Paper short abstract:

Free magazines that advertise a variety of jobs that could be classified as sex work are surprisingly common in Japan. Analysing two such magazines, this paper aims to uncover the strategies that are employed in order to make this line of work seem palatable or even attractive to young women.

Paper long abstract:

Job advertisements for a variety of jobs that could be broadly classified as sex work - ranging from positions as hostesses, models, and video chat operators to what amounts to outright prostitution - exist both as free magazines and in the form of websites. The former are a surprisingly common sight in Japan. Euphemistically called 高収入求人マガジン ('magazines that advertise high-paying jobs'), they can be found around subway stations, hotels and restaurants and are generally available free of charge. Besides the advertisements themselves, they usually feature various articles aimed at girls and young women and are modelled after fashion and lifestyle magazines.

Since the jobs on offer are anything but uncontroversial, are associated with low social status, and have a reputation for being dangerous and potentially illegal work for highly untrustworthy employers, anyone trying to fill these jobs must employ a variety of strategies to alleviate such concerns. To be successful, these strategies must make use of the full scope of communicative tools that the Japanese language, but also the non-verbal symbolic systems that make up Japanese culture, provide. This makes analysing them very instructive.

This paper analyses several issues of two such magazines: 'Momoko' and 'Shaleo'. They are freely available in Tokyo and were collected between July and December 2014. Qualitative as well as quantitative content analysis reveals what measures the creators have taken to make the advertised jobs palatable to their target audience and what reservations they were trying to overcome. Unsurprisingly, money and the access to consumer culture that it affords are central themes that are frequently brought up in both the ads themselves and in the accompanying articles. They are, however, not as overwhelmingly dominant as a cursory glance might suggest. Equally, if not more important are the various linguistic and stylistic devices that are used to create a non-threatening undertone of safety and cleanliness, which is all the more important as both magazines are constantly trying to strike a delicate balance between explicitness and cutesy innocence.