Sexual predators endanger Japan’s mixed-bathing culture

Skinship is big in Japan: a concept of bodily intimacy via contact through the skin, such as by sleeping on neighboring futon or, most obviously, bathing together.

So while your mom or bestie might not hug you as much, you will bathe with your immediate relatives, such as your kids, siblings, or partner, and it doesn’t cease to be a thing even if you only have one of those square bathtubs hardly large enough to fit an average Westerner’s body. People just sort of clamber in and sit on top of each other in the bath.

Of course, communal bathing culture extends to bathhouses and hot springs, though bathing is usually segregated.

Mixed bathing is practiced at a few places, but, the Guardian reports, it’s in danger of dying out due to sexual predators.

In fact, venture to one of the few hot springs that still offer konyoko (mixed bathing) and you may simply find yourself soaking in the water with fellow men.

The reason? Crocodiles.

That’s the nickname given to men who spend long time in such baths, scanning the room to get a glimpse of female bathers.

There are still around 500 places where men and women can wash together in public, but this is down from over 1,200 in 1993.

Men are apparently to blame for the decline. “There are cases in which men try to strike up conversations with women, asking them where they are from and so on. You tend to get more of this after they have drunk alcohol,” says one author of a hot spring guide.

Some hot springs have come up with workarounds that rather defeat the purpose (well, let’s say the spirit) of mixed bathing: they set up partitions to stop voyeurism or require people to cover up (men in knee-length shorts and women in yuami shorts and a sleeveless top). This latter initiative has apparently had success in raising the number of women willing to visit mixed baths. Purists, though, might balk at not letting the mineral-rich water actually touch your skin to the full.

The real culprit is perhaps an older “ill”: Westernization. Mixed bathing was actually banned outright in 1890 because the Japanese authorities were worried that it might look barbaric to visiting foreign dignitaries. Fortunately, it underwent a revival in the postwar period, when reduced circumstances forced people to bathe where and with whom they could.