”I thought I’d do her a favor,” he says after approaching a woman who’s skilled with handcuffs, but not because she likes to get kinky.

Last Monday afternoon, a 17-year-old Japanese boy, who we’ll call “Taro,” was on the streets of Fukuoka’s downtown Batamachi neighborhood. Not unusually for a guy his age, he was scanning the crowds for attractive young women, but he wasn’t looking for a date.

Instead Taro was looking for women to recruit into the fuzoku, or adult entertainment, industry. The fuzoku trade covers a wide range of jobs, ranging from hostess bar work to sensual massage and non-penetrative sexual services.

Though of murky legality, this kind of on-the-street recruiting isn’t unheard of in Japan’s bar districts, and Taro felt the current economic climate would make it an especially effective strategy. “There are women who are short on cash because of the coronavirus,” he was later quoted as saying “so I figured I’d do her a favor and offer her work in a fuzoku business or adult videos.” And that was pretty much his whole pitch when he walked up to a woman who was passing by and, unsolicited, said to her “My company handles everything from hostess bars to adult videos. How about working for us?”

Unfortunately for Taro, he’d made a terrible choice of who to try to recruit. Not because there’s any evidence that the woman was unattractive, but because she turned out to be a plainclothes police officer who was patrolling the neighborhood. And with that, the teenager was immediately placed under arrest on charges of violating Fukuoka’s prefectural nuisance prevention regulations.

It’s unclear if the exact nature of the offense is the job offer itself, the fact that it was being delivered by a minor, or some combination of the two. In any case, it seems like the teen, who is listed in reports as “unemployed,” implying he’s not enrolled in school (compulsory education in Japan stops after junior high), is going to have to look for a new source of income himself (possibly while cursing his luck that he couldn’t have accidentally approached this policewoman instead).

Following the lifting of the government-declared state of emergency in Fukuoka, police have been receiving an increasing number of complaints about fuzoku scouts operating in the city’s downtown area, and it’s likely charges will also be coming for Taro’s employers, if their identity can be determined.

Sources: Livedoor News/Kyodo via Jin, Nishi Nippon Shimbun
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert image: Pakutaso
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