Elder Care, Japanese Style

Time magazine (full disclosure: my former employers) has a great story in their current issue.

I'll just give you the the first two paragraphs before commenting on it:

Besides his glowing complexion, Shigeo Tokuda looks like any other 74-year-old man in Japan. Despite suffering a heart attack three years ago, the lifelong salaryman now feels healthier, and lives happily with his wife and a daughter in downtown Tokyo. He is, of course, more physically active than most retirees, but that's because he's kept his part-time job — as a porn star.

Shigeo Tokuda is, in fact, his screen name. He prefers not to disclose his real name because, he insists, his wife and daughter have no idea that he has appeared in about 350 films over the past 14 years. And in his double life, Tokuda arguably embodies the contemporary state of Japan's sexuality: in surveys conducted by organizations ranging from the World Health Organization (WHO) to the condom-maker Durex, Japan is repeatedly found to be one of the most sexless societies in the industrialized world. A WHO report released in March found that 1 in 4 married couples in Japan had not made love in the previous year, while 38% of couples in their 50s no longer have sex at all. Those figures were attributed to the stresses of Japanese working life. Yet at the same time, the country has seen a surge in demand for pornography that has turned adult videos into a billion-dollar industry, with "elder porn" one of its fastest-growing genres.

I know. You love this as much as I do -- right?

You have to admit that, despite his age, Tokuda acts just like any other porn star, even to the point of being so fucking stupid he thinks he can be written up in Time magazine as a porn star without his wife and children finding out about it.

Nevertheless, the whole subject of "elder porn" is intriguing, to me at least, because it's a phenomenon that I've been predicting would happen for several years now -- in fact, I've suggested that it was pretty much inevitable.

I mean, think about it. The baby boomers have dominated virtually every aspect of life since the first of them was born. In the late 40s, American society was all about babies. Then in the 50s, it was all about little kids who came home from school to watch "Howdy Doody" and "The Mickey Mouse Club." Then the 60s were all about recalcitrant teenagers who wanted to smoke pot, have sex and avoid going to Vietnam. And in the early 80s, when the first of the boomers turned 35 and started seriously worrying about getting older, Jane Fonda was there with the first of her exercise tapes to help them keep in shape.

Now the oldest of the boomers is going to turn 65 soon. Now, given that this rather obnoxious demographic bulge has been the cynosure of American society from the instant they shot out of the womb, you don't expect them to get all shy when they enter their golden years, do you? As Spike Lee might say: Hell no!

I've thought for a long time that, given the endless self-aborption of the baby boomers, it would only be a matter of time before "elder porn" became a recognized genre of American adult film, but it stands to reason that the Japanese would beat us to it -- after all, they have an older population then we do. And when it happens, it might be a good thing.

Think about it. Can you think of a depiction of mature sexuality (defined, let's say, as sexual contact between persons 50 or older) in media that isn't somehow a joke or made an object of ridicule? It's almost impossible. You would have to go back thirty years and to Woody Allen's "Interiors" to find a positive depiction of mature sexuality.

But as some people have discovered that interracial sex is hot, some people are similarly discovering that intergenerational sex is hot as well -- one of the better selling series in the Girlfriends Films line of lesbian porn concerns itself with older women seducing young girls. And in the hetero market it's no big deal for men in their 40s or older to be banging girls young enough to be their daughters.

But what about older people having sex with each other? Is that, or can that be, erotic, not to mention profitable? Frankly, I think it's inevitable. The most narcissistic generation in history is going to want to see their sexuality reflected in the adult entertainment that they consume, and given how many of them there are, if it's made, they'll watch it.

Almost makes you want to consider a career change...