No-pan kissa

No-pan kissa (Japanese: ノーパン喫茶, Hepburn: Nōpan kissa, pronounced [noːpaŋ kiꜜssa], lit. 'no-panties cafés') are Japanese sex establishments offering food and drinks served by waitresses wearing short skirts with no underwear. The floors, or sections of the floor, are sometimes mirrored.^[1]

Shops generally operate under a "no-touch" policy.^[2] The shops otherwise look like normal coffee shops (kissaten), rather than sex establishments, although they charge a premium price for the coffee.^[1] Previously, most sex establishments, such as soaplands and pink salons, were staffed with professional prostitutes. No-pan kissa were a popular employment choice amongst some women because they paid well and generally required little sexual contact with the customers.^{[citation needed]}

The first one to open was in Osaka in 1980.^[3] Initially, all of them were in remote areas outside the traditional entertainment districts. Within a year, large numbers had opened in many more places, such as major railway stations.^[4]

In the 1980s (the peak of the boom in these shops), many started to have topless or bottomless waitresses.^[5] However, at this point, the number of such shops started to decline rapidly.^[1]

Eventually, such coffee shops gave way to fashion health (massage) clubs and few no-pan kissa, if any, remain.^[1] The New Amusement Business Control and Improvement Act came into force on February 13, 1985, which further restricted the sex industry and protected the more traditional businesses.^[6]

In addition to no-pan kissa, there have also been no-pan shabu-shabu^[7] and no-pan karaoke.^[2][8]

In 1998, four officials at the Ministry of Finance were arrested and 112 disciplined for accepting bribes in the form of visits to a no-pan shabu-shabu restaurant in Shinjuku.^[9]

See also

• Sexuality in Japan
• Café con piernas

References

1. "No-pan kissa (No-panty cafes)". Japan for the Uninvited. 23 June 2006. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
2. Allison, Anne (1994). Nightwork: sexuality, pleasure, and corporate masculinity in a Tokyo hostess club. University of Chicago Press. pp. 131–132. ISBN 0-226-01487-8.
3. Buruma, Ian (1984). Behind the mask: on sexual demons, sacred mothers, transvestites, gangsters, drifters and other Japanese cultural heroes. Pantheon Books. p. 111. ISBN 0-394-53775-0.
4. Bestor, Theodore C. (1989). Neighborhood Tokyo. Studies of the East Asian Institute. Stanford University Press. p. 42. ISBN 0-8047-1797-4.
5. Anahori, Tadashi (1 February 2017). "Revisit the retro glory of Japan's 1980s no-pan kissa (no-panties cafes) | Tokyo Kinky Sex, Erotic and Adult Japan". www.tokyokinky.com. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
6. Suei, Akira (1990). "Araki - Tokyo Lucky Hole". Michael Hoppen Gallery. Archived from the original on 23 September 2018. Retrieved 23 September 2018.
7. "Ministry officials 'demanded' sex club entertainment". New Sunday Times. 28 January 1998. Retrieved 2012-12-28.
8. Allison, Anne (2000). Permitted and prohibited desires: mothers, comics, and censorship in Japan. University of California Press. p. 170. ISBN 0-520-21990-2.
9. "Entertainment at lurid shabu-shabu establishment got bankers, bureaucrats in hot water". Japan Today. 2018-12-31. Retrieved 2024-09-23.

• Akira Suei, "The Lucky Hole as the Black Hole" in Nobuyoshi Araki, Tokyo Lucky Hole, ISBN 3-8228-4681-3.