Transcription
How did Japanese men go from samurais to pretty submissive in just a few generations? During World War II, Japanese soldiers would fight to the last man rather than surrender. It was one of the most hyper masculine militaristic societies on Earth.
But recently, I visited Tokyo, and the contrast was clear. Now, look, I'm no He-Man tough guy, and I live in San Francisco, not the most testosterone driven place around, but younger Japanese men stood out as particularly mild-mannered and polite, really to the point of being almost gentle and passive. Not effeminate exactly, but missing that edge that's historically defined masculinity. And according to the data, they're also not having sex. A third of Japanese men under 30 are still virgins. And almost half of men in their 20s have never even been out on a date.
I'm Ken Laort. My deal here is I take an uncomfortable question, research it to understand what's really going on. I try to spot my own biases, and I give you as fair of a presentation as I can. Here, I'm going to take you through how Japanese masculinity evolved from the warriors to the salary men to the modern men of today. And then look at how Japan now struggles with a sexless society. And finally, we'll take a look at how it's not just Japan dealing with these issues, but a growing number of societies around the world.
Now, for over a thousand years, Japanese culture was built on the warriors. The samurai emerged in the 1100s as mounted fighters serving feudal lords and they later became Japanese elites. They weren't just soldiers but a ruling class and the ideal definition of what it meant to be a man in Japan. Their Bushido code taught that loyalty to your lord was paramount. If you failed in your duty or brought shame to your family or were captured by enemies, you didn't apologize. You performed seppuku, a ritual disembowelment. You plunged a blade into your stomach, drew it across, and if you were lucky, a companion would speed things up with a sword to your neck.
Now, it sounds horrible, but it wasn't considered barbaric. It was seen as noble because living with dishonor was a fate worse than death, which in effect was the ultimate expression of honor. As Japan modernized, the samurai class was officially abolished in 1876. But Bushido didn't die. The underlying principles were still the template for Japanese masculinity. Loyalty, discipline, stoicism in the face of pain. These values were taught in schools, reinforced by the military, and embedded [clears throat] in the country's national identity.
By the early 1900s, as Japan built its empire, this warrior ethos was in place. Japanese soldiers were trained that surrender was disgraceful. Capture meant you'd failed your emperor, your family, your ancestors. Death was always better. During World War II, Japanese forces had a surrender rate that was a small fraction of other countries, only 1% in Okinawa. When battles were lost, sometimes entire units would charge into certain death. Soldiers would detonate grenades or save their last bullet for themselves rather than be captured. And then there were the kamikaze. About 3,800 pilots volunteered to fly planes loaded with explosives directly into Allied ships. Planned suicide missions with ceremonies before they flew.
Now, it wasn't the most effective tactic, although it did kill thousands of Allied sailors and damaged a lot of ships, but beyond effectiveness, it showed the world that Japanese warriors feared nothing. Even the atrocities Japan committed during the war, the massacres, the horrific treatment of prisoners and scientific experiments, they make more sense when you look through that lens. When your culture teaches that surrender or being captured is the ultimate dishonor, brutality doesn't seem so bad. Enemy prisoners who surrendered were viewed as less than human and were unworthy of basic dignities. And dozens of Japanese soldiers didn't surrender until years after the war was over. Heck, in the 1970s, three soldiers in different parts of the Pacific were still hiding in the jungle, waiting for orders. One guy only surrendered when they flew in his former commanding officer to formally relieve him of duty. This was Japanese masculinity at its peak.
But that mentality also led the country to ruin. Their cities were incinerated. Even most of Tokyo was burned to the ground. Two atomic bombs. By 1945, there were millions dead, including about 20% of military-aged men. The masculine ideal didn't protect them. It destroyed the country. The Americans then spent seven years actively dismantling militaristic culture. They rewrote textbooks, banned films glorifying warriors, pushed democratic values, and gave women the right to vote. So you now had women who just watched hyper masculinity demolish their country being told by their occupiers that the old ways were barbaric and wrong while simultaneously they were getting new rights. Being a warrior was now illegal for men. And what replaced it wasn't really softness. It was reliability and a new battle of rebuilding the country.
But before we go on, have you ever wondered how the same news can look totally different depending on which channel you're watching or what websites you're reading? It's not just that the stories are biased. It's that some are completely missing even though they're carried in other places. That's why I've been using Ground News, sponsors of today's video. Ground News gathers reportings from thousands of outlets worldwide and shows you how different sources are covering the same story. You can see each outlet's political leaning, who funds them, and this is a big one, what stories are being ignored by different parts of the media landscape. Head to ground.news/elephants to check it out. The tool I use most is called Blindspot. It shows you stories that are flying under the radar on one side of the political spectrum, but are getting major attention on the other. For instance, this story where the Department of Homeland Security said reservations for ICE agents at Hilton's Minneapolis hotel were cancelled as part of a coordinated campaign against the agency. Right-leaning outlets covered it heavily, about 65% of the reporting, while left-leaning sources accounted for only 14%. That kind of imbalance tells you something. Or there's this story interviewing observers who say Maduro's removal shows that President Trump is bent on dominating the Western Hemisphere. 82% of the outlets reporting that are on the left. A fewer in the middle and none on the right. These are the kind of blind spots that keep us locked into our own information bubbles, convinced we're staying informed when really we're only seeing part of the story. Ground News helps you see what you're missing. And and I do check it pretty much every day. I use their Vantage plan. And if you want to give it a shot, use the link in the description, ground.news/elephants, and save 40%. Or you can just scan the QR code on screen. And hey, supporting sponsors like this keeps the channel going. So, thanks.
Okay, back to Japanese men. In a post-World War II environment, the salaryman emerged as the new masculine ideal. If you couldn't serve the emperor, you could serve the corporation. Salarymen showed the same unwavering loyalty and self-sacrifice that samurai had shown to feudal lords but redirected towards their employers. And the parallels were clear. Companies called them corporate warriors. The language of Bushido was everywhere. Loyalty, endurance, sacrifice for the collective good. You devoted your life to the company and you prioritized work over everything, over your health, your family, your personal desires. And the lifestyle was brutal. Salarymen worked six days a week, often 60 to 80 hours weekly. They endured long commutes, sometimes two hours each way, packed into trains so crowded that stations had staff physically push people onto cars. After work, there were essentially mandatory drinking sessions with bosses that could last until midnight. These gatherings were often where the real business happened, and they were one more place where your loyalty was demonstrated. You got home late, left early the next morning, and barely saw your family.
But in exchange, companies gave lifetime employment. You started at a company after graduating and stayed until retirement at age 60. Promotions came based on age and seniority more than performance. As long as you demonstrated loyalty, you had security. And for a generation, it worked spectacularly. Japan went from the ruins of World War II to the world's second largest economy in just a few decades. The economic miracle was built on the backs of these salarymen who sacrificed everything for the country. But there was a cost. The Japanese had a word for it. Karoshi, death from overwork. Men in their 40s and 50s were dropping dead from heart attacks, strokes, suicides, from work stress. The salarymen lived in a system that demanded total submission, and it definitely determined your worth as a man. And at home, wives were managing everything alone. The traditional expectation was that women would quit their jobs when they married. They raised their children, took care of all the housework, cared for aging parents, and essentially ran single parent households while they were married.
And then in 1990, everything collapsed. Japan's economic bubble burst. The Japanese stock market plummeted. Land values fell 70% over the next decade. Economic growth, it essentially stalled for years and years. They called them the lost decades. Suddenly, there was no more lifetime employment. Companies started using temporary and part-time workers. The salaryman deal was broken. So yeah, you could work yourself to death for maybe a job and an apartment you could barely afford, maybe security that could vanish in the next recession. The women, they'd accepted the salaryman model because it promised a steady income, predictability, and survival, aligning male sacrifice with female security. The trade-offs made sense. But prior to those years, women were also entering the workforce in larger numbers. So for the first time, they didn't need husbands economically. And when women don't need providers, they start to ask, "Well, what do I want in a partner?" The answer could partly be seen in their own media. Female manga artists revolutionized girls' comics, creating romantic fantasies that featured Bishonen, beautiful boys. They were slender, delicate, and androgynous. They were emotionally expressive, gentle, sensitive. They cried and showed vulnerability, and they communicated their feelings. In other words, they were the exact opposite of their forefathers.
Once the lost decades hit, women were effectively done subsidizing male sacrifice that no longer made sense because the salarymen were still absent and still exhausted. But now they weren't guaranteeing a middle-class life. Today, when Japanese women describe what they want in partners, number one is kind and gentle. They want men who communicate feelings, share housework, and respect their careers. Women wanted partners who'd actually help raise kids, not absentee fathers who only appeared on weekends. And the result was a generation that in many ways just opted out.
Hey, I did a lot of research for this video, but as always, I'm not perfect. If I make any substantive mistakes, let me know and I'll correct them in a pinned comment below. And if you're from Japan, I'm especially interested in your insight.
Okay, so in 2006, author Maki Fukasawa coined a term that would define a generation. Translated into English, it literally means grass-eating men or herbivore men. Let's call them modern men because that's really what they are. Young Japanese men adapting to a world where the old rules don't work anymore. Modern men are well-groomed, fashion-conscious, gentle. They don't show too much interest in aggressively pursuing romantic relationships or even climbing the corporate ladder. They're not trying to prove anything to anyone. And many live with their parents well into their 30s, spending money on hobbies and personal interests instead of cars, houses, or impressing girls. Singlehood is growing and a substantial portion say they have no interest in romantic relationships at all. As I said in the intro, a third of Japanese men under 30 are virgins and almost half of men in their 20s have never even been on a date. This love withdrawal is unprecedented in Japan's history.
So why? Well, part of it's the economics I talked about. Modern men graduated in the last decades and they watched their fathers sacrifice everything for companies that then downsized. And part of it is the mixed messages. Women said they wanted gentle, communicative partners, but many women still expected men to be successful and confident and take initiative in relationships, ultimately to be providers, just being nice about it. And part of it is that the old models simply broke. The warrior path is illegal. The salaryman path led to karoshi and divorce. There was no third model that actually worked. Just a void where masculine identity used to be. So the young men stopped trying to fill it as they found other alternatives from hobbies to online worlds. Women got the gentle partners they advocated for. But those men were often unmotivated, unemployed, or living with their parents. Men who opted out found freedom and reduced pressure, but also isolation. And the result was that both sides increasingly chose no relationship at all over either of those bad options.
And the natural result of all this is a growing sexless society and no babies. Japan's fertility rate hovers around 1.3 children per woman, well below the 2.1 needed for population replacement. Year after year, Japan records the lowest number of births since the 1800s. Deaths now outnumber births by over half a million people a year. The population peaked at 128 million in 2008, and it's been shrinking ever since. And at its current rate, Japan would have about 63 million people in 2100. Adult diaper sales have exceeded baby diapers since 2011. Even among married couples, more than half are effectively sexless. When married men were asked why, a third said they were too tired from work. Among women, about a quarter said sex was just too much hassle, followed by those who just lost interest after childbirth.
All of these forces together, they've really created a demographic death spiral. Fewer young people working means more burden on those who are. Higher taxes, longer hours, even less time and energy for relationships, which means fewer babies, which means the cycle continues. It's such a concern that the prime minister in 2023 warned that Japan is on the verge of not being able to maintain functioning as a society. With over 10% of Japanese now 80 years or older and a shrinking workforce, that's hard for the young people to support the elderly or the economy. The government's tried everything. Incentives for having babies, campaigns encouraging marriage, subsidizing child care, and nothing's working. You can't bribe people into relationships when they think the fundamental social contract is broken.
But it's not just Japan dealing with low birth rates and declining sex lives. The pattern is showing up everywhere. South Korea's fertility rate hit .72 in 2023, the lowest in the entire world. They call their youth the Sampo generation, meaning they've given up on dating, marriage, and kids. South Korea has poured $200 billion dollars into programs supporting new mothers over the past 16 years, but the birth rate dropped more than 25% during that same time period. China saw what was happening in Japan and Korea and kind of panicked. In 2021, China's government banned effeminate men from television, telling broadcasters to resolutely put an end to men and other abnormal aesthetics. And the sex and birth rates aren't just dropping in Asia. The West is following the same trajectory, just a couple decades behind. Marriage rates are falling across Europe and North America. In the United States, almost a quarter of 18 to 29 year olds hadn't had sex in the past year, and just over half of the 18 to 29-year-old men still live with their parents. Birth rates have dropped below replacement levels in nearly every developed country on Earth. Japan isn't unique. It was just one of the first. I did a whole video looking at that in depth.
So, I don't know what healthy masculinity looks like in the future. This may be what happens when an entire culture's definition of manhood becomes obsolete and nobody's figured out what should replace it.
So, I talked earlier about the horrific war crimes Japan committed during World War II, but until I dug into it, I had absolutely no idea how bad they actually were. Their military murdered prisoners just for fun, sexually abused hundreds of thousands of women and girls, they froze babies alive in human medical experiments. Heck, even Nazis wrote to their superiors about the atrocities they saw in Japan. And yet, the emperor in charge during the war was invited to Disneyland before he died. Why did we so quickly forgive and forget Japan's war crimes after World War II? I dug into the answer in this video, and it was interesting and a little unsettling.
Hey, thanks for watching. I hope it was worth your while. See you next time.