Stereotypes and prejudices die hard. Japanese men still believe that Japanese women make the world’s best wives, that they are the hardest working, the best with children, the kindest, the most generous, and the most tolerant of their husbands, including any outside sexual adventures the husbands may have.
Of course, this is not true now and has never been true in a general sense. Most Japanese men simply do not know any better, and the claim merely shows their ignorance of the world at large.
There are many societies where the women as a rule are kind, generous, hardworking, and tolerant of husbands who are often lazy louts; some of them even accepting polygamous behavior by their men.
It is no doubt true that during Japan’s long feudal age, most Japanese women were virtual saints, sacrificing their lives in a society made to serve male ambitions and idiocies, very much as women did in other parts of the world.
But young Japanese women today, particularly those in the major cities, are so different from past generations they (and young men) are often referred to as “new human beings,” which, for the most part, means they are not “Japanese” in the traditional sense.
Still there is a quality about the typical young Japanese woman that, even today, sets her apart and makes her attractive both as a lover and as a wife. This quality includes a clear perception of herself as a woman who has her own place in the world and does not have to compete directly with men; along with a heightened sense of femininity and sensuality.
Among the things foreign men should keep in mind when contemplating the attractions of young Japanese women is that: (1) they tend to change more than American or European women do after they get married; (2) that if they are removed from the Japanese environment they tend to very rapidly lose some or all of the “Japanese” qualities that made them different in the first place; and (3) that long exposure to foreigners even in Japan has the same effect on a reduced scale.
Of course, these changes are not necessarily bad or undesirable. The more “Japanese” a girl is the more she must change if she is going to keep company with a foreign man, anywhere. The foreigner is not going to start acting Japanese, and a significant proportion of typical Japanese behavior by a girl friend or a wife is not compatible with foreign behavior, so as mentioned earlier, it is the woman who changes.
The obvious ideal situation for many foreign men in Japan, and one that is still common, is for them to enjoy the special attractions and talents of Japanese girls in their own natural habitat without forming the close, long-term relationships that result in them being foreignized.
Foreign women wanting to develop personal relationships with Japanese men are likely to take the opposite approach— that is, look for men who have already become less “Japanese” and who, in turn, are looking for what to them is the quintessential foreign experience—a sexual relationship with a non-Japanese, preferably Caucasian, woman.
The presumption here, of course, is that Japanese men without foreign experience or foreign language ability are not likely to aggressively pursue or be caught by foreign women—unless the women have become Japanized and would fit into the world of the “pure” Japanese male.
The main thing to keep in mind is that as exciting and satisfying as foreign-Japanese love affairs may be, they can also be more complicated and require extraordinary compensations and even sacrifices by one or both of the parties concerned if they “get serious.”
Beyond this, about the only guidelines that I can suggest are: be honest and candid about your intentions; be considerate and discreet in your behavior; be firm and consistent in maintaining the relationship on the level intended; give advance notice, in a casual, controlled manner, when you decide to leave or go on to other affairs.
While it may strike some as being cynical and selfish, the most successful lovers I have known were those who always made sure they had an absolute minimum of two affairs going simultaneously and that their respective paramours knew about the other affair.