This series of posts will be an attempt to introduce Japan's huge sex industry and its derivatives, omitting as much as possible the information that can be gleaned from the English Wikipedia (which is not very useful, but rather misleading), and looking at it from the point of view of a customer who has had hundreds of punt experiences in Japan. As the first in a series of posts, this post will be about high end soapland（ソープランド）, the biggest representative of the Japanese punt industry, and when and if the rest of the series will be completed will depend on whether or not there will be another half-drunken night of nostalgia for Tokyo. Forgive me if my writing makes you uncomfortable, English is not my first language.
Necessary information before the startUnlike the UK, most Japanese punt is in the form of shops, and information on almost all of them (not just soapland, but also other punt forms) can be found at the following website, which may require a Jp vpn:
External Link/Members OnlyPlease note that although this website has a "the shop accepts foreigners" page, a large number of shops that do accept foreign customers are not listed, and the best way to find out is to call the shop directly.
Some shops will also have their own websites and have accounts on Twitter
ReservationThe majority of high end soapland shops operate on a reservation system, with the girls' rota usually set at the beginning of each month, but the website will usually only publish the schedule for the week thereafter.
Reservations are usually made by phone or Line (similar to WhatsApp), but can sometimes be made through the website or email. It's also feasible to DM girls(In Japanese, we generally refer to girls who work in soapland asソープ嬢) on Twitter for reservations, which are known as 姫予約.
Please note that some shops do not accept foreign customers at all, some accept foreign customers but require them to be able to converse in Japanese to a certain extent, and some shops do not require any nationality or language ability at all. Even within the same shop, different girls may have different requirements. Please be sure to check all of this when making the reservation.
Choosing of girlsPhotos and basic information about the girls are usually provided in the website for reference, but these photos are basically Photoshopped. Most of the girls have accounts on Twitter and upload their own photos, and although most of these photos are also Photoshopped, they are relatively more credible than the website one that were taken by professional photographers.
The age of a girl provided on a website is generally not her real age, but a system known as Yoshiwara age（𠮷原年齢）, which is roughly related to her real age as follows:20=20-22 21=23-25 22=26-28 23=29-31 24=32-34 25=35-37
Time and costAll high end soapland is about two hours long, regardless of the number of cums.
The exact cost varies depending on the shop and is usually between 80,000 and 120,000 yen. Foreign customers may be charged an additional 10,000 to 20,000 yen. If you choose the same girl multiple times, you may also be levied an additional fee of several thousand to ten thousand yen. The above prices are without promotions, which are generally not available to foreigners.
Instead of listing the total cost on the shop's official website, the shop's website usually shows a cost of around 30,000 yen, known as 入浴料, which is about one-third of the actual price.
Actual experienceDepending on the shop and the girl, the process and content of the service may vary, and the following experience is only one of the more common possibilities. To be clear, since I am not black or white, I don't know if shops and girls exhibit different attitudes towards foreign guests.
Assuming that your chosen shop is located in Yoshiwara, which is the centre of soapland, you will generally need to arrive at Nippori Station, the nearest major station to the area, thirty minutes before your reservation time. A shop-arranged car (usually a Toyota Alphard) will pick you up and take you to the shop. The exact pick-up time, pick-up location, and licence plate number will be confirmed at the time of reservation. During busy periods, there may not be a car available, in which case you can take a taxi and the shop will reimburse you for the taxi fare.
Upon arriving at the shop, you are first guided to the waiting room by a staff member (usually male) who reconfirms your choice of girl and pays for it (usually in cash, although most shops accept credit cards, which levy a very high processing fee), and in the process you are usually also given a soft drink, a trip to the toilet, and enjoy the staff's good attitude, which so far I haven't experienced at this level in the UK, even at a three-star Michelin restaurant in London.
You'll then be guided to the stairway where the girl will be waiting for you, and from the moment you meet her, an extremely high level of GFE begins, which is even more fun if you're able to converse in simple Japanese. But don't worry if you don't know any Japanese at all, some of the girls have a decent level of English, I once patronised a girl who worked as a stewardess at JAL before and she was at least more fluent than me. And for the girls who don't speak good English, one girl I once patronised told me she uses Google Translate to communicate when dealing with foreign customers.
The girl will direct you to the room, which generally consists of a bed, a bathtub, and an open area for マット(A mattress that resembles a waterbed, very common in J-AV, forgive me, I don't know what to call this thing in English). This room is usually much bigger than a £100 a night hotel room in Tokyo.
The girl will help you undress while she does. Some DFK may accompany this period. Depending on the style of the girl and the girl's first impression of you (whether this impression is good or bad girls don't usually show it on their faces, but in any case remember to brush your teeth, wash your face and shave before you leave the hotel!), the girl may start OWO or inviting you into the bath straight away, not that inviting you into the bath in the first place means that the girl's first impression of you is necessarily bad, but rather that the girl's style may be just that. Assuming your girl started OWO straight away, you're likely to be entwined in bed for a while now and complete the first time. Insertion is usually done under the protection of a condom, but some acquaintances may be spared the interference of a rubber. Anyway, concern about HIV and syphilis is for the most part unnecessary, and all of the high end soapland shop will arrange for girls to be regularly tested for STDs at a high frequency.
After that, the girl will invite you to get into the bathtub and she will do the same after completing her preparations for the subsequent stages, and the OWO in the water is something to look forward to.
Then after that, the girl will sit you on a stool with a groove in the centre (for the girl's hand to pass through). The girl will soap you in a body to body fashion, which is where the term soapland comes from.
After you've rinsed off the soap suds, you'll usually soak in the bath again. At the same time, the girl would flatten マット against the wall and apply a layer of lubricant to it. Then after you move onto the マット, the girl will coat herself with lubricant as well and slide around on your body, sounding a bit like Slime. Different girls have completely different techniques for this stage, which generally include various forms of licking and friction. After that it's usually done a second time on マット.
After rinsing off the lubricant from your body and drying off, the girl will sit on the bed with you and chat while the shop staff bring in some drinks.The chat can be very wide ranging, from personal experiences to hobbies to other content, which is an important part of showing GFE. After that, a third time may be completed in bed if the remaining time permits, but generally time is not so plentiful.
The girl will help you get dressed. Before leaving the room, if the girl wants to make you a regular, she will give you a business card and exchange contact information with you (usually Line, unfortunately Japanese people don't use Whatsapp.) Some girls will also write you a message or a sketch on the back of the card. The message might be "It was really happy meeting you today, and we had a really interesting conversation about films, I hope to see you again when you have time."
Finally the girl will drop you off at the stairway, where you first met. The staff will pick you up there, go into the waiting room and after a drink and a toilet break, a car arranged by the shop will take you back to Nippori Station.
Normally speaking, this is the end of this punting. But if you have exchanged contact information with the girl before, it may bring different results. The girl may chat with you from time to time and set a date for the next time you visit her in the shop. Once you've really become a regular, like five or six times, it's not impossible to have dinner outside the shop or go to the aquarium together. This sounds like someone working in 水商売(referring to the profession of those who work in clubs and profit from the sale of heavily premiumised drinks, also known as Host and hostess, I may dedicate an post to this system if I have time in the future and someone wants to read it) would do to the customer, and it is. Many girls are said to have learnt their tactics and attitudes towards their customers from how they were treated by the host they frequented.
Potential points of dissatisfactionDuring the entire soapland process, the pace is completely in the girl's control. Some customers who like to take the initiative may not enjoy this experience.
