Take our user survey and make your voice heard.
Men, no matter how old or how “masculine” they are, can learn a lot from crossdressing in public (trust us, we know).
But even if you do get the urge to unbuckle and skirt up, it can be difficult to find a time and place where going out in drag is socially acceptable. Throw in the added stress of having to coordinate an outfit and wig that sufficiently bring out your inner woman and the simple act of putting on women’s clothes and walking out the door can feel incredibly intimidating to first-timers.
Enter Onna no Ko Club, or Girls Club, a new club in Tokyo where curious men can go to experience the wonderful world of crossdressing.
Girls Club will have its grand opening on Saturday and is located in Shinjuku Ni-chome, Tokyo’s hub of gay subculture.
The club is aimed men who have never crossdressed before, and an entire wardrobe of women’s clothing and female cosplay outfits are available for those who don’t want to go out of their way to buy a new outfit/borrow their wife’s.
There are also vanity tables stocked with makeup and a selection of wigs, so all you need to do is show up with an open mind. You can have the staff help you with makeup — though they’re not guaranteed to be the most skilled — and customers are even permitted to walk around outside while wearing the clothes and wig provided for by the club.
Stockings and women’s underwear are also available, but must be purchased because nobody wants to wear your used panties.
Veterans are also welcome, and guests may arrive in full drag or bring their own clothes from home and change in one of the in-store dressing rooms.
If crossdressing isn’t your thing but a room full of Japanese men in dresses is something you would like to see with your own eyes, both male and female customers are free to keep on their gender-specific clothes.
The entrance fee is 2,000 yen for women or men already wearing women’s clothing and 3,000 yen for men, and covers the wardrobe, makeup and dressing room. Drinks are 500 yen.
You can find the address and directions below. If you’d like to be there for the grand opening, Girls Club will be throwing an opening party on Saturday from 20:00~05:00. Entrance is 3,000 yen for 2 hours all-you-can-drink, applicable to all customers.
■ Onna no Kurabu (Girls Club) Address: 4F SENSHO Building 13-16 Ni-chome, Shinjuku Hours: 20:00~05:00 Tel: 03-5357-7875 Access: Shinjuku Gyoenmae Station (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line, 2 min), Shinjuku Sanchome Station (Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin Line, 3 min), Shinjuku Station (JR, 6 min)
Read more stories from RocketNews24. -- 16 Things I Learned From Dressing in Drag: Confessions of a One-night Crossdresser -- Japanese “High School Girl Viewing Clubs” Let Customers Pay for Panty Shots, Unfazed by 2011 Crackdown -- Sexy, Sexy, Sexy: Because Real Men Wear Stockings in Winter
© RocketNews24
20 Comments
Login to comment
Yubaru
Ok.....just one more place to avoid on my next excursion in Shinjuku. Thanks for the information!
nath
Rocketnews24 carried this yesterday. If you do not know that page, look it up. Quite funny.
I am glad JT borrows from them often.
I want to check out this bar with hubby.
SimondB
In the midst of a blistering hot summers day in Tokyo I have often thought how much more comfortable it would be to dress in womens clothing. That thought apart, if I were younger I'd probably give this a go. After all, Y3,000 yen for all you can drink is worth dressing up for.
nath
not all you can drink (although 500 is cheap). Would be good to go for a look, but not to do nampa.
qazwsx
@AKBfan, opening party is all you can drink
paulinusa
Once I found myself walking behind a tranvestite in Tokyo. As most of you know, the Japanese do their best to avoid staring and in this instance it was priceless watching them try to be nonchalant.
titaniumdioxide
goosebumps
combinibento
So this is aimed at amateurs, in other words. Those who will blatantly look like men dressed up as girls. Aside from the novelty factor, what is interesting about this? To me such a club would only be worthwhile if the clientèle were experienced transvestites that could really pull it off. I mean the real queens out there, the gender-benders that have all the nuances down like the back of their feminine, manicured hands. Otherwise, a dress-up bar for curious first-timers sounds like a real drag.
shirokuma2011
Cross dresser -- (generally) heterosexual men (and women, too, I suppose) who are into wearing clothes of the opposite sex
Drag queen -- (generally) gay men who wear women's clothes, but take it to a more dramatic level, so to speak, often as part of a performance.
Transvestite -- generic term that has somewhat fallen out of use, not to be confused with transgender, which only incidentally has to do with clothing choices.
Sounds like this place is going after the whole, ahem, rainbow of possibilities. They might do good business--I imagine there must be a fair number of secret cross-dressing salaryman types who've been looking for an excuse to dress up in a public venue.
TheDevilsAssistant
No.... real men don't!
nath
I must show my hubby this later. He looks great in girl's clothing.
Aliasis
Sounds fun! Ni-chome is so great, I love the atmosphere of it. No one is afraid to be who they are, and despite it being a "night district" I always feel much safer there than in Shibuya or Roppongi or other clubbing areas. Since I'm a girl, I don't think it'd be very "exciting" for me to wear "men's clothes" since women can wear pretty much anything that mean wear, but I guess I can see how it'd be interesting for a guy to try women's clothes. Live and let live, I say!
Ronald F Stark
REAL MEN do NOT cross-dress!
GWhip
I like that the author of the story wrote "...wonderful world of crossdressing".
Aliasis
Real men can do whatever they want and still be real men. Same for real women. You don't get to arbitrarily decide what constitutes a "real" specimen of any gender due to cultural norms or your perception of how certain genders ought to act.
PS - it's 2012. :)
mangosqueezesbanana
i'll get warmed up here before i head to a cuddle cafe???
Fadamor
It's a TRAP! (Sorry, couln't resist)
ettou... this one will not be on my list of places to visit.
Korlacan Khanthavilay
Man, this sounds like an awesome place for me and some of my buddies. At least once. Go there, dress up as women, prowl the streets, and get hammered. As long as you're having fun, who cares where it's at.
sensei258
I once saw an OLD man wearing high heels, fishnets, and a red bustier in public. He didn't need to do it in a club.
Alexander Evans
**awesome