look which the Western girl-watcher finds so stimulating. And it may be that the idea of long slender legs has become a symbol of entrapment to Western men—like evil vines that wrap themselves around their victims in a choking embrace —so that many men find the legs of Japanese girls unusually attractive. In any event, there are more than enough tall, long-limbed girls in Japan for the girl-watcher who prefers this type to admire and perhaps choose from.
Most Japanese girls have straight black or very dark auburn hair which, in comparison to the hair of Caucasians, is fairly coarse and hard. Yet their hair is one of their most attractive features as far as foreign men are concerned. To most Western men, in fact, the sexual attraction of Japanese girls seems to increase in direct proportion to the blackness and length of their hair.
Of course, this phenomenon is not unique to Japanese or other Oriental girls. It has long been known in the West that men are especially attracted to women who wear their hair long. It has also long been known in the West that men are more attracted to long black hair on a petite woman than on a large woman. It is also true that men are immediately attracted by extra long blond, red, or brown hair, but they are apparently more deeply and permanently attracted to long black hair. According to Western folklore, dark-haired women are more faithful, loyal, and trustworthy than light-haired women. Blondes are often described as more lovable and loving but fickle and unreliable. As is well known, many men actually regard blond and red hair as unnatural to the extent of being freakish, and tend to think of blond and redhaired women as fundamentally inferior people.
Thus Japanese women as a group have a distinct advantage over many Western girls because all of them have black or nearly black hair, and many of them add to this advantage by wearing their hair long and straight more often than their American or European counterparts.
European and Latin men are apparently more aware of the sexual attributes of hair than American men. At a meeting of The International Brotherhood of Bald Men, made up of men from France, Belgium, and Germany, for example, the members voted unanimously in favor of long hair for women. Said the then president of the Brotherhood: 'The beautiful woman usually wears her hair long." He added that this helps the sexes recognize each other and assures that they will be properly attracted. Members of the Brotherhood would surely have a ball in Japan.
Back during the days when Japan was the bogeyman of the Far East, the characteristic Oriental eye was often associated (by Westerners) with evil, deceit, and mystery. Today, Western women cultivate the Oriental look as exotic and romantic.
It is not difficult to see the connection between dark almond-shaped eyes, exoticism, and romance. The Orient in general has always been a place of romantic adventure and exotic mystery to the West, simply because it was distant and different. Because we habitually think of a person's eyes as the mirror of his or her mind, and look there first for identification and understanding, the differently shaped eyes of Orientals quickly became symbolic not only of all the other physical differences between Occidentals and Asians but also of the customs and attitudes we couldn't understand.
When the just arrived and often sexually repressed Western man in Japan is confronted by a pair of authentic Oriental eyes—the owner of which he often cannot communicate with—he doesn't see them just as organs of sight that may or may not be attractive in themselves. He sees them as the embodiment of all the romantic past of Asia.
Most Japanese girls have eyes that are very much alike in color, size, and shape. But there are some extraordinary exceptions. These exceptions are so different from the norm as to startle and almost hypnotize by their strange beauty. The Japanese girls who have these nontypical eyes are not purely Mongolian in racial descent. Several million Japanese, most of whom live in the north, have racial characteristics that are recognizably Caucasian. The primary source of these characteristics was the Ainu, a now almost extinct Caucasoid race who were apparently the original inhabitants of the Japanese islands. Over the long centuries of their early history in Japan, the immigrant Mongolian Japanese gradually pushed the Ainu northward, alternately fighting and intermarrying with them.
Among the more outstanding racial characteristics of the Ainu was the unusually large size, light tan color, and brilliant luster of their eyes. Most of the present-day Japanese whose eyes are not typically Oriental owe this feature to their Ainu blood. Unfortunately, for some genetic reason no one has yet explained, the Japanese are frequently unable to assimilate the genes of the Ainu eye if they get more than a certain amount. When this happens the genes run wild, causing the eyes to be too far apart and hopelessly crossed. Often one or both of the eyes close up and wither away as the person grows older. This phenomenon is especially prevalent in the Sendai area of northern Honshu, one of the last strongholds of the Ainu.
On occasion, however, the complete Ainu eye will show up in a Japanese girl without any deterioration. When this happens the results are spectacular. The girl's eyes are so large and so beautiful one never gets over the experience of looking into them. Most of these girls also have unusually slender, elfin figures that make their eyes even more conspicuous. As a result, their eyes become the dominating influence in their lives. They are invariably singled out and put into a special class by the people around them. Many of them become models or movie and television actresses. Their faces adorn magazine covers, billboards, and advertising posters throughout the country, giving the impression that beautiful eyes are common in Japan. This is the provocative Oriental eye the Western man is apt to have in mind when he gazes tongue-tied into the bright faces of young Japanese girls.
The sight of the nape of a girl's neck, and perhaps a little bit of one shoulder, used to throw Japanese men into passionate frenzies—which just goes to prove that a man can work himself into a passionate frenzy over almost anything if he tries. I have nothing against Japanese girls' necks. I've enjoyed the aesthetically pleasing lines and freshly scrubbed glow of many of them during my years of mixed bathing in Japan. My problem was a lack of training in Zen, which would have allowed me to concentrate on the proper spot long enough to work up the necessary enthusiasm.
Later, when I took up the study of the neck at the proper time and place—when the girl is dressed in kimono or yukata and is sitting or kneeling on a tatami (reed mat) floor, preferably refilling your sake cup or laying out the sleeping quilts—I was already prejudiced in favor of other, less subtle attractions. Still, by persevering, I was eventually able to transfer my thoughts to girls' necks several times—but only when they were wearing kimono and nothing else could be seen.
Because the proper appreciation of a girl's neck is not a skill one can gain overnight, I doubt very much if the popularity of Japanese girls among foreign men is due to any particular qualities possessed by their necks. Still, there is something about a Japanese girl's neck that exercises an immediate and powerfully sensual influence on any man willing to make the effort to concentrate on it for a while—as the girl-watcher lucky enough to get a close-up view of the necks of several Japanese girls will soon discover.
If asked to list the most attractive features of Japanese girls, few Western men immediately think of including their hips—probably because many of the girls are so slender they are almost hipless. But the no-hip girls are actually just as popular as those with well-rounded oshiri. Both types are important to the romantic reputation of Japanese girls.
How could no
