In Japan, the age at which young people have their first kiss is steadily rising. — Photo: davidf / Getty Images, via ETX DailyUP
In Japan, youth sexuality comes later than elsewhere in the world. The country's high school students are far less sexually active than their foreign counterparts. According to a recent survey by the Japanese Association for Sex Education, only a quarter of them have ever kissed on the lips.
The survey of 12,562 Japanese students reveals that the proportion of young people who have ever kissed someone has been falling since 2005. This decline is particularly significant for boys in high school, since over the period 2023-2024, only 22.8% of those surveyed said they had ever kissed someone on the lips. This is the lowest figure ever recorded, falling below the 23.1% recorded in 1987, according to the daily newspaper Mainichi Shimbun.
Girls seem to be more comfortable with this practice than their male peers, with 27.5% of girls in high school reporting having already shared a kiss on the lips over the same period. Thanks to them, the overall rate is close to 25%. Despite this, the number of high school girls who have already experienced their first kiss has dropped by 13.5 percentage points compared to 2017, when the Japanese Association for Sex Education last surveyed.
For sociologist Yusuke Hayashi, several factors explain this phenomenon, including the Covid-19 pandemic. "The combination of school closures and restrictions on face-to-face contact due to the coronavirus pandemic at a sensitive time when junior and senior high school students are beginning to become interested in sexuality is believed to have had an impact," he told Mainichi Shimbun. Indeed, during this period, the Japanese population was asked to abstain from close contact.
But this doesn't explain everything. Young people in Japan had already turned away from physical intimacy before the pandemic. In 2006, columnist Maki Fukasawa coined the term "herbivores” to describe the Japanese men voluntarily shunning sex. For them, sharing a kiss or having sex is something "mendokusai,” ie, "boring.” And this is reflected in the figures: in the under-18 segment, 15% of girls and 12% of boys say they have already had sexual intercourse, according to the Japanese Association for Sex Education.
Yet young people in Japan are not giving up on sexual activity altogether. The survey by the Japanese Association for Sex Education shows that the proportion of young people practicing masturbation is increasing in all demographic categories. It is even reaching record levels among junior and senior high school students. "Since [this trend] is observed regardless of the presence or absence of sexual partners, this may be due to increased exposure to sexual expressions in manga and other media, rather than as a substitute for interpersonal sexual behavior," Yusuke Hayashi told Mainichi Shimbun.
In Japan, this drop in sexual activity is worrying the local authorities. They are stepping up initiatives and public investment to encourage the country's inhabitants, particularly young adults, to take a greater interest in physical intimacy. With this in mind, Tenga, a Japanese firm specializing in sex toys, has launched the Caressa range to encourage sexual intimacy. In October, it extended its range to include food supplements designed to limit body odor and thus encourage skin-to-skin contact.
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