Good Vibes Only

A visit to Japan’s premier dildo bar, an underground sanctuary where women are free to talk openly — and positively — about sex in an otherwise hushhush culture.

- Selena Hoy

I am surrounded by a sea of dildos: purple ones and black ones, footlongs and pocket-size. Some of them vibrate; some rotate. Some have botanic-looking extensions, like sea anemones and exotic flowers.

Some are shaped like rabbits, and others look like teddy bears. I’m inspecting a particularly eerie one with a face molded on its silicone tip when the bartender passes me a small pink device. It heats up and vibrates at different intensities via remote control.

Unless previously informed about Vibe Bar Wild One, in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward, one would have difficulty imagining its interior: Hundreds of phalluses line plush velvet booths on the third floor of an unremarkable structure, its location announced by a modest sign. The weathered building, accessed via a dingy alley near the Shibuya railway station, is part of the Dogenzaka neighborhood. The bar hovers above a pachinko parlor, a convenience store and some cheap taverns. Upstairs, a sign at the entrance proudly declares women and couples only. There is a buzzer, of course.

Opened in 2013, Vibe Bar is a shrine to female pleasure in a country where people aren’t having much sex. A 2015 study by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research showed that in Japan, 42 percent of men and 44 percent of women ages 18 to 34 who had never been married were virgins. Are people choosing alternatives to long-term partners? Indeed, Dogenzaka is home to several hostess bars that employ primarily female staffs to serve drinks and carry on intimate and flirty conversations. Strip joints, massage parlors and “soaplands” (a euphemism for brothels), all bathed in pink neon, are within walking distance of one another. But most of these cater to men. Vibe Bar, run by a staff of just five women, is the outlier.