Legal Situation: Prostitution is technically illegal, as is visiting a prostitute, but the two are not punishable. Enticing, pimping, promoting prostitution and operating a brothel carry penalties.
Finding prostitutes: Watch out for Advertisements for telephone clubs, some kinds of bars and snack bars and soaplands. Soaplands or Turkish baths (toruko buro) are etablissements where you pay an admission fee to go to a private room with a bath and a "masseuse" with whom you then negotiate the rest. Many women from foreign countries work as prostitutes in Japan. The sex business discriminates against foreign customers, though. It's best to bring along a Japanese male who can vouch for your character
Books with informations: A nonfiction book by Nickolas Bornoff called "Pink Samurai", New York: Pocket Books 1991.
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