Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club

by Anne Allison

Book Overview

In Nightwork, Anne Allison opens a window onto Japanese corporate culture and gender identities. Allison performed the ritualized tasks of a hostess in one of Tokyo's many "hostess clubs" pouring drinks, lighting cigarettes, and making flattering or titillating conversation with the businessmen who came there on company expense accounts. Her book critically examines how such establishments create bonds among white-collar men and forge a masculine...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226014878
• ISBN13: 9780226014876
• Release Date: May 1994
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 228 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful look into the lived experiences of Japanese businessmen

The book does a great job showing the ways that Japanese businessmen spend their time. The greatest aspect of this book is it's intimacy. Allison unpacks what is truly taking place in these hostess clubs-corporate masculinity, fascinating relationships, and complex gender roles. The book is a "must read" and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading rich ethnographic work.

Massage Parlors of the Ego

For many years, Japan's hardworking salarymen (men working in middle and large size companies engaged in various businesses) have repaired to special clubs after hours to drink and be entertained by women of a demi-monde. Geishas worked in this way in their day, but now, the traditional aspects of Japanese culture that were personified in the geisha are outmoded. The salarymen want ( or at least get) a more modern style woman. What goes on in such clubs ? What is the relationship of businesses to the clubs ? How do such clubs fit into the overall picture of Japanese culture ? Anne Allison became a hostess in one club for some months back in the 1980s. She didn't hide the fact that she was an anthropologist, but was accepted as a hostess anyway. The result is this most interesting and well-written book which answers all three questions very ably. Not only is the description of the research engrossing, but the author contests or agrees with the views of Japanese sociologists very capably. It is a very good idea to discuss what Japanese intellectuals think about hostess clubs, though most such people disparaged her research plan and thought that she would learn nothing. People like myself, who have not read such Japanese academics as Aida, Tada, Minami, Nakane, Ishikawa, Wagatsuma, or Yoda, but are interested in their arguments, will find the subsequent discussion most fascinating. Allison also weaves in some arguments from such theoreticians as Barthes and Lacan, but does not engage in the jargon which mars their work. Hostess clubs, while seeming an innocuous, if titillating part of Japanese culture, turn out to be a nexus where attitudes and expectations about work, play, sex, gender roles, identity and money come together. The ethnographic descriptions of behavior and conversations in the club make fascinating reading. By making `play' an extension of `work', by cutting the salarymen off from family life, the companies, she says, are able to maximize the work they get from their employees. She challenges the naturalness of working late at night by `playing' at a club, though Japanese sociologists claim that it IS natural because Japanese think of themselves as forever part of a group, especially the work group. Paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for short periods of drinking and mostly insubstantial chat with hostesses, Japanese companies believe that their business deals are enhanced and that human relations among bosses and workers are improved. Allison argues that in addition hostess clubs function as a place where men's egos (but nothing else) are massaged by the attentive, flattering behavior of the hostesses. She explores the relationship of Japanese salarymen with mothers and wives and concludes that "whatever men say they need, think they're doing, and justify as necessary `for work' in the demi-monde is effected symbolically and ritualistically through women and the sexuality they represent"; the sexuality they

NightPlay

This book offered me a unique glimpse into the inner workings of hostess clubs. To know that the wives of these men choose to ignore what is going on is shocking to me, but of course I am a westerner, so I can't totally understand. Do you want to know what "No-Pan Kissa" is? Warning: I'm about to spout a cliche; READ THE BOOK. It's a remarkable piece of work.