Eric Rubenstein's Theory of Sexual Relativity

by Eric Rubenstein, founder of Sex Week

Welcome to Amsterdam, a place where sex is available and on display for all those who can afford it. For anywhere from $50 to $100, men can get a half-hour of oral or straight sex with any woman in town. Here, sex toys are in abundance, and sex is for sale.

Walking down an Amsterdam Street, I was offered cocaine and ecstasy every third house I walked by. Men were gawking at women on display in glass windows (bathed by red lights letting passers-by know who is working right then), and the brave among us walked quickly down side alleys where sex rubbed off on you as you squeezed past the poorly decorated sex parlors lining either side. One group of Irishmen caught my attention. As an older gentleman from this group—about 60 years old—stumbled clumsily up a flight of stairs, a younger companion yelled up to him in a thick Irish accent, “Johnny, you goin’ for a kiss and a cuddle? I’ve got one for ya right here.”

In Japan, things are only visibly different than in Amsterdam; the sex struggle is the same. Unlike in Amsterdam, where sex workers are on display, and Berlin, where prostitutes roam the streets unharassed, in Tokyo sex is found everywhere and nowhere. Young adults ride the subways reading comics with explicit sexual acts on every page, yet nowhere is sex mentioned explicitly. These same comic characters can be found dancing at entrances to shopping complexes; you can even play Uno and other games with them on the upper floors. In a land of love hotels, where each room offers a different and complete fantasy, talk about sex is void. Love, sex, business, and family are all compartmentalized into separate lives, and this separation is accepted as a social norm.

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