This article is reproduced from the discontinued, but much loved Mainichi Waiwai column by Ryann Connell. Read more about this at the bottom of this article.
Special note: One of the right-wing Japanese sites that helped bring Waiwai down translated this article fully into Japanese. But, I think they got the title wrong.. They translated it as, 「母は、成績を落とさないために堕落する」, but we would’ve gone with, 「母は、成績を上げるために堕落する」, or just plainly, 「母は、成績を落とさないためにフェラをする」. The full Japanese translation can be found at the bottom of this page.
Dad comes home from an “adult toy store” and hands his wife a chastity belt. She nods and turns to the couple’s 15-year-old son. “Let’s go,” she says. They disappear into the boy’s bedroom. The story begins with Japan’s obsessive exam culture. A boy’s whole future can depend on the senior high school he gets into. Some mothers will do anything to make sure their junior high school sons pass the all-determining entrance exams. Anything? Pretty nearly.
Asahi Geino hears the story of (not their real names) Meiko, 38, and her son Haruki from Kanagawa cram school director Yukio Shibagaki, who wrote a book on experiences like theirs.
Every evening at 8:00, Haruki would vanish into his room, ostensibly to study. Meiko was pleased — until one night she caught a glimpse of him through the slightly open door and realized he was not studying but masturbating. Intrigued, she peeked into his room the following night, and the night after that. The conclusion was inescapable. At the rate he was going, he would not be ready for his tests.
“I’d better have a talk with him,” she thought — and did.
“Mom,” he said, shyly but firmly, “I wanna do it with you.”
“With me!” What to do? Be shocked and angry, or calm and understanding? “Let’s see what your father says.”
Father was surprised but kept his head. “No genital sex,” he stipulated. “However, if it’s just a question of making the boy feel good, I won’t say no.”
And so every evening Haruki’s studying was prefaced by a 15-minute maternal blow job. His concentration improved; his marks soared. Everyone was happy — except dad, whose doubts grew as time passed. Weren’t things going a little too far? The chastity belt, at least, would close the last frontier.
Our first reaction is disbelief, but Shibagaki swears the story is not only true but also fairly typical, and special high school instructor Tadashi Sato, to whom Asahi Geino goes for confirmation, agrees.
“I often hear stories like that,” he says. The mother-son relationship has always had rich dramatic potential; the steadily contracting nuclear family can enrich the drama to the point of deviance. “Mothers do want their children to pass those exams,” says Sato. “We’re not talking about just a few cases.”
Nor are we talking only about 15-year-olds. Akiko (as we’ll call her) is 28, her son Atsushi 12. He too faces entrance exams — junior high school ones. The boy seemed to be studying. Why was he floundering? “Why?” Akiko asked him one day. The answer was a seeming non sequitur, but Akiko saw the point. “I want to see a woman naked.”
Akiko undressed. “I’ll do it again for you if you do well on your next test, OK?” He did very well.
There are endless ramifications to the sex-for-grades business, Asahi Geino discovers. Teachers too get in on the act. Some third-year junior high school teachers are not above capitalizing on the leverage they wield. Some ask for money in return for influential written recommendations. Others ask for sex. Thus Mari, 37-year-old mother of a daughter about to graduate junior high, took to visiting the girl’s divorced teacher at his home. One afternoon the teacher’s 14-year-old son showed up unexpectedly. “Me too!” he insisted. And Mari obliged, says Shibagaki.
Japanese translation of “More mums going down, to ensure grades go up”:
「母は、成績を落とさないために堕落する」
父親は「大人のオモチャ屋」から帰って来て、彼の妻に貞操ベルトを手渡す。 彼女はうなづき、15歳の息子のことを考える。「行きましょう。」と、彼女は言う。彼らは少年の寝室へと消える。この話は日本の強迫的な試験文化と共に始まる。少年のすべての未来は、彼が入学する高校にかかっている。彼女らの中学生の息子が入学試験に合格するのを確実にするためには、どんなことでもする母親もいる。どんなことでも?ほとんどそれに近い。アサヒ芸能は、神奈川県の塾経営者のユキオ・シバガキから、38歳のメイコ(仮名)と彼女の息子ハルキについての話を聞いた。ユキオは、彼女たちと同じような経験についての本を書いた。毎晩8時に、ハルキは表面上勉強するために彼の部屋へと消えていく。メイコはそれが嬉しかった―ある晩わずかに開いているドアを通って彼をちらりと見て、彼が勉強しておらず、オナニーをしていたとわかった時まで。彼女は好奇心をそそられ、次の晩、またその次の晩、彼の部屋を覗き見た。結論は不可避的なものだった。彼はテストの準備ができていないようだった。
彼女は考えた―「私は息子と話したほうがいい。」「お母さん。」彼は内気に、しかし、しっかりと言った。「お母さんといっしょにしたい。」「私といっしょに!」どうすべきだろう?ショックを受けるべき?怒るべき?それとも、落ち着くべき?理解してあげるべき? 「お父さんが何と言うかきいてみましょう」父親は驚いたが冷静だった。彼は、「生殖器のセックスはダメだ」と決めた。「しかし、それが息子を気持ちよくさせるだけのものであるなら、私は反対するつもりはない」それから毎晩、ハルキの研究は15分間の母親によるフェラチオで始められた。彼の集中力は向上した。彼の成績は急上昇した。皆は幸福だった―時間が経ち、その行為に対する疑問がふくらんだ父親を除いて。物事が少し行き過ぎてしまったのではないだろうか?貞操ベルトは少なくとも最後の未開の地を閉じてしまった。
最初私たちは信じられなかったが、アラガキは、この話が本当であるだけではなく、かなりよくある話だと言い、それに特別な高校のインストラクターのタダシ・サトウも同意すると誓った(アサヒ芸能が確認した)。「私はしばしばそのような話を聞きます。」と、彼は言った。母親と息子との関係には、豊かなドラマチックな可能性を秘めている。核家族は異常なところまでドラマを豊かにすることができる。「母親は、自分の子供にどうしても試験に合格して欲しいのです。」と、サトウは言う。「私たちは例外的なケースだけに関して話しているわけではありません。」
15歳のケースだけではない。アキコは28歳であり、彼女の息子アツシは12である。彼もまた中学の入学試験に直面している。彼は勉強しているように見えた。なぜ彼は悩んでいたのか? 「なぜ?」アキコはある日、彼にたずねた。アキコは、外観上からの不確かな推論だったが、答えを理解した。「僕は裸の女性を見たい。」アキコは服を脱いだ。「あなたが次のテストでいい成績だったら、私はあなたのためにまたこれをやるわ。」 彼の成績はよくなった。
「成績のためのセックスビジネス」には終わらない細分化の傾向があるとアサヒ芸能が発見した。教師もその行為に加わっている。ある者は推薦状の見返りにお金を求める。他の者はセックスを求める。そして、中学を卒業する娘を持つ37才の女性マリは、娘の離婚した教師の家へ通い始めた。ある午後、教師の14才の息子が突然現れ、「僕も!」と言った。そしてマリは受け入れた、とシバガキは言った。
〜★〜★〜★〜★〜★〜★〜★〜★〜
(The Mainichi Waiwai column ran online from April 19, 2001 – June 21, 2008. It was a much loved form of entertainment amongst foreigner in and outside of Japan. To any reader it was obviously not serious news, but it was a set of articles that portrayed quite well how the Japanese tabloids actually write about their own country. In 2008, a small number of Japanese people bought it to the attention of rival news groups that Mainichi was running an anti-Japan column on its website. With the bad publicity, Mainichi was forced to shut the page down, and take punitive measures against the journalists that were working on it, claiming that it was receiving opinions that were critical of the column, such as “its contents are too vulgar” and “the stories could cause Japanese people to be misunderstood abroad”. A perfect example of how Japanese consider what they write in their own script to be an acceptable secret code, that the rest of the world cant understand. When that same tabloid rubbish gets inconveniently translated to English to make light of some aspects of the Japanese people, it gets canned. Stippy.com finds this unacceptable, and will reproduce as much of the Waiwai content as possible in order to bring it once again to our computer screens for a good laugh. Of course we claim no credit for this content, and attribute it to it’s writers who were former Mainichi employees. Waiwai in its true and glorious form has been discontinued, but it’s legacy will live on at stippy.com for all to enjoy.)