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 ...
Discussions are underway regarding a review of the Prostitution Prevention Law, including the possibility of penalties for those who pay for sex services. According to a report in the Asahi Shimbun on March 31, the discussions draw on data from a large-scale survey of 8,000 people revealing that approximately 48% of men living in Japan have used sex industry services at least once in their lives.
The survey was undertaken by a team including researchers from the University of Tokyo. It was conducted online in July 2022, targeting 8,000 people (4,000 men and 4,000 women) aged 20-49. Its main ...
Lady Gaga sang of bad romance. Was she singing about Japan?
For the fourth consecutive year, Japan's "romantic satisfaction" rate has ranked among lowest in an international poll.
According to a survey by the Paris-based Ipsos, 51% of people in Japan are satisfied with "feeling loved," significantly lower than the 29-country average of 77%.
Only 33% of Japanese respondents were satisfied with their romantic and sex lives, a 6-point decrease from 2025 -- and the lowest satisfaction rate among the 29 countries (the 29-country average was 60%). Only 6% of respondents in Japan said they were ...
Meiji Yasuda Research Institute's Survey on Romance and Marriage has found that 76.3%, or more than three in four unmarried people, say they are not in a relationship, up from the previous survey in 2023.
Interest in romance and relationships is also declining, with fewer people expressing a desire to get married. Women cited "not feeling the need to get married," while men cited "less disposable income."
The survey was conducted online from December 12-21, 2025, targeting 8,872 men and women aged 18-54 nationwide (3,909 married and 4,963 unmarried).
While we often take issue with the ...
The model Nana Suzuki has made a big confession to the whole nation: she hasn't had sex since her divorce four years ago.
In fact, since couples are generally not intimate with each other in the period leading up to a breakup, perhaps especially a divorce, she's probably been celibate for even longer.
She made the confession on a TV show, My Love Hell, on January 29 in which she chatted with former porn star Mihiro and model (and close friend) Tsubasa Masuwaka -- all divorcees.
When Mihiro said she had had only one romance since her divorce seven years ago, Suzuki suddenly went further. ...
Marriage counseling company Presia found that 70% of married Japanese women regret marrying their husbands, according to results in a survey report announced on January 7.
And the reason they regret their marriages? It's not what you might immediately think: appearance and fashion actually came in as the top results when polled on things they were willing to compromise on when selecting their partner. So if they didn't really mind too much what hubby looks like, why do they now regret marrying him?
Low income. This ranked by far the highest among the results when women were asked what they ...
Oh no. One of those surveys has appeared.
Despite our best efforts to celebrate the diverse and exciting sexual landscape in Japan, these perennial surveys reporting on sexlessness in the country get lots more attention and tarnish the reputation (probably made worse by our own regurgitation of them on these digital pages).
Of course, decline in sexual activities between long-term partners is common across the world and so is a decline in dating and sex among the young, though the reporting on it in Japan tends to veer toward the orientalist.
This latest survey is a bit different, because ...
We already wrote about this story back in September but now the mainstream foreign media is starting to pick up the survey by the Japanese Association for Sex Education, which examines the rate of sex and other forms of intimacy among junior and senior high school students.
Perhaps prompted by the publication of the full version of the survey and new reports about it in the Japanese media, liberal bastion the Guardian recently ran an article bemoaning the falling numbers of male Japanese school students who had never kissed.
As noted in September, the survey results indicate that only one ...
Sexless partnerships account for as much as 64% of marriages in Japan, according to one report by JEX Japan Sex Survey in 2024.
The lack of intimacy can be attributed to a range of factor, especially long working hours, small homes with thin walls, and the common custom of all the family sleeping in the same room on futons.
Abema Times recently interviewed some couples to find out more. The streamer spoke to people for whom sex is not an indispensable part of a marriage.
In fact, one woman in her thirties who has been married for six years has never had sex with her husband. They never ...
Tech is going to solve all our problems, right? Tech -- and especially AI -- is the Band-Aid, the panacea. Or so we are led to believe, and so the government certainly seems to believe.
We wrote before that the Japanese government is turning to artificial intelligence to fix the chronically declining birth rate, and that many prefectures are now involved with matchmaking services in a desperate bid to reverse the drop in marriages and, more importantly, babies.
While we personally think the issue is much more about the work culture in Japan and (like in other countries) the dilemma women ...
