of the Ego

For many years, Japan's hardworking salarymen (men working in middle and large size companies engaged in various businesses) have repaired to special clubs after hours to drink and be entertained by women of a demi-monde. Geishas worked in this way in their day, but now, the traditional aspects of Japanese culture that were personified in the geisha are outmoded. The salarymen want ( or at least get) a more modern style woman. What goes on in such clubs ? What is the relationship of businesses to the clubs ? How do such clubs fit into the overall picture of Japanese culture ? Anne Allison became a hostess in one club for some months back in the 1980s. She didn't hide the fact that she was an anthropologist, but was accepted as a hostess anyway. The result is this most interesting and well-written book which answers all three questions very ably. Not only is the description of the research engrossing, but the author contests or agrees with the views of various Japanese sociologists very capably. It is a very good idea to discuss what Japanese intellectuals think about hostess clubs, though most such people disparaged her research plan and thought that she would learn nothing. People like myself, who have not read such Japanese academics as Aida, Tada, Minami, Nakane, Ishikawa, Wagatsuma, or Yoda, but are interested in their arguments, will find the subsequent discussion most fascinating. Allison also weaves in some arguments from such theoreticians as Barthes and Lacan, but does not engage in the jargon which makes their work so difficult to digest.
Hostess clubs, while seeming an innocuous, if titillating part of Japanese culture, turn out to be a nexus where attitudes and expectations about work, play, sex, gender roles, identity and money come together. The ethnographic descriptions of behavior and conversations in the club make fascinating reading. By making `play' an extension of `work', by cutting the salarymen off from family life, the companies, she says, are able to maximize the work they get from their employees. She challenges the naturalness of working late at night by `playing' at a club, though Japanese sociologists claim that it IS natural because Japanese think of themselves as forever part of groups, especially the work group. Paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for short periods of drinking and mostly insubstantial chat with hostesses, Japanese companies believe that their business deals are enhanced and that human relations among bosses and workers are improved. Allison argues that in addition hostess clubs function as a place where men's egos (but nothing else) are massaged by the attentive, flattering behavior of the hostesses. She explores the relationship of Japanese salarymen with mothers and wives and concludes that "whatever men say they need, think they're doing, and justify as necessary `for work' in the demi-monde is effected symbolically and ritualistically through women and the sexuality they represent"; the sexuality they almost never exercise in fact.

Like Edward Fowler's "San'ya Blues", this is an ethnography of modern Japan, far removed from Embree's "Suye Mura" or Beardsley, Hall and Ward's "Village Japan"---the ethnographies of yesteryear. If you are teaching a course on Japanese culture or society, if you're a graduate student in Japanese studies, or if you are interested in gender and role formation in any society, this book is a must, so well-organized and clearly-written.

[Kitty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Literally laughed out loud at one of the top reviews that rated the book poorly because it "wasn't as fun" as the reader was expecting. Really approachable and informative exploration of host clubs and their cultural role at the time of its writing.

If anyone in the know comes across this review, I would really appreciate recommendations for other scholarly works on the host industry, especially for the following decades (90s, 00s, 10s). It's clear the industry has evolved.

[Cărăşălu · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author is an anthropologist who even worked as a hostess in a club in Tokyo and this is what convinced me to read the book. It was much less fun that I anticipated and would be much better if it was twice as short. It actually seems like a forcefully stretched academic essay, just to make it long enough for a book: the same questions and answers are repeated over and over again, reformulated in a thousand ways and drowning the really good stuff.

The best parts are the anecdotal episodes when Allison describes real situations from the hostess club: how hostesses interact with clients, the customer's stupid jokes about breasts and penises and so on. Some are really funny, others actually insightful.

Allison also has moments when she engages in truly interesting analysis, mostly drawing on the writing of others. For example, she shows how the absence of fathers, the excessive care of mothers, the need to study intensely for university or job exams, makes young Japanese somewhat socially and sexually dysfunctional. Their dedication to work makes it hard for them to engage in complex relationship with women, as they are used to being serviced and taken care of by their moms like babies even in their twenties. Thus, it is easier for them to satisfy their sexual and ego needs by paying hostesses and prostitutes, which service them without the need for mutual personal engagement with each other. The same goes for relationships with their wives: the salarymen (sarariimen) bring home paychecks and the wives take care of the children and the house, as if being contracted to this.

Allison's conclusions are also surprinsingly satisfying: Japanese companies pay for the entertainment of their employees in hostess clubs because this helps erase the line between work and pleasure or play. Professional life mixes with the personal life to the extent that workers remain workers even outside their offices. Practically, if the boss says they will later go to a hostess club, the worker will work several extra hours. This will keep him away from home and estrange him from his family. The worker gets used to the routine and, in time, company-paid entertainment in hostess clubs becomes for him the only and true source of relaxation. This extension of his workday becomes the realm of pleasure, where almost anything is allowed, while home and family become alien, not something he looks to return to. Such a worker will always be willing to work extra hours instead of returning home, as work becomes his true home.

The topic of the book is really interesting and it would be really cool if it was an essay 100 pages shorter. As it is, the reader has to go through a lot of deadwood, so much that you may question whether it is worthy. I'm not sure.

[Kazen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nightwork is a good book in that it does exactly what it says on the tin - discuss hostess clubs in Japan from a sociological and anthropological standpoint. The problem is that it's hard to recommend to almost anyone.

First, the subject matter. Hostess clubs are establishments where groups of men, usually on company expense accounts, go to socialize with colleagues and potential business partners. Hostesses are assigned to each table to light cigarettes, pour drinks, and keep the conversation going. It is not a place of prostitution or a sex club, and the better the establishment the less the chance of anything outside a casual touch. They don't sell sex, they sell the idea of sex. The hostesses and "mama" ( club owner) make men feel smart and sexy and desirable for a hefty hourly rate.

I picked up this book because I've heard about hostess clubs the entire time I've been in Japan, but I've never known anyone who has been to one. They're not as common as they used to be, I gather, and I'm not friends with any management types who have an excuse to visit on their company's dime. A few early chapters outline what a usual visit is like, how the clubs are arranged, and why companies see visits as an investment in their employees.

The book carries a huge caveat with it, though - it has become extremely out of date. The author spent a few months as a hostess in 1981, and the book itself was published in 1994. Many of the cited works are from the 70s and 80s, and I'm sure research has advanced in the intervening 30 years.

Textbook-y and sometimes dry writing aside, that time disconnect makes this book hard to recommend. If you don't know what Japan looks like now you may be tempted to apply everything to the current day, but you can't. Some insights carry over, but not all of them. There's no way to suss out which is which unless you're already at least knee deep in the culture.

If you study Japan and/or speak Japanese and know the culture you'll get some value out of Nightwork. However those with a more casual interest would do better looking elsewhere.

[Angel 一匹狼 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anne Allison's book "Nightwork" is a fascinating look into a very specific part of the Japanese nightlife. Even if the book was written more than 20 years ago, in many aspects, it keeps being quite up to late, even if there have been constant shifts in Japanese society.

As a person who has never been to one of the places, but has meet and knows quite a lot of women who work (or have worked) there, I was quite interested to see what Allison's perspective was going to be. She keeps it all in the economic, masculinity, corporation side (the title should have been a give away), which I kind of find a pity, as I would have liked to see more of the women's perspectives (from wives, students, and workers) than we receive (we get some very superficial comments about it).

Her perspective of the role the hostesses' clubs play in Japan is quite interesting, and she backs it up with good research and an easy to read style. It is still a very American perspective, but she recognizes it and neatly overcomes some of the shortcomings (any research is for some purpose and done by someone with a specific background, of course). On the down side, it is a little bit repetitive (a problem many of the academic writing I have gone through have) and she seems a little bit afraid on touching on feelings. Men that go to the hostesses' clubs make commentaries, they may say they are being forced to be there, etc., but for an ethnography, she does not say much about feelings (when she is not afraid to give her opinion about other aspects, as the sexuality around the place).

"Nightwork", for anyone interested in the subject, will be an interesting read. Don't speak lots of stories of men trying to flirt with hostesses, though. For that, maybe a book or a TV drama will do a better job.

7/10

(Original English version)

[Nik Maack · Rating 1 out of 5]

The only people who will ever successfully read this book are being forced to do so by cruel anthropology professors. I got through the introduction. It took me a long time. And I told myself, it can only get better from here. Quite honestly, I told myself I would keep reading and I never did. I just can't do it to myself.

It is depressing when an author takes an interesting subject matter & manages to make it so dull that I cannot read their book. Hilariously, the author writes this in the introduction:

"A word about my ethnographic style in part 1: I have attempted to make this section as readable and accessible as possible, assuming that many readers who are interested in the phenomenon of company-paid entertainment at hostess clubs will be uninterested in certain debates, theories, and discourses within the discipline of anthropology."

This annoying sentence, where she suggests she is going to be accessible is, in itself, proof that will never happen. The sentence is unintentionally hilarious.

[Ulrike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished this a long time ago. I just handed in the thesis I used this book for, haha! This was an interesting read. There is just so much information and perspectives in here and it made me think a lot. Some of the chapters couldn't really keep me interested but that might have been due to my personal interests. In any case, if you're interested in the workings of hostess clubs and how it relates to Japanese businesses, this book is amazing!

[Nicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not at all light reading, and probably outdated too as the research was done in the 80’s, but I am interested in Japanese culture, so this was still of interest to me.
I did realise what I was getting into with this one, at times very dry reading. It wasn’t all interesting, but parts of it were. I picked up a few new words too as I am learning Japanese. Probably not ones I had better repeat in front of my sensei!
Definitely not a book I would recommend to everyone. I most enjoyed the retelling of the authors own experiences working in a hostess club, while some of the bits about wives being stuck with unfaithful husbands for financial reasons and men’s inability to relate to women was sad, and I hope that’s something that’s changed over time since this was written. The Japanese work culture and attitude to work is something I will probably never really understand, honestly it seems awful, but this book does partially explain. Much as I would love to live in Japan, I don’t think I would last too long with the workload!

[Amelia Rowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An at times fascinating insight into the role of hostess clubs in the work lives and masculinity of Japanese men. Loved the Marxist analysis, but was not the biggest fan of the Freudian sections. Favourite part would be some of the insults used to describe women - will be using 'Are your breasts on holiday?' at the next available opportunity.

[David S · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insightful anthropological account of Tokyo hostess bars during the 1980s. Beyond describing the activities occurring within the bars, the book analyzes the institutional function of these venues, and various impacts particularly on bar’s male patrons (subjectivity, sexuality, home life). Significantly it outlines and examines flaws of earlier analyses – mostly by Japanese scholars – that often tautologically explained such phenomena as products of ‘Japanese culture’ alone. Allison deftly provides fuller and more satisfying answers regarding what is happening, how, why and for whom – writing at a time when something like an anthropology of Japanese hostess bars was considered less respectable as a subject for serious inquiry.

However it’s the case that the book was researched and written through the 1980s, before Japan’s economic bubble burst – when large companies more feasibly promised lifetime employment and had ample funds to expend on company entertainment, and when more mothers could confine their attention to childrearing and the household with less financial concern. How much have things changed, and how much of the world described here turns out to be a product of its time, I wonder.

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently stumbled across Anne Allison’s anthropological study of hostess bars, Nightwork, at a used bookstore after seeing a reference to the work in one of Sawa Kurotani’s Behind the Screen columns. Even though a lot of the fieldwork was during the heady bubble days when corporations had these enormous entertainment budgets, I think Allison has a lot to say about work, play, sexuality, marriages, and Japanese society. I have to admit it is one of those largely Asian customs that I always found somewhat baffling, why would you pay an exorbitant price to be indulged by women who were clearly only doing so because they were paid and think Allison has done a remarkable job of explaining the appeal of such institutions. One of the greatest cultural differences between Americans and Japanese can be seen by the lines that separate work from play and public from private in the two cultures. There is less of a strict divide in Japan, where workers are often expect to put in long hours of unpaid overtime and often meet with clients or co-workers for drinks after working hours-in both cases it is important to maintain “ningen kankei” (human relations) with both sets of people-and this is often done through drinking and this drinking is often done at hostess clubs.

Allison also points out that the role of the hostess is often associated with creating a pleasant atmosphere by keeping the conversation going about trivial things and flattering and joking with the men in the group-relieving any of them of the burden of playing host to their clients/and or colleagues. I see this as another example of “ameru” where they are expected to be indulged by the hostess who take care of their drinks, light their cigarettes, and tolerate their lewd behavior, stupid jokes, bad singing, and other boorish behaviors.

The roles of husband and wife are much more clearly drawn in Japanese society as well where the male is only responsible for working and being the breadwinner, while women are solely responsible for the household and the raising of the children. They rarely spend leisure time together, and Allison quotes many men who say that they cannot relax at home, thus they need somewhere outside the office and home to do so. The family doesn’t play as prominent role in Japan as it does in America. For some reason playing with the children at home isn’t a relaxing activity for the average Japanese male. Allison also looks the extremely strong between mother and children, especially men. She quotes Ian Buruma who sees the codling of men and indulging them with maternal-like acceptance of behaviors seem insulting or invasive by the hostess/mama.

I found this to be a well-researched and fascinating look at male and female roles in society, as well as an understanding of the role the mizu shobai (Water trade) plays in society. It is written in academic style, however, it is not complettely unreadable and quite provocative in several sections.

[Ren · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

Though he is told to work hard as a man, the image is also floated of the male who is tough, in control, and entitled to have his pleasures and desires satisfied by a woman who is not his wife [...] Yet not only does this image cost money--what a man must continue to work hard to earn--but the man is kept so busy working that his ability to enjoy the sexual fruits of his success may easily become impaired [...] It is a sign of what corporate Japan takes from a man and a charge that corporate careers leave even the most successful white-collar workers crippled and incomplete. (p.191)

I get the sense that a lot of people who picked this up were expecting a much more narrativized account of the author's time working as a hostess at a Japanese host club as part of her research into the titular topic. I did too, frankly, but given that this is an expansion of her doctoral thesis, this is much more academic than salacious.

And she really does leave no stone unturned when it comes to sources and further reading opportunities; her bibliography is impressive and includes Japanese scholars, western scholars of Japanese studies, mangaka, theorists from the Frankfurt School of thought, and Marx himself -- all in pursuit of the answer to her central question: 'why are Japanese salarymen so obsessed with hostess clubs that the entirety of corporate culture revolves around them?'

We get her answers to that question in due time, but we get more than that because this is a wonderfully intersectional approach to this subject. We talk about the construct of marriage in Japan and how it's socially re-enforced, we talk about the relationships this construct leads to between wives and husbands and mothers and sons, and how it is cyclical by design. We talk about how the Japanese workplace has incredibly malleable boundaries and how that blurry line between work and play lends itself to corporate outings to hostess clubs (paid for by the company).

This is anthropology through a feminist lens, so there's definitely an emphasis on including the voices of the other hostesses, the host club's 'mama', the wives of the men who visit the host club. But because it's a truly feminist approach to anthropology, and on a topic exploring male identity, she spends much of the text highlighting the many ways that patriarchy is the thing that underpins the suffering of the men within that system. If we let go of that belief system, she implies, these men would be able to have functional, loving, healthy relationships with their wives and children.

Indeed, the entirety of 'Nightwork' is written with an incredible amount of empathy for everyone involved, and, as stated by George Marcus of Rice University, "Allison manages to address with new power the elite Japanese work ethic, so much feared in the West, through the seamy, but finally sympathetic predicament of the 'sarariiman.'"

However, though the focus is a Japan-specific phenomenon, she is careful not to couch it as inherently Japanese, and critiques scholars who do. This was an important point to make because, though hostess clubs as such aren't entrenched in Western corporate culture, much of what she observes of how the hostess clubs operate to build up and reinforce the construct of masculinity applies to any patriarchal society.

She goes to great lengths to develop a somewhat (and by somewhat, I mean very) pathetic conclusion of how masculinity and the hostess club intertwine and why men spend so much money there despite rarely if ever actually having sex with any of the hostesses:

the sexuality [at a hostess club] is masturbatory; the erotic object is not the woman, but the man, and the female is just a device to enhance the male's self-image. (p.183) Whether he talks about his thirty-foot penis or his joy in collecting stamps, the hostess is supposed to hear him out, comment on what he says, and swear that the qualities he has revealed are exactly what a woman like herself finds irresistibly attractive. The hostess is not supposed to challenge the man's presentation of himself, and she is never to coopt his authority by reversing their roles. (p.177)

She also goes into the even more uncomfortable territory of how mothers are mixed up in all this. Given the relatively hands-off approach to parenting a patriarchal system takes when it comes to a man's relationship to his children, sons are almost exclusively raised by and live alone with their mothers. And their mothers' self-worth becomes tied to her son's academic and career success -- success she is de-incentivized to get for herself. Because of this, they tend to coddle their sons well into their teenage years and even into their young adulthood. And because the Japanese school system is designed to be so hyper-competitive, students have virtually no time and definitely no space of their own to form romantic relationships or relationships of any kind with women or girls outside of their mother.

These boys then become men with no sense of how to interact with a woman who isn't there to take care of them. But because being dependent on a woman would be emasculating, a key aspect of visiting hostess clubs that Allison points out is loudly objectifying and insulting the hostess' appearance. "A comment like "Your breasts are as flat as a board" is intended to be crude; it verifies the man's right to be crude at the expense of, and through the vehicle of the mizu shobai [sex worker] woman [...] it is less an overture to something heterosexual with a woman than it is a homosocial statement about being a man." (p.180)

All especially pertinent in a post-Barbie (2023) world. Really, much of the mis-reading of that movie comes down to not understanding that very phenomena in the above quote. But that's a discussion for another time...

The one ding in 'Nightwork' is the fact that some of the ideas feel a bit repetitive if you read the text straight through like I did rather than jumping between or only reading a few sections. I don't think it could have been easily avoided, but towards the end there are moments that feel like they're beating a dead horse. Par for the course in academic, text-book style texts, but worth noting.

Nevertheless, this is a fantastic piece of ethnographic anthropology, and despite being published in the early '90s, much of it (sadly) still feels relevant today.

[Chelsea Szendi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice companion piece to Allison's "Prohibited and Permitted Desires," since it examines the male gender expectations and privileges of contemporary Japanese society. It is a little dry however, but the last part is so so so dog-earmarkable.

[becca barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am definitely a fan of Allinson’s writing, and the somewhat taboo nature of this topic interested me a lot.

Allinson documents the ‘Night-work’ industry of Japanese Hostess Clubs in post modern Japan. These clubs are frequented mainly in groups of businessmen, as opposed to by individuals, and groups are entertained by young, female hostesses alongside the club’s ‘Mama’. The scale of respectability and desirability of these clubs are wide ranging, with many being very expensive and appealing to upper elites. They are different from prostitution establishments in that sexual acts aren’t typically paid for, it is the amenities like food, alcohol and cigarettes which generate profit.

Through reading this ethnography, I was struck by how the Japanese family structure, of the dutiful housewife mother, and the hard working salaryman father, created a chasm in the marital relationship where desire and affection would usually sit. The almost filial relationship lacks the intimacy and passion that characterises the Western image of this type of unification, at least in the early stages.

This lack is then harnessed and reinforced by the capitalist industry. In promoting the idea of the salaryman having to work constantly and very hard to provide economically, his expected place in society is predominantly in the workplace. This removes him from any possible familial relations, therefore creating a disjuncture there. Furthermore, his position in the workplace, in these corporate spheres, is also dependent on his participation in these late night hostess group outings. And yet, these places act to drain him of his income in order to display his masculinity, both to himself and the group. Consequently, he must then maintain his intensive work schedule to finance these outings, and in doing so further distance himself from his family and wife.

Additionally, these clubs harness the masculine ideals, which are arguably quite universal, of male sexuality equating to power and masculinity. These environments fulfil and feed the desire to be perceived as masculine, through allowing the overt and often vulgar sexualisation of the hostesses, in contrast to the purity and mother-image of their wives at home. Therefore, men are likely to return in order to have their masculinity validated, sexuality excited, and group male bonding reinforced. All the while, familial relationships suffer and corporate capitalist structures, like the males’ employers and the hostess clubs’ management, profit.

I also found the juxtaposition between these often raucous males to the almost de-gendered presence of the waiter quite striking. Perhaps so as not to be perceived as threatening the vulnerable status of the patrons, he must remain almost invisible. The exaggerations and different embodiments of stereotyped genders through the ethnography was very interesting - constant performances, for status, for money, for self identity.

[Ishmael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nightwork is a distinctly boring work. Other works would be more interesting, but Allison's is unfortunately the only one I'm aware of that is both originally in English and of a modern-ish timespan. I was prescribed to read it as part of a anthropology genEd for my academics but the book served as a very dry and dull accounting of Allison's work.

While I think it is a good introduction into the mitsu shobai for people who aren't familiar with it, even a base understanding of the work or culture will make the work feel rather tedious to go through. It could have been 100 pages shorter and without all of the spurred-in parenthetical asides. Allison did her work 13 years before publishing the ethnography and in her own words, "It was outdated before I ever got to publish it," as is common with the extremely rapidly moving culture of the mitsu shobai. Her wording is impossibly grey and foggy and makes it sound like she's rather bored with it all... despite this, it's a pretty good work for people who want to know about the Tokyo subculture specifically within the mid-80s before the economical collapse happened. It's straight middle of the bar. Informative but so, so dry. I wanted to like it more.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are looking for a non-fiction story with a seedy sexy underbelly to keep you entertained; wrong book. This book will feel boring and repetitive if that’s the kind of ride you were expecting.

But does it cut the mustard as a purely academic essay that dives deep into the role of gender, sex, and status in late 80’s Japan? Absolutely.

Wasn’t the book I expected, but I was thoroughly fascinated with the book I got.

[Hanah Ashtyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this because I had to for my anthro class but I actually really enjoyed it. This side of Japanese culture is super interesting and the way the author approached it made it really fun to learn about.

[Feeeeeney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pros:
- Interesting fieldwork
- Convincing and extensive analysis of why sarariiman goes to hostess clubs at their corporation's expense; also elaborate on related phenomenons in Japanese society - the distancing of man and his family, the close relation between the son and the Mon, when the saeariiman retired, etc...
- Easy to read, clear structure

Cons:
- Outdated
- Relatively weak theory basis (Lacan's idea of seeing oneself in a mirror, Hegel's salve/master, and miscellaneous works by American Scolors study Japanese and Japanese Scholars (who are constantly been criticized by Allison of "naturalizing" (Barthes's sense) the nightwork practice), e.g. Hiroshi Tom Rohlen, Wagatsuma)

[Kayla Lessard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anne Allison successfully outlines in her book Nightwork, the intricacies of the hostess club experience during the 1990s and how it fits into Japanese society. She is able to show her readers the way that Japanese society talks about the clubs and how it is very different then what actually happens. The basic idea that society gives to why men need this kind of nightlife is that their men work very long hours and went through rigorous examinations before they even got hired and that they deserve to be taken care of. The clubs give these men an outlet to get their egos stroked. Japanese society is different than American society, bosses are suppose to care about their employees, it is a humanized hierarchy, which means the hostess clubs show these men that the company cares about them and their desires.

However, Allison seems to be skeptical of the repercussions of this thinking. Giving men’s need to bond as workers priority over families and spouses creates a cycle of male’s need for these kinds of services. Boy’s are raised with absent fathers who see being at home as a burden which creates a future generation of men who need women’s services to make them feel manly. If the men decide to opt out of the hostess club scene they will not climb up the corporate ladder. Men in Japan are judged strongly on their ability to provide for their families, opting out is not a even a choice in most cases. This leads into Allison’s conclusion that these men have all this attention for awhile but once they retire they will be stuck at home in a monogamous relationship with a women they have spent little time with. I think that is a very strong point, which gives power to the wives that are being ignored. Allison’s argument is that these men are allowed to play as long as they want but only if they play inside the rules (i.e. having affairs is socially acceptable but leave their wives is not.)

Allison’s description of her time spent at Bijo and the women who work there is very strong. In my opinion she is able to not judge the women through an American lenses but instead try to understand how they fit into their own world and in a Japanese contest. For instance, she describes Bijo’s Mama as wearing expensive kimonos, how she talks to everyone about once a night, and how she greets and impresses the clients to sell them a life-style of class and standards. This could be seen as manipulative and even immoral in western eyes but Allison is as un-bias as possible.

Her description of the Hostess’ job and ability to lead conversation gives lots of incite into Japanese culture as a whole. Allison describes how the men are together all day at work and sometimes have little to talk about so the hostess is used to distract them and is seen as helping the conversation go smoother. Her job is to make their lives easier and so that the men don’t have to work at all. Also, she brings sexuality into the conversation with flirtatious banter, teasing, and even making the men sing. Her ability to create an illusive relationship between serious and light is what men go to the clubs for. Allison describes it as less about what she does for the men and more about what she is.

[Alexa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this text! 4 stars because some parts were a little redundant, whereas other parts could have included more analysis -- i.e. a more in depth dive into the clubs.

Readers should note that this text was published in 1994 and based on field work done in the 1980s, back in the heyday of the Japanese economy and consumerism. The economy has since declined -- in curious to see how his has impacted the mizo shobai in the 2000s. I would be interested to read a more current analysis, and one that also explores the male led host clubs.

[Sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Borne of a doctoral dissertation in anthropology, Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club is an academic exploration of a specific cultural phenomenon: what's behind the practice of male white-collar Japanese workers going out drinking after work at hostess clubs at company expense? Although often explained as a "Japanese" ritual where men can shed workplace tensions and bond in a relaxed social setting, the author does not accept such an essentialist explanation. In addition to conducting interviews, surveys, and conferring with other academics, Anne Allison also worked at one club, Bijo, for several months, sitting with men as she poured drinks, lit cigarettes, and smoothed over the conversation which was often sexual, flirtatious, and served to flatter the male patrons. She explores the activities which take place at these clubs, their functions, and how they create identities surrounding work, play, sex, and gender relations. However, one should keep in mind that the work was done in the early 1980s, before the economic collapse, so it might not reflect contemporary Japan. At times Allison blurs the distinction between specifically talking about people who participate in this phenomenon (the male patrons and the female hostesses) and generalizing it to all Japanese. Not all Japanese men are sarariimen.There are also long sections where she cites only one or two sources. Nonetheless, this is an accessible study of a specific social practice, nothing more, nothing less.

[Shari · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone interested in Japanese culture, anthropology, and sociology, I thought this would be a neat book to read.

I should have read the other reviews first. For such a potentially tittilating subject -- we're talking hostess bars and Japan nightlife with the salarymen's drinking culture here -- this was excruciatingly dull. It felt like reading someone's well-researched graduate thesis.

The end of chapters even led into the "in part 3, I will show that..." type of wording. I had hoped for more anecdotal stories with some insight into the culture. I'd pass on this one if you're looking for an interesting non-fiction narrative.

[Benjamin Hollis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating in-depth study of Tokyo hostess clubs, which branches out into a much wider look at the ways elite Japanese career-men's masculinity manifests itself (and is manipulated) by postmodern capitalism. Despite being a western outsider, I found that the author counterbalances it well, not only with her fieldwork, but also by displaying a lot of self-awareness and introducing a lot of self-critique. Her introduction of a Marxist lens is particularly interesting. The many anecdotes are also very memorable, perhaps what I'll retain most from what is primarily a study ressource (and reads like one).

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting book. I found this book during a Human Sexuality class assignment in college, everyone was assigned different countries and I ended up with Japan, well actually I volunteered to cover Japan seeing as how no one else had and its one of my favorite places, EVER! This book was well written and really broke down some of the stereotypes that exist in the West about Hostess Clubs and their work. A true breakdown of the industry and examination of the lives of those involved.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though the scene Allison describes is dated--her fieldwork was in 1982--it's still a really interesting look into both the hostess club world and the Japanese corporation world, as well as the intersection of the two.

[HyL · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book, and my students did too. Allison writes in clear, easy to follow language, explains theoretical concepts and gives the reader insights into the Tokyo bar scene that most North Americans will never otherwise receive.

[Sheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is VERY well written, and fun to read. I read it in college for an anthropology class on Gender. It is a book that I go back and re-read, just because its that fascinating.

[Resa Boydston · Rating 3 out of 5]

one of three books for my AN321 class--Spring 2009

[Kass · Rating 2 out of 5]

Again, this might be interesting if I was interested in Japanese culture... The only thing that really made this worth it was finding out what kinds of "interesting" bars/nightclubs are in Japan

[Lauren]

one of Julie's textbooks from college haha