14 DAY TRIAL // It seems there is a huge gap between Japan's sex toys, porn, hentai and sexy TV shows and the way real sex occurs there.
Japan's population is estimated at around 127,463,611 and is correlated with one of the highest life expectancy rates in the world, of 81.25 years (in fact, today's oldest living person is a Japanese woman).
But the Japanese population is rapidly aging (about 20 % is over 65) and the effect of a post-war baby boom was followed by a births drop in the second half of the 20th century.
Many Japanese youth are increasingly choosing not to marry or have families as adults and the country's population is expected to drop to 100 million by 2050 and to 64 million by 2100.
Japanese researchers, extremely preoccupied by the plunging birth rate, tackled the issue. They found that 39.7 % of Japanese citizens aged 16-49 have not had sex for over a month, a 5 % rise from a research made two years ago.
The survey found that among married couples, the results were just a little bit more positive, at 34.6 %. "This is very bad news for the country's birth rate, and something the government needs to look into urgently," said Dr. Kunio Kitamura, the family planning association's director.
The Japan's birthrate dropped in 2005 to a record of just 1.26 births in an average woman's lifetime. The demographic changes have risen a number of social issues, particularly a potential decline in the tax paying workforce population, labor shortages and increases in the cost of social security benefits such as the public pension plan. "The situation is dismal. My research shows that if you don't have sex for a month, you probably won't for a year", said Kitamura.
The researchers believe the stress from busy working lives, repression, cultural norms stretched and challenged by a generation rebelling against the restrictions on media and expression and sexuality cause the drop in fertility.
It seems that the Japanese women, empowered by financial situation find no more fun and obligation in transforming themselves in obeying children factories.
Apparently the Japanese are also losing their communication skills due to the intensive use of the Internet. "A decline in physical communication skills in an increasingly Web-based society was also a factor," he said.
The November 2006 survey targeted 2,713 randomly selected people, and got answers from 636 men and 773 women. In a 2006 research made at University of Chicago, Japan came last in a 29-country study of sexual satisfaction, with just 25.7 % of the couples declaring to be satisfied.
It was also the last in a 41 nations 2005 research made by condom manufacturer Durex, with people having on average just 45 sexual contacts yearly compared to a global average of 103.