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The rumor mill had it that HIV, the AIDS virus, was spreading among users of “deaikei” (encounter) websites. These specialize in bringing strangers together as potential sexual partners. It sounded at least plausible, and so Spa! got a reporting team together.
Two months of research turned up one man who claimed to have been infected by a woman encountered through a deaikei site. One person in two months is hardly an epidemic, Spa! readily acknowledges. So you can take the following story for what you think it’s worth. Keep in mind as you read, Spa! suggests, that according to a Health Ministry report released in February, AIDS tests in 2006 turned up 1048 new cases of HIV infection -- an increase of 96 over 2005 and the most ever in a single year.
The man whose story Spa! tells is identified as “T.” At 38, married and with one child, he’s a veteran deaikei dater, having frequented deaikei websites and their terrestrial precursors (deaikei pubs, bars, telephone clubs and so on) since college.
He figured there wasn’t much about the genre he didn’t know, and its risks didn’t daunt him, not even enough to use a condom. An occasional dose of gonorrhea was the price you paid for an active night life, and he didn’t mind paying it.
Last fall he dropped into a hospital with symptoms of a minor sexually transmitted disease and was told, “Why not take an AIDS test? It’s anonymous and the results come through the same day.”
Why not?
When told he had tested positive, his first reaction was, “Impossible!” Well, it was only a preliminary result, he was told; the final one would be released next day. It, too, was positive.
“I’d heard rumors about ‘deaikei AIDS women,’” T tells Spa! “but I figured it was mostly malice.”
Malice takes many forms. “In retrospect,” he says, “I thought I knew who had infected me.” He wanted revenge.
His imagination was working overtime. He would strangle her, but then, he decided, she probably had yakuza protection. He tried calling her, but she had apparently changed her cell phone number.
For a long time he’d been seeing a psychiatrist for depression. The depression deepened. He and his wife divorced. He learned that “the AIDS woman” was still operating at the deaikei site; “she must have slept with dozens of guys since.” He thought of warning them, but then thought, “Why should it be just me? Let them all get AIDS!”
He refused treatment and instead spent more time than ever pursuing deaikei sex. “I slept with more women than I can count -- two, three a week. No condoms. If the girl insisted, I prevailed on her to do it without one. Let them arrest me. I’m not raping anyone. Maybe I’ll commit suicide.”
Does this sound far-fetched? It doesn’t to Dr Tsuneo Akaeda, a gynecologist who for years has offered free weekly health consultations in Roppongi. He tells Spa! of a woman in her 20s who, when tested and found HIV positive, burst out, “Why me? Why? My friends play around much more than I do, without condoms.”
But when she came the following day for more precise testing, Akaeda says, she was calm, even when the positive result was confirmed. “Doctor,” she said, “I don’t want treatment. Instead, I’m going to do it with every guy who tries to pick me up.”
“I haven’t heard from her since,” says Akaeda. “She might very well be active on deaikei sites.”
© Japan Today
14 Comments
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antizombie
AIDS is spreading in Japan with the wrong and naive ideas that this illness only affects foreigners and most people do not use condoms. Moreover, there is no sexual education and most people are unaware of STDs. Personally, I was amazed when a Japanese woman in her 30s told me that she wanted to be more sexual active to become big bossomed. I could not believe what I was listening!
Loki520
Any chance I can get HIV by reading about it on JT?
Altria
You should be safe as long as you don't click on the advertisements for Japanese dating sites!
gogogo
This is wrong, it is anonymous to take the test, but if you are infected the doctor by law has to submit the name and details to the Japanese government, also if you're a foreigner your visa will not be renewed once it expires.
Hughgarse
are you having a laugh? serious?
noborito
gogogo you've got to be kidding. Sexually active people have a responisblity to get tested. The free clint doesn't ask you for your name, address, or telephone number. Nothing. No ID. Everyone is assigned a number. Get tested. Telephone number to Shinjuku Free Testing center 03.3377.0811 do a search to get their address.
noborito
gogogo you've got to be kidding. Sexually active people have a responsibility to get tested. The free clinic doesn't ask you for your name, address, or telephone number. Nothing. No ID. Everyone is assigned a number. Get tested. Telephone number to Shinjuku Free Testing center 03.3377.0811 do a search to get their address.
Badsey
I hope alot of young people read this and realize the maliciousness of the few = you need to protect yourself, or the possibility of living/loving in sickness is real. =get tested before sex.
The_Marion
Knowing that AIDS was on Okinawa, I checked with Washington and was informed that infected military were discharged with 100% disability and within "5 years they were gone."
It is those five years that give me to wonder as to AIDS in the States. I suggest that everyone who is "sexually active" go to their doctors and be tested.
Back then there was no cure for HIV/AIDS and even today, I hear we are only close to finding a "cure."
tkoind2
There is still no cure. Only better treatment. You get to live with it a little longer. And I have not read anything solidly indicating that a cure is close.
I think this article is mostly sham. Perhaps there are a few people out there who don't care or are angry and taking it out on others. More likely this is a moral urban legend intended to encourage people to think about their actions or to underline the moral problems with this kind of dating service.
Would recommend that people be careful. Use a condom.
Twenty4Play
At first glance, this was surprising. But after thinking about it.. not so much, there was scares of people running around with needles and poking people to infect them with AIDS years ago back in the USA. Whether it's true or not... it's definitely possible and even probable that people could be capable of this after dealing with the mental stress of finding out they have HIV/AIDS.
On another note... as for STD testing, I am surprised with this country, I get tested at least twice a year. But both of my ex Japanese g/f's have admitted that they have NEVER been tested!!! And they were in their late 20's!!!
BTW, Noborito, thanks a lot for the free clinic contact info, I just sent it out my g/f LOL... I think I'm in the dog house.
KaptainKichigai
Did none of you see the HIV check box on your Visa application? It is right beneath the "do you have any tatoos?" for your "No Public Baths" status on your Gaijin card.
KitsuneYoukai
Sounds like another act by insane people to further the decline of the Japanese people since their birth rates are not on the rise. How could anyone blame evreyone else out there for the results of their promiscuity. Not to mention the poor wife.
fingerless
Typical, he develops an obsession about “the AIDS woman” and he never contemplates any remorse about the possible infections he himself may have caused. It's such a backward notion that women are the containers of AIDS and they entrap innocent men who out of good faith don't use protection as they take a vacation from their marital responsibilities.