44-year-old man arrested after paying minor for sex

Why a hotel? Is he married?

Its called a Love Hotel. Common here in Japan.

Naturally, the girl was totally innocent and had no idea what kind of transaction she was entering into.

Surely a decent journalist would check her twitter profile for age. Although at the price quoted I think the police have a good idea the man knew. I was accosted outside Tenoji station and quotet 15,000 yen. Although that was a good ten years ago.

I was accosted outside Tenoji station and quotet 15,000 yen.

And they say romance is dead

I was accosted outside Tenoji station and quotet 15,000 yen. Although that was a good ten years ago.

Jeez. I could buy like three melons for that.

Naturally, the girl was totally innocent and had no idea what kind of transaction she was entering into.

Irrelevant. The adult in the equation should know better.

Repugnant behaviors here never seem end.

Seems men in Japan have learned to skirt the rules of acceptable behavior in a civilized society

and will continue to do so when there are those that continue to condone it.

snowymountainhellToday  11:19 am JST

Seems men in Japan have learned to skirt the rules of acceptable behavior in a civilized society

and will continue to do so when there are those that continue to condone it.

Only in Japan??? Sounds a bit myopic!

Naturally, the girl was totally innocent and had no idea what kind of transaction she was entering into.

Naturally, someone on JT has to show their support of the pervert, and even gets voted up as of now.

It’s a two way street. She should also be arrested for underage prostitution.

From April 1 teenager become adults.

That was last year, and it has nothing to do with the age of consent for sex.

Police said the case came to light after another girl consulted police about a similar meeting with Awazu.

Sounds like sour grapes between the girls. At 17, she is physically adult does not look different from 18 or 19. His mistake not ask for an ID, but he probably did not expect to get trapped like that.

Wow slow news day...this type of incident occurs basically worldwide.

It's called guy got no game but some cash on the side for girl willing to become 'entrapped.'

Most prudent persons only enter into legitimate business agreements with those other adults that possess and can produce adequate identification.  Another reason specific rules of engagement and laws should be adhered to: so those with otherwise nefarious intent and sanctimonious actions are often prone to eventually falling from grace and public favor once exposed.

“According to police, Ko Awazu, a company employee, is accused of taking the girl, whom he met on Twitter, to a hotel on Jan 30 and paying her 25,000 yen to have sex with him, … the case came to light after another girl consulted police about a similar meeting with Awazu” -

So hypocritical.

There is no such thing like license to have sex, which I remind some is the essence of life.

Who cares. This is no big deal. She's 17. She knows what's up. Decriminalize this already.

snowymountainhell

Most prudent persons only enter into legitimate business agreements with those other adults that possess and can produce adequate identification.

...hardly in the world of escort service, especially when the small head interferes with the big head. I do agree he SHOULD have asked, althout that surely spoils the atmosphere.

It obvious the girl knew what she was doing.

Police said the case came to light after another girl consulted police about a similar meeting with Awazu.

In fact, it is appears another underage teen was upset that he was seeing someone else and also giving them money that could have been hers.

Jealousy not concern for her peer motivated one teen to report another teen after they both committed the same act.

@Garypen: Think that's Total Recall you're thinking off.

Appreciate you could understand the intended context of the term “*legitimate business” @WilliB and I do acknowledge that ‘escort services’ are also be considered lawful businesses, … in some* jurisdictions.

However, in Japan, prostitution is still considered illegal, regardless of age.

Perhaps Japan may need to address that overall issue first as the ‘sex industry’ in all its forms here, is estimated to generate about $24 Billion a year.?

Any sexual acts by an adult with a minors should remain illegal.

Of course this guy should be punished. But what I find to be disturbing is that while paying minors for sex are sometimes be punished, forcible rape of minors in Japan are almost never punished, especially when it is done by teachers, etc. For some reason Japanese law makes rape de facto legal while prostitution faces some punishment, when rape logically should be punished more severely. When is the last time you saw news of someone actually getting jail/prison time for rape in Japan? It always ends in non prosecution.

Any sexual acts by an adult with a minors should remain illegal.

That gets a bit complicated. Currently, people under 20 are deemed minors. Yet women can get married at 16 and men at 18.

snowymountainhell

Perhaps Japan may need to address that overall issue first as the ‘sex industry’ in all its forms here, is estimated to generate about $24 Billion a year.?

Sex industry is as old as mankind and will never go away. It will just adjust to various situation (such as the strange sexual service in Japan, which are completely legal, as long as they do not cross the boundary to what the law considers "sex".) Anyway, in this case it very much seems this guy fell victim to a personal issue between the two girls.

Understood @WilliB 3:33pm and not judging those adults choosing such work, as long as it is a choice made without any type of coercion. - The point here concerning ‘minors’ is there should be appropriate and adequate physical & mental health education in Japan’s junior high schools. Such curriculum could provide sufficient information about the realistic possibilities of engaging in any kind of sexual acts, at any age.

- “Sex industry is as old as mankind …” -

snowymountainhell

Understood @WilliB 3:33pm and not judging those adults choosing such work, as long as it is a choice made without any type of coercion. - The point here concerning ‘minors’ is there should be appropriate and adequate physical & mental health education in Japan’s junior high schools. Such curriculum could provide sufficient information about the realistic possibilities of engaging in any kind of sexual acts, at any age.

There is no indication that any coercian was involved, and no reason to assume that curriculum changes in Jr high school would make a difference. The pull of 25,000 yen for any young girl interested in fashion gadgets etc is high.

Once again for those trying to portray things out of context, no one claimed either girl in this story was coerced. You got it @WilliB 5:13pm but the obstinate are obsessive. The @4:42pm points were:

“not judging those adults choosing such work, as long as it is a choice made without any type of coercion.”

and “there should be adequate physical & mental health education in Japan’s junior high schools, providing sufficient information about the realistic possibilities of engaging in any kind of sexual acts, at any age.” -

Shouldn’t be hard to understand.

Can’t understand why someone would not want teenagers in junior high to start receiving sex education from certified health instructors in order to learn to protect themselves for STDs, etc. …

… unless there are those here that can’t handle the idea of teenagers knowing they have other options in life and perhaps would prefer to ‘groom’ them for their own lascivious purposes.

Let them try to make an argument against sex education.

There is so much missing in this news article - namely fact checking. The article does not mention if she was forced, but it does seem to suggest that it was done willingly - but I don't want to assume because she could have "agreed" out of fear for her safety.

It's also not clear how the price of 250,000 yen was derived - in other words did she agree and this price was agreed by both? And there's mention what the Twitter chats revealed.

Please don't get me wrong. I don't support this guy and what he did but I really hate when articles like this lack any effort to do any sort of fact finding. If the facts were not readily available at the time they were reporting this then mention something to that effect (i.e., "at the time of this writing, the Twitter chat and the verifying of his claims have not been confirmed").

To me that's just lazy reporting and I generally stop reading the article when there is so much missing information. But the only reason I am responding is because of this comment:

AscissorMar. 7  08:57 am JST

I was accosted outside Tenoji station and quotet 15,000 yen.

And they say romance is dead

LOL! Sorry, that response made me laugh for some reason. :-)

Sorry - I got the price wrong. It was 25,000 yen and not 250,000 yen.

Japanese women are soliciting customers themselves on social media. They want to buy branded bags to show off to friends and parents will not buy that not these girls have any skill to earn money legally so this is the only option left for these females. Japanese women propagates material and greed culture. If there was justice 17 year old girl would have been arrested for using social media for such immoral business. Culprit is greed of minor not the man. Even if you sell something illegal buyers will come. It is better to arrest the young female dealer than customer.

Kei KuronoToday 02:08 pm JST

Japanese women are soliciting customers themselves on social media. They want to buy branded bags to show off to friends and parents will not buy that not these girls have any skill to earn money legally so this is the only option left for these females. Japanese women propagates material and greed culture. If there was justice 17 year old girl would have been arrested for using social media for such immoral business. Culprit is greed of minor not the man. Even if you sell something illegal buyers will come. It is better to arrest the young female dealer than customer.

Yes, it's totally not the adult man's fault that he is attracted to teenagers, and decided one day to go out and pay for sex from one. No, he is the innocent one - it is the teenager's fault that this adult man took a sexual interest in her. After all, if she had been at home in a dark room wearing a burka, he never would have been tempted to sexually molest her.

She should be ashamed of tempting him by existing as a teenager right there in front of him.

Another innocent 17 year old going on 28.

These young girls have to be careful whom they're going to meet.

ChottobakaToday 01:08 am JST

Another innocent 17 year old going on 28.

I agree! Those teenage girls are minxes. Men have zero responsibility for actively looking for paid sex from teens, since it's such a normal male desire to want to have sex with young girls. It's totally that teenager's fault than an adult man old enough to be her father went looking for paid sex with a teenager. She should be ashamed for being too sexy for him to resist.

Naturally, the girl was totally innocent and had no idea what kind of transaction she was entering into.

Yes. There's a reason that minors are not allowed to sign contracts, etc. She wasn't mature enough to understand what she was doing. He was. He is the criminal here. She is innocent.