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    Intimacy for Sale: Masculinity, Entrepreneurship, and Commodity Self in Japan's Neoliberal Situation

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    Issue Date
    2010-09
    Author
    Takeyama, Akiko
    Publisher
    Japanese Studies
    Type
    Article
    Article Version
    Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
    Version
    http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a926159049~db=all~jumptype=rss
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    Abstract
    This article examines the creation of entrepreneurial male subjects in Japan's host clubs. Based on my ethnographic study, I argue that hosts' entrepreneurship is constituted by commodifying themselves. This paradoxical - commodified, yet entrepreneurial - male subject is embedded in the new possibilities and constraints posed by Japan's neoliberal restructuring and global economic trends. Hosts, who dream of earning fast cash and achieving upward class mobility, perceive the hosting business as a gateway to success, fame, and luxurious lifestyles. As a result, they 'voluntarily' commodify themselves and feed into the club's profit-making. They are also exploiting the consumer logic of desirability and the neoliberal values of entrepreneurship. By doing so, they hope to better position themselves in contrast to the work ethic and status of Japan's conventionally hegemonic masculine icon, the Salaryman. I contend that neoliberal reform in Japan is not a mere politico-economic reaction to globalization, but a socio-historically specific situation in which individual desires, Japan's social values and ethics, and global economic trends discursively intersect, align, and produce a new mode of attachment to individual freedom and flexible accumulation of capital.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/1808/6886
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2010.497579
    Collections
    • Center for East Asian Studies Scholarly Works [363]
    • Anthropology Scholarly Works [195]
    Citation
    Takeyama, Akiko. 2010. Intimacy for Sale: Masculinity, Entrepreneurship, and Commodity Self in Japan's Neoliberal Situation. Japanese Studies 30 (2):231-246. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2010.497579

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    Contact KU ScholarWorks
    785-864-8983
    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    785-864-8983

    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    Image Credits
     

     

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