Interview with soapland worker and porn star Ria Shinba

Ria Shinba works at the soapland New Tiara in Tsuchiura, Ibaraki Prefecture. She is the main attraction of the soapland and has previously worked as a child actor and porn star.

In a recent two-part interview with Shueisha Online last month, the 23-year-old explained about her background, and how she came to the profession. We’ve translated some of the highlights.

Shinba was born in Tokyo’s Suginami ward to a Japanese father and Filipino mother. When her mother became pregnant with her, their marriage became strained, and since she already had an older sister, her father told her mother that he wanted her to have an abortion if it was another girl.

“Ultimately, because I was a girl, our family was separated. My sister was placed in an institution, and I was taken in by my mother. However, my mother couldn’t even speak conversational Japanese. My father abandoned me, and I think it was impossible for her to go through the process of registering my birth [with the city hall].”

Neighbors reported her and the result was that she was raised in an institution from around the age of two. After entering the institution, her parents never attended events like sports day.

When Shinpa was in the fourth grade of elementary school, she happened to be in Kichijoji while looking for a birthday present for her mother, she was scouted by an entertainment agency.

“I was honestly happy to be scouted. I’ve never had a particularly high sense of self-worth.”

As a minor, my parents had to take me to and from auditions and filming locations. But Shinba was still living in an institution, so her manager made an exception and drove her there and back. She was advised to keep her living situation a secret.

She secured work, including roles in popular children’s educational programs, commercials for major game companies, and modeling for girls’ magazines. But she says she always felt “inferior.”

“To begin with, kids who work in the entertainment industry are wealthy. Many of them lived in Shirokane, Shoto, and Azabu. Everyone wore different clothes to auditions, clad head to toe in popular children’s clothing brands. [. . .] I was always wearing hand-me-downs from someone else that didn’t fit me, given to me by the facility.”

She felt envious of the people around her who were paying to take dance and walking lessons from famous instructors.

Shinba had hoped to pursue acting alongside her modeling career, but her agency encouraged her to switch to being gravure idol.

“Around middle school, my breasts started to grow rapidly. They were about an F cup, and I was no longer suited to a model’s figure. While I think the agency had a point, I couldn’t accept it at the time.”

Discussions with the agency remained stagnant. Meanwhile, major problems arose at the facility regarding her ability to continue her entertainment career.

“Until then, I had been managing to get by in the entertainment industry, but when it came time for my high school entrance exams, my options narrowed. First of all, part-time jobs were prohibited, so entertainment work was also a no-go because it earns money. My only option was a public school [not an expensive private school] and if I didn’t go on to higher education, I would have to leave the facility immediately.”

Her parents only occasionally contacted her, and there was no sign of them taking her in, so her path to a career in the entertainment industry was closed. She became desperate, skipped high school, and escaped from the facility. She then moved in with a friend who lived alone and began working part-time at a convenience store during the day and at a restaurant at night.

A few years later, the convenience store owner, who had treated her like family, fled with with all of the paychecks she’d deposited with him from her previous jobs.

“The owner told me, ‘Save your salary for three years and become the owner of this convenience store. I’ll take care of everything.’ So I deposited all my paychecks with him and he saved them for me.”

But the convenience store suddenly disappeared, and payday from the restaurant where she was working part-time was still far away. A desperate 17-year-old Shinpa turned to the sex industry.

Her first job was at a delivery health (callgirl) service in Omiya.

“It was just a trial shift, but I worked from 6 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon and received ¥120,000. The moment I saw the stack of bills, I honestly thought, ‘Wow, with this, I can eat today.'”

The sex industry was a “beautiful world,” she says

“Regardless of the details of the work, as long as I did my job properly, I was guaranteed a fair paycheck that day. Working in the sex industry was like a safety net for me at the time. I feel like this industry allowed me to live. I thought the customers and employees of the sex industry were more decent and beautiful than any adults I had ever met.”

Shinpa worked at various sex establishments in different regions. Her highest monthly income was once over ¥10 million!

“I was able to make money in the sex industry, but I always had a vague worry about how I was going to survive in the future.”

An acquaintance from an adult entertainment agency approached her, asking if she wanted to become a porn star.

“When I was a child model, I wanted to be a traditional actress, so I was very resistant to becoming a porn star. It wasn’t an era where sex actresses were as well-received as they are today. But I couldn’t let go of my longing to be in the public eye. I agonized over it and agonized over it . . . and then I decided to do it.”

However, the actual adult entertainment industry was completely different from her previous experience of the entertainment world.

“They fawned over me on set like I was a big star! [. . .] On set in the adult industry, they treated me so kindly. I knew it was just work, but I was grateful.”

She was now earning a monthly salary comparable to the annual salary of an average office worker in her early twenties. What did she do with all the money?

“I reunited with my mother and we started living together. I gave her about ¥500,000 a month for living expenses. I even gave her brand-name gifts. I could give her as much money as I wanted, but I just wanted her to think I was cute.”

She also invited her older sister to live with them. “I wanted the whole family to live together.”

“My sister wanted to go to college, but she gave up because it was financially impossible, which led to her developing alopecia areata. I know all too well the pain of not being able to do what you want, so I didn’t want her to go through the same thing. That’s why I paid for everything, from the prep school fees for college to all the money she needed for university, and even her suit for job interviews.”

After graduating from college and getting a job, her sister announced that she wanted to live with her boyfriend, so Shinpa ended up paying the deposit and key money for their new home.

However, her sister kept the fact that she had a younger sister a secret, ashamed that her sibling was a sex worker. “Sex work is dirty. This is the last time we’ll see each other,” she apparently told Shinpa.

And then her mother left suddenly. “There was no note or anything, and I couldn’t get in touch with her. A while ago, she had said, ‘I hate Japanese winters because they’re so cold,’ and I once got angry at my mother for bringing strangers over, telling her not to bring men over, so I think she got fed up and left.”

Despite these hardships and setbacks, Shinpa is sanguine. “No matter how society views sex work, I believe that working in the sex industry has allowed me to choose my own path, and I’m filled with gratitude. I’m happy to live my one and only life to the fullest, in my own way.”

Finally, when asked about her desire to get married, she said, “I used to really want to,” but continued, “in the end, though, I just can’t trust people.”

“Because I was betrayed by my family, I can’t shake the feeling that once I’m no longer useful, everyone will just disappear. I’m happy when someone genuinely says they love me, but I wonder what will happen to me if I get betrayed again.”