Sexless partnerships account for as much as 64% of marriages in Japan, according to one report by JEX Japan Sex Survey in 2024.
The lack of intimacy can be attributed to a range of factor, especially long working hours, small homes with thin walls, and the common custom of all the family sleeping in the same room on futons.
Abema Times recently interviewed some couples to find out more. The streamer spoke to people for whom sex is not an indispensable part of a marriage.
In fact, one woman in her thirties who has been married for six years has never had sex with her husband. They never slept together during their courtship and this situation has continued since they became husband and wife. In other words, the marriage is unconsummated.
She insists, however, that hasn’t rejected sex per se. “We gave it a try a few times after getting married but each time it was no good, so I came to realize that I’m not normal.”
She isn’t sure exactly why she can’t have sex, but blames ignorance and lack of experience for compounding the situation. “I didn’t know that there were different types and sizes of contraception, nor how to use them. When I looked it up, I couldn’t find accurate or reliable information.”
Abema Times spoke with a specialist called Arisa Nakamura, who describes a type of platonic partnership where “the man and woman don’t engage in sexual activities or do not want to.” It’s sometimes known as a “dry marriage,” though can still be built on mutual trust and respect. “I actually think that, on the contrary, such sexless marriages go better.”
Nakamura’s service, Colorus, specializes in matchmaking for sexual minorities and people who want platonic partnerships. She says that most people seeking marriage in Japan do so because they want children. “It accounts for around 90% of men.”
She explains that sexlessness is a common cause of divorce. “The romance is lost after three years, according to psychology. Most couples divorce within three years.” As such, Nakamura believes platonic marriages can be better because they allow for love, friendship, and trust between the couple within sex and romance complicating things.
In the studio, YouTuber Nana Takamatsu recalls how sex education at her all-girls school focused on STDs a lot, so she developed a sense of sex as something dirty.
Also in the studio, former SKE48 member and now freelance announcer Aya Shibata remembered her poor sex education at an all-girls school. “I thought that you would get pregnant as soon as you have sex.” It led her to think of sex as something scary and risky.
The issue of sexlessness and platonic marriages may well be rooted in the state of sex education in Japan and the expectation that marriage is solely about having a family.
