Sleeping, kissing, and bathing as friends: non-romantic partnerships on rise among Japanese Gen Z

There’s a new type of relationship emerging that’s neither lover nor friend and spreading among younger generations.

These relationships include sofure (soine furendo, or sleeping-together friends), who do nothing but sleep side by side, reports AERA.

Other similar “-fure” relationships are hafure (hagu furendo, hugging friends), kisufure (kissing friends), and ofufure (ofuro furendo, bathing friends). These terms and relationships are allegedly gaining traction on social media and online platforms among Gen Z in Japan.

Can two people simply sleep together without any romantic feelings or sexual intimacy? Can you actually kiss or bathe together without there being any romantic or sexual relationship? And does this mean Generation Z is turning away from romance?

“I believe the phenomena of sofure and ofufure are better understood not as a sign that people have stopped dating, but rather as a result of people no longer feeling bound by the specific label of ‘lover,'” says Yuki Takahashi, an associate professor in the Faculty of Human Sciences at Ishinomaki Senshu University, and co-editor of a book about the sociology of romance.

“Various data indicate a decline in sexual activity. This trend is particularly pronounced among the youth. Since around 2005, the percentage of young people with experience in sexual intercourse or kissing has dropped significantly. Sofure relationships became a hot topic in the mid-2010s, though to my knowledge, the term was mentioned less frequently during the pandemic,” notes Takahashi, who conducted interview-based research with people who have engaged in sofure relationships.

“They don’t engage in soine (co-sleeping) because they want to become lovers. They remain strictly friends, and in many cases, there are no romantic feelings involved. Of course, there are instances where they do harbor mutual affection, but that doesn’t necessarily lead to a romantic relationship.”

Takahashi thinks that avoiding sex is a way to maintain freedom from societal norms and pressures while still sharing a degree of intimacy by co-sleeping. He also links the trend to previous notions like herbivore men (referring to men uninterested in traditional romance or sex) as a part of a wider popularization of asexual relationships that don’t fit conventional, binary molds.

“In the past, the prevailing view was that if a man and a woman slept in the same bed, they must be dating. However, as society has come to recognize that some young people simply aren’t interested in romance, people have begun to accept that such relationships are a valid possibility,” Takahashi says.

Takahashi argues that intimate relationships can no longer be expressed by the binary choice of “lover” or “friend.”

“There are friends you see every week, just as there are couples who don’t communicate every day. Becoming a couple doesn’t automatically entail specific obligations or roles. What people seek in a romantic relationship varies widely from person to person,” Takahashi notes.

Does this mean that romance is declining?

Takahashi takes a more nuanced view. “It’s not so much that people don’t want to be in a romantic relationship; rather, there is a growing sense that romance isn’t the only right answer. The attachment to the institution of romance itself is weakening. [. . .] The term ‘turning away from romance’ doesn’t fully explain this shift. It is more accurate to view this not merely as a change in attitudes toward romance, but as a diversification of human relationships themselves.”

In short, the meaning of relationships between men and women is changing.