No-pan kissa (Japanese: ノーパン喫茶, Hepburn: Nōpan kissa, pronounced [noːpaŋ kiꜜssa], lit. 'no-panties cafés') are Japanese sex establishments offering food and drinks served by waitresses wearing short skirts with no underwear. The floors, or sections of the floor, are sometimes mirrored.[1]
Shops generally operate under a "no-touch" policy.[2] The shops otherwise look like normal coffee shops (kissaten), rather than sex establishments, although they charge a premium price for the coffee.[1] Previously, most sex establishments, such as soaplands and pink salons, were staffed with professional prostitutes. No-pan kissa were a popular employment choice amongst some women because they paid well and generally required little sexual contact with the customers.[citation needed]
The first one to open was in Osaka in 1980.[3] Initially, all of them were in remote areas outside the traditional entertainment districts. Within a year, large numbers had opened in many more places, such as major railway stations.[4]
In the 1980s (the peak of the boom in these shops), many started to have topless or bottomless waitresses.[5] However, at this point, the number of such shops started to decline rapidly.[1]
Eventually, such coffee shops gave way to fashion health (massage) clubs and few no-pan kissa, if any, remain.[1] The New Amusement Business Control and Improvement Act came into force on February 13, 1985, which further restricted the sex industry and protected the more traditional businesses.[6]
In addition to no-pan kissa, there have also been no-pan shabu-shabu[7] and no-pan karaoke.[2][8]
In 1998, four officials at the Ministry of Finance were arrested and 112 disciplined for accepting bribes in the form of visits to a no-pan shabu-shabu restaurant in Shinjuku.[9]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b c d "No-pan kissa (No-panty cafes)". Japan for the Uninvited. 23 June 2006. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
- ^ a b Allison, Anne (1994). Nightwork: sexuality, pleasure, and corporate masculinity in a Tokyo hostess club. University of Chicago Press. pp. 131–132. ISBN 0-226-01487-8.
- ^ Buruma, Ian (1984). Behind the mask: on sexual demons, sacred mothers, transvestites, gangsters, drifters and other Japanese cultural heroes. Pantheon Books. p. 111. ISBN 0-394-53775-0.
- ^ Bestor, Theodore C. (1989). Neighborhood Tokyo. Studies of the East Asian Institute. Stanford University Press. p. 42. ISBN 0-8047-1797-4.
- ^ Anahori, Tadashi (1 February 2017). "Revisit the retro glory of Japan's 1980s no-pan kissa (no-panties cafes) | Tokyo Kinky Sex, Erotic and Adult Japan". www.tokyokinky.com. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
- ^ Suei, Akira (1990). "Araki - Tokyo Lucky Hole". Michael Hoppen Gallery. Archived from the original on 23 September 2018. Retrieved 23 September 2018.
- ^ "Ministry officials 'demanded' sex club entertainment". New Sunday Times. 28 January 1998. Retrieved 2012-12-28.
- ^ Allison, Anne (2000). Permitted and prohibited desires: mothers, comics, and censorship in Japan. University of California Press. p. 170. ISBN 0-520-21990-2.
- ^ "Entertainment at lurid shabu-shabu establishment got bankers, bureaucrats in hot water". Japan Today. 2018-12-31. Retrieved 2024-09-23.
- Akira Suei, "The Lucky Hole as the Black Hole" in Nobuyoshi Araki, Tokyo Lucky Hole, ISBN 3-8228-4681-3.
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