Thursday, September 04, 2008

Japan's new professional seducers - Times Online:

Mr A, who has been married for 20 years and has a son of 19 at university, is prone to violence and beats his wife. She confided in a male friend, whom she then fell for, but when she suggested divorce to Mr A, he simply hit her. In desperation she turned to the internet, where she found Tomiya and his company, GNC.

Kyoko, of course, is not the girl’s real name. She did not meet Mr A by chance and does not work for a design company, as he thinks. She is an agent paid to seduce him. She regularly texts the team from her mobile and has a couple of GPS devices in case they lose her. Shimizu is her bodyguard and will move in if there are problems. And the whole operation is paid for by Mr A’s wife, who gets an amply illustrated report every time an encounter takes place. The aim is to have Mr A fall so completely for Kyoko that he wants to marry her and asks for a divorce. Failing that, his wife will have a sizable dossier with evidence of infidelity to confront him with.

In Japan, if you have the money you can sort out virtually any problem in your love life. If you want to get rid of an unwanted spouse, retrieve a straying one, get back with an ex or even get together with someone you’ve seen but don’t yet know, there are companies that will help you, using all the technology and expertise in human psychology at their disposal. Not so long ago Japanese wives put up with any amount of infidelity and abuse. A divorced woman was shunned and unlikely to marry again. But these days “people want to be happy”, says Tomiya. The result has been an enormous increase in divorces and in companies such as GNC.

3:41 PM