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Sometimes, romance in Japan looks very different than it does in other countries, such as when a man holds a wedding ceremony to declares his undying love for his favorite anime-style virtual idol. But in some aspects, romance in Japan is like it is in any other country, and not always in a good way.
For example, sometimes people in Japan cheat, giving in to the temptation to start a new romantic relationship without bothering to close out their old one. To try to see how common this is, Rize Clinic, a chain of hair-removal salons (which is starting a couples discount program) conducted a survey, asking men and women, both married and single, between the ages of 20 and 49 about their experiences with infidelity.
531 responses were collected, with 19.6 percent admitting to having cheated. The faithful/unfaithful ratio was pretty even between the sexes, with 19.2 percent of men saying they’d cheated in the past and only slightly more women, 20 percent, revealing the same.
However, there was a huge difference in when the cheaters did their cheating. Among married respondents, 38.5 percent of men had had an extramarital affair, more than twice as many as the 18.1-percent figure for married women. The women, however, were more likely to cheat as long as they didn’t have a ring on their finger, as 21.7 percent had been playing around behind their boyfriend’s back, compared to 12.9 percent of the single men who’d cheated on their girlfriends.
Temptation also struck at different ages for men and women, with the amount by age group that had cheated being:
While married men’s infidelity rates stayed steady, those for married women spiked in the 30-39 range before settling back down slightly. Unmarried women, on the other hand, became progressively more likely to have cheated in older age groups, whereas the unmarried men had the most dramatic jump of all, with the most faithful of all, single men in their 30s, being followed a group of cheaters almost six times larger for men in their 40s.
It’s worth keeping in mind that each individual respondent only represents one point on the age scale. Because of that, the data doesn’t necessarily mean that unmarried men stay on the straight and narrow path until they hit their 40s, then suddenly decide “Hey, if I’m still single, I may as well try to get as much tail as I can!” It could simply be that younger generations are more committed to their romantic partners, or possibly that they’re dating less in general, since if you’ve never had a girlfriend, you can’t have ever cheated on one either. And along those same lines, maybe the reason for the largest percentage of unmarried cheaters being in their 40s is that some of them got caught cheating during their 20s and 30s, which derailed their marriage prospects so badly that they’re still single in their 40s.
Source: PR Times
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© SoraNews24
20 Comments
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Luddite
Just because you are not married doesn't mean you are single, if you are in a relationship you are not single.
Concerned Citizen
Definitely not good to cheat especially if children suffer as a result. It's very painful for kids to see thier parents marriage strained or breaking up.
bullfighter
Indeed it is. I doubt that in "other countries" surveys done by hair removal salons are associated with romance.
progressive
a different meaning for the term "cheat day".
smithinjapan
Yeah, and of course all cheating partners will be absolutely honest on a survey like this. haha. Sorry, but I know MANY married women who cheat, the difference is they tend to have full-fledged relationships -- not just physical -- with other men whereas the men I know who cheat (in most cases) just do it for the booty.
Jonorth
I think it's weird to categorize people who aren't married but in a relationship as 'single'. The headline had me puzzled for a moment - didn't think someone who's single could cheat.
wtfjapan
My transgender bf James.
yep him also, if you have no problems with him seeing other guys/gals behind your back then so be it.
wtfjapan
It is your junk to do with it as you please.
if yove got no problems with your wife or GF doing it also then so be it
Vince Black
We have to go all the way to a hair removal salon for stats as reputable as these... sheesh...
Fouxdefa
I don't think so, some Japanese folktales have male characters who cheat and end up in scary situations (the women turned out to be a fox, a ghost of a famous beauty long dead, etc. )
Things might have been looser in the ancient past but no, the ideas of "ie" family lineage and legitimate vs. illegitimate offspring for example are quite old influenced by Confucian Chinese ideas of society and governance that Heian period Japan adopted (around 1000 ad). Government registration of households was tried but not widely enforceable until the Tokugawa regime in the 1600s, interestingly it began life as a "survey" of religious beliefs to stamp out Christianity. We still have the koseki family registry system that evolved from it.
Perhaps you mean in the past, it was common practice for men with money to have mistresses, romance, and fun on the side (since romance/sexual satisfaction and marriage were considered two very different things belonging to different spheres). Winked at by legitimate family members as long as it was kept in the category "illegitimate" and didn't interfere with their lives. It was only a very foolish man who would throw away his wealth and position in the ie lineage for the sake of a mistress, who was supposed to function as his bit of fun away from obligations and duties of home, but then you do get the huge Edo-period popularity of love-suicide stories perhaps arising from this system.
The ideas that marriage should be for love, not arranged for the continuation of bloodline lineages, and contain romance and sexual fulfillment of both parties and that cheating can be grounds for divorce/break-up are perhaps recent Western influences.
gogogo
Get out if you want to cheat, stop thinking about yourself for once.
Jimizo
That’s true for many people in many Christian countries too.
DaDude
Did the whole idea of cheating/adultery come to Japan via Western influences? I thought in Japan's history that made knowingly had several partners at the same time. Also Christian weddings in Japan are just for show, not serious vows to never commit adultery.
PerformingMonkey
Maybe it comes with being hirsute.
Maria
I wish people would take more care with adjective order within a sentence.
It should be "married Japanese men" , the order is no different from "single Japanese women"
thepersoniamnow
Its normal to want to have sex with people.
The better looking you are the harder it is to stay with one person imo.
What isn’t normal is losing your life and family over it.
jcapan
OMG, seriously, this is your source?