*footnotes: sex & love around the world (christiane amanpour)

An interesting documentary that journalist Christiane asks and investigates about love, relationship, sex opinions and cliches to lots of different people where are in 6 different cities.

 

 

First Episode: TOKYO

 Keywords:

📌 Professor Kukhee Choo teaches cultural studies at Sophia University in  Tokyo.

📌 SHUNGA: the 17th century, an erotic art known as Shunga.

 

These works are still somewhat taboo and they are rarely exhibited. 

According the historians, the Edo period, from the 17th century to the 19th century, was known for its sexual liberation.

In the mid-19th century, Japan opened its market and its country to the Western world. The new era was called Meiji Period,and they actually banned this culture, deeming it inappropriate according to Western standards.

And let's not forget, the mid-19th century was the Victorian era. 

 

📌 "In public, my husband and I don't do much kissing, holding hands, or putting an arm around a shoulder. Almost never happens.

(!!!) I kiss my husband only when we have sex." 

It seems that the Japanese understand very strange relationship. Despite how intense and important it feels for us to feel our partner's skin, there are people living in Japan like two strangers!

 

📌 On Love Hotel Hill, intimacy is a business, where amorous couples seek respite from the stresses and loneliness of life. Rooms can be paid for by the hour. And so can lovers.

"My occupation is "Fuzoku-jyo," a hotel health worker."

For us, she's a sex worker.

"Many things motivated me to start this job. As my husband is a strong, jealous type, I thought maybe this job could relieve stress by enjoying other men."

 

📌 "I've never heard my father say, "I love you," to my mother. I think it'd be really weird for me to hear that in Japanese. It sounds really, really corny."

I love you is "Ai shiteru yo" in Japanese. But it means more if you say "arigato," which means thank you.

 

📌 It's a Japanese tradition that goes back centuries, and it's an accepted way of life that men can be pampered and pleasured by any number of services for a price. The modern salaryman can choose everything from traditional geishas to women dressed as schoolgirls and hostess bars, guaranteeing very attentive company.

But where does the modern salarywoman  go to get her boxes ticked?

In the post- bubble economy, they work hard and play hard, but may have little time or inclination for relationships. Now there are host clubs to cater to female customers who may be searching for the boyfriend experience.

📌 Momo isn't gay, but in a place where female sexuality is often hidden, her favorite spot serves both drinks and a purpose. 

"Sense of humor is a must."

📌This place called Ikebukuro is known for the female consumers of Manga, Anime and game culture. The Otome Road or Maiden Road is a nickname for this area, which caters to female manga fans.

*Tezuka Osamu is the godfather of manga and anime in Japan.

"Boy's Love" Genre: A genre that actually features boys in a homoerotic relationship. It's not a gay, it's for heterosexual women.

Boy's love or Yaoi is a further sub-genre of manga, which some see as a rebellion against the unattainable boy meets girl romance of the more mainstream offerings.

*Fujoshi means "rotten girl". It started out as probably a derogatory term. But the female consumers re-claimed that, and it's empowering for them now.

"Because I'm a woman, I admire the friendships between men. That led me to liking BL, Boy's Love. I guess I also want to read about what I don't have. Men's friendships. It's kind of a secret garden. We are into it because it shows us the forbidden.

📌(2018) A statistic came out a year ago, that showed about 40% of the male population of Japan are virgins.

A love doll made out of silicone.

📌 "Most of my married friends tell me they are sexless."

A: "We respect each other without sex. And I sleep with the kids."

Mother often sleeps with the children and the husband sleeps alone.

But sex is not just sex, it's about intimacy. It's about hugging, physical love as well as intellectual love.

📌 There are rules for everything here. Rules that keep people in their own lanes, on a path to respectability, to satisfying society. 

Looking for happiness is a major no-no.

📌 Kimi and her husband ---> The Adoring Husband organization.

Kimi says that "Every year, we have this special event for men to shout "I love you" to their wives." -Megumi! 

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Second Episode: DELHI

"The capital city may be more progressive than many parts of the country, but it's still a place where intimacy can be governed by family, tradition, and religion.

I want to explore how women can find love and sexual happiness if they don't always have the power to say yes or no."

KEYWORDS:

📌Arranged marriage.

📌Women who wore Saris all their life suddenly are wearing trousers.

 

📌 One group of women who found a way to out-pace some of this unwanted attention are the Delhi Bikerni. This all-female biker club takes on the traffic and goes on regular rides together.

 

📌 Delhi has since been described as the fourth most dangerous city in the world for women.

📌"We don't have quite a culture where boys met girls naturally and had friendships, it's always seen as a sexual relationship."

And yet this in a culture that has literally more than 1,000 years of the Kama Sutra, erotica. Almost liberal sexuality.

 

 

📌Premarital sex is considered immoral by most people in India. Unmaried couples attempting to check into a hotel will often be refused a room.  

Tinder.

Virginity.

It's still very much a thing where if a guy has fucked around it's alright but if a girl has, he's going to have to be okay with this, rather than being not an issue at all.

A lot of Indian women end up discovering their sexuality online like through erotica, through writing, through porn. 

Sex-ed in the country is dismal. The most popular way of learning about sex is mainstream porn where the woman has to be subjugated. It starts with like the women giving head. In the middle, the guy's gonna go down on her for five minutes, then finally start having sex. Eventually ends up with a guy coming on the woman's face.  

The penis is still the center of attention.

Actually, it's not an Indian thing as it is a patriarchy thing.

📌  Busting myths to do with BDSM is one of the main reasons why the Kinky Collective exists. *Kink.

"This talks about the gender fluidity."

📌For thousands of years, India has recognized the Hijra community.

They may be born biologically male, but they see themselves as female, or as a third indefinable gender. 

Although India enshrined the right to choose a gender in 2014, Hijras still often live in poverty and suffer sexual violence. 

The hijras are dancers,  they are well-wishers.

The authentic profession of hijras is buddhi. Means that whenever there is a baby born, marriage or some sort of happy occasion, Hijra will go, they will play music, they will dance and give blessings.

 

 Almost 80% of transgender are unemployed. So, the majority of them have to do sex work to earn their resources. And some parks in the night serve them as a professional space. It's like an outdoor brothel.

Abhina Aher (is a transgender activist) : " I've been part of the sex work to be honest. I'm a software engineer but I was not getting jobs. "

 "When I started transitioning as a transgender person, I faced a huge amount of stigma in the workplace."

"Every day when I used to go for the sex work, I did not know I was going to survive on that day."

"I felt that somebody was really sitting on my ego and pressing it so hard, almost felt like I should commit suicide. I tried. I tried to commit suicide three times in my life."

"We always had three genders. All hijra people are considered to be divine because they are in between. Neither male, neither female. And when you go through the castration process then you have no connections with the world. You become nirwaan. Nirwaan is someone that you become more closer to the god. "

Hijras were prominent people. The stature of Hijras actually came down under the tribal act. *The tribal act when the British came. When the British came, because when they came, they saw a temple of Hijras for the first time. For them, homosexuality was a big no when it comes to the Christianity. 

"For us, the sex was not something which is taboo. This is one of the basic needs of the body. India's apparently the only country which has sexual activity carved on the temple." 

"What matters is the person next to you is willing to accept you the way you are, with dignity and respect and treat you as an equal partner." 

📌   Sunny Leone was born in Canada, raised in America, and found fame here in India. She is a porn star. 

📌  Caste, clan, religion, and arranged marriage are still the ties that bind for those on the outskirts. 

One man who knows this all too well is Sanjoy Sachdev, a journalist and founder of the Love Commando's, which has just one mission. To protect the freedom to love. 

"We are attempting to save lives of young boys and girls who are in love. Because they are threatened. With violence, with killing, in the name of so-called honor. "

All over the country, they have 450 plus makeshift shelters. These are places of normal stay. 

         "Marriage is give and take."         

"I would suggest people, they should go against their parents and get married, really. Because if you feel you're really happy with someone, that person is going to keep you happy all life long."      

 

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Third Episode: BEIRUT

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it will continue soon.