Japanese students at American University, particularly those who live on campus, agree that Americans’ liberal attitudes toward sexuality are hard to get used to.

American culture is more open to kissing and hugging in public than Japanese culture. Japanese students at AU said that it is impossible for them to kiss, hug, and hold hands in public in Japan.

“The degree of the differences is way beyond what I could imagine,” said senior Hiroko Suzuki.

But not everyone found extreme differences between Americans and Japanese.

Senior Rie Takahashi used to think American culture was more open but now she realizes there are not many differences between American and Japanese students.

“I guess if Japanese students were put in the same campus dorm environment as Americans, the Japanese would do the same things,” Takahashi said. “It doesn’t happen in Japan because dorms on campus are not popular in Japan.”

In Japan, college students live in apartments instead of coed dorms—it is common for a boyfriend to stay in a girl’s apartment, or vice versa. Students said college students in Japan are more likely to live with their boyfriend or girlfriend in their apartments than the United States.

Some Japanese people are surprised with American sexual openness in the dorms, but Kaori Tashiro, a senior, said that the American culture is not much different than what she expected.

College students’ attitude toward sexuality is not so different between the U.S. students and Japanese students, agreed Ayumu Kuroda, a senior. The place things happen is the only difference, he continued.

Kuroda added that his male friends were always talking about sex, regardless of their cultures.

Japanese students see more sexual content in American popular culture, like movies and television programs, than in their country of origin.

“I can’t imagine a Japanese version of Sex and the City,” Tashiro said.

She was surprised that people can easily watch a television program that has so much adult content.

Despite Japanese students’ affinity for their more liberal surroundings, some students also feel uncomfortable in the American culture. Most students interviewed have had to deal with American roommates having sex in their shared rooms.

“I couldn’t stand when my roommate brought guys to have sex,” Suzuki said. “I was told to leave the room even at 3 a.m.”

Tashiro said that she was uncomfortable because her American roommate was having sex with her boyfriend when Tashiro was present.

Conversely, Takahashi did not feel uncomfortable. She did not care if her roommate had sex in her shared room, as long as it didn’t happen very often.

Although most Japanese students were uncomfortable at first in the sexual culture in the United States, they all adapted.

“I pretty much got used to the American culture on sex,” Suzuki said. “But I cannot like it.”

After living in the United States for two years, Tashiro said she was surprised with how conservative and less sexually liberal the culture is in Japan when she went back.

For one thing, the students agreed that education about sex and sexuality is more advanced in the United States than in Japan. Tashiro said her American friends tend to talk with their family about topics such as pregnancy prevention more than her Japanese friends.

Japanese students neither talk about sex with their parents nor learn about it in school—likely a consequence of a clash between older and younger generations. Suzuki said she thinks parents and teachers tend to avoid talking with children about sex.

Tashiro said that her parents’ generation is conservative and hesitates to talk about sex. It is hard for older people to talk to younger people, who are more familiar with a sexual culture.

In Japan, formal education about sex provides a minimal amount of information. For example, teachers do not show how to use condoms, as some teachers do in the United States.

“At school, I was taught that it is important to prevent pregnancy but I didn’t learn how,” Kuroda said.

While public discourse on the topic of sex is discouraged, Japanese society is full of sexual materials such as pornography magazines and videos. Even in fashion magazines, there are sexual photographs.

Tashiro said she does not like Japanese sexual culture because such materials are too easily accessible to a public generally uneducated about the topic. According to Kuroda, Japanese people do not address problems like lack of sex education.

“I want Japanese culture to be more open to sex education to prevent spreading wrong knowledge about sex,” Takahashi said.

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