I’ve been a fan and follower of Japanese sex blogs from pretty much the beginning of Japanese sex blogs. Keeping up with them has been a fantastic journey of culture, beauty, poetry and of course, cultural otherness and all that brings with it.
The other night I was up late and unable to sleep (okay, that’s most nights) and went through a lot of my deeper RSS feeds to see what some of my longtime Japanese sex blogger faves were up to. I was alarmed and saddened to see that a significant amount of them have essentially dropped off the radar since the earthquake and tsunami in March. (And not just sex blogs, but also cultural touchstones like Pink Tentacle who stopped updating in April.)
One that has touched me deeply over the years is Tokyo Undressed, photographer Rikki Kasso’s Blogspot blog. Tokyo Undressed is the blog of an immensely talented photographer whom I have followed closely for a long time, combining life in Tokyo with lushly decadent trysts in hotels and various spaces with beautiful, fairly kinky women. I’ve featured Kasso’s work many times here. Looking over the not-recent entries on the front page, I feel a combination of eros and longing, and emotional difficulty.
The last ‘normal’ entry for Kasso is March 9, the day before the quake, eerily titled Time Before Time.
After this the entries are earthquake posts, focused on hope, dating March 12 and 13 and featuring images of the aftermath.
This life is as real as you want it to be, and it`s worth as much as you are.
Enjoy your time in this body, on this planet, that`s all you have!
Then, one more – a month later on May 14, titled Fairy Tales and Scary Tales. That is the last entry.
My internal panic goes in several directions with this information.
I hope things return to normal.
I just got back from 9 weeks of intensive language study in Japan last Sunday, and their stoicism in the face of this recent calamity is quite moving. Their ability to maintain their cool during all this was simply amazing to me. I hope that the bloggers who are taking a hiatus from their activities are well and that time will allow them to move forward. Given the tenacity of the Japanese people, I’m confident this will happen.
by the by, experienced my first earthquake while I was there. It was very minor in the area I was in, and went practically unnoticed by anyone else. Not to make light of such situations, but when the bed I was in, along with the building I was in started to shimmy, my first thought was ‘I don’t recall putting any quarters in anywhere.’
Keep those updates coming Violet, and thanks for reminding us of their troubles.