Background factors of amateur prostitution ("enjo-kousai") in Japanese high-school girls

The present study aims to clarify factors causing amateur prostitution tin Japanese, "enjo kousai" : enjo = support : kousai = dating) in adolescent f emales. The definition of "enjo kousai" is paid serial sexual behavior. Cur rently in Japan. this is considered a deviant sexual behavior for adolescen t females. Completed questionnaires from 600 randomly sampled high school g irls were sorted into 3 groups: experienced, mildly resisting, and strongly resisting. The findings were as follows : (1) young women's attitudes towa rd amateur prostitution were influenced by; their friends' experiences with that behavior;(2) engaging in amateur prostitution was strongly correlated with delinquency; and (3) the group that had engaged in amateur prostituti on expressed a strong desire to receive compliments from others or wanted t o be viewed by others as outstanding. The results indicated that the adoles cent girls who had engaged in amateur prostitution or those who had little resistance to doing so showed the same factors as adolescent girls who were sexually delinquent or sexually. active. The typical psychological charact eristics of contemporary young people in Japan strongly relate to their att itudes toward amateur prostitution.