I’m a woman considering joining a dating club.

If you’re quoting ¥50,000 for two hours at a delivery-based adult service, that would probably put you in the mid-range, wouldn’t it? Places like Madam ●● apparently charge ¥80,000 these days. Still, if you’re getting enough customers to avoid sitting idle—even somewhere that isn’t a budget establishment—I think you’d be fine staying where you are. You could probably take two or three bookings a day and bring home ¥50,000–¥100,000. If you worked four days a week, ¥10 million a year would be within sight. Being pressured into intercourse is an everyday occurrence, and there are even people who try to get you to drink something drugged under the guise of bringing you a “refreshment.” But there are also women who firmly refuse intercourse. On the other hand, there are customers who book you for four hours just to talk. That’s the kind of world it is. From an STI-prevention standpoint, accepting semen in your mouth carries a risk of infection nearly as high as unprotected intercourse, yet no one regulates it—there’s a very dark side to the industry. You may also end up with a customer who fingers you so aggressively that you bleed. In fact, if you stay in the business long enough, sooner or later you’ll encounter a seriously dangerous customer and be forced to face reality. About half of your customers may be repeat clients, but the other half are always new. Some people become depressed after seeing themselves reflected in the mirror on the love hotel ceiling during a session and being reminded that they’re letting someone do whatever they want to them. Considering all that, I think they’re working incredibly hard. If you want to work hard in a difficult situation and earn a solid amount in a short period, I definitely think the adult-entertainment industry is the better option. I agree with you on that. Dating clubs are much more of a fantasy world. For one thing, you can choose who you meet. And even if you have multiple arrangements, the number of clients is nothing compared with the adult-entertainment industry. I think most people eventually settle into long-term arrangements with just a few supporters. Financially, it doesn’t come close to the adult-entertainment industry, but if you’re not addicted to hosts or burdened with debt, earning ¥1–2 million a year while continuing to see people you get along with isn’t bad. There may be a significant age gap, but you can also gain new perspectives and hear plenty of interesting stories. I think dating clubs are suited to that kind of person. Taro

I used to frequent adult entertainment establishments a lot, but I’ve never had the impression that delivery-based services were particularly lucrative. Maybe times have changed. That said, when I occasionally look at the websites of places I used to visit, it’s true that many of them closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. By the way, women with experience in nightlife work tend to receive fewer offers even after registering with a dating club. If you’re making good money through a delivery service, I’d recommend staying out of the dating-club world.

Can you choose who you see? You can’t, right? With papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), you can turn down someone you don’t like and choose not to see them again. Rather than dealing with an unspecified number of people, you can maintain an arrangement with a relatively fixed group of supporters. Think carefully about which option is better for you before deciding. If you’re able to see a large number of men, I do think you’d probably earn more working in the adult entertainment industry.

I hear that a lot of delivery health services actually include full service, but you’re refusing it outright, aren’t you? So maybe you’re not getting any customers and earning nothing? Whether it’s working at a delivery health service or papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), I think you have to use your head and take action. If delivery health services aren’t for you, try working at a soapland. No matter how many times it’s explained, you still don’t seem to understand that papa-katsu isn’t the same as the adult-entertainment industry. With papa-katsu, you can refuse if you don’t want to do something.

I’m Shiro-Usa, a new answerer here. It’s already ruined by treating working in the sex industry and being a mistress as if they were the same thing—and in papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), you don’t receive a “reward.” The women we date aren’t sex workers. It’s fine to speak from a male perspective, but please don’t lump us together as if we’re all the same. The women here come from all walks of life: office workers, freelancers, students, homemakers, and more. I believe many of them are looking for financial leeway or an attractive man. Of course, since this is a contractual mistress arrangement, an allowance is essential, but you’ve misunderstood things from the very beginning. We papas (male supporters) can usually tell when someone has worked in the sex industry once we start seeing her. Personally, it’s a huge turnoff, and I sometimes end things. They seem unable to see us as anything other than customers, so I hope they’ll continue working in the sex industry and pay their taxes properly.

Papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan) is about enjoying a full day out with a man who wants your company, going wherever you’d like, and having fun together—the allowance doesn’t have to be 20,000 or 50,000 yen, or even anything at all. That’s papa-katsu. I think you’ve got the wrong idea.

If we’re only talking about the money, you’d probably earn more through a delivery health service. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve never used one myself, so I may have the system wrong, but if there’s a “dark side to papa-katsu,” there must also be a “dark side to delivery health services.” I couldn’t help wondering whether the questioner can see the former but not the latter.

If you can make good money doing delivery-based escort work, sticking with that might be the better option. I hear that delivery-based escort work is full of customers who pressure you for sex.

You and the people you’re dealing with have such completely different expectations that I think you’d be better off staying in the escort industry. In any world, there are people who think, “I’m paying, so I’m entitled to whatever I want,” while there are also people who can build a relationship based on mutual respect for each other’s position and expectations. If that’s what works for you, then I think you should just keep living that way without complaining.

You only mention the good points of working in a delivery service, but if simply going to work there got you several bookings and allowed you to earn well, you wouldn’t be considering trying a dating club in the first place. I’ve met several women who moved from the adult entertainment industry to dating clubs after their customers dropped sharply during COVID, and each of them had their own reasons for doing so. I don’t know what your goal is in stirring up people’s hopes of making easy money, but anyone with even a little sound, logical thinking should realize that a deal that seems too good to be true may have a catch. If delivery services were really that great, every woman who desperately wanted money would be working for one. In reality, that’s not the case—which is precisely why some women use dating clubs. Delivery services aren’t places where you can automatically make huge amounts of money, and not everyone using dating clubs is simply desperate for cash. I doubt ordinary women would fall for a post like this, but I wrote it partly as a message to the various people who read this site（笑） To answer your question, though, I don’t hear “3” very often. In order of frequency, it would be 5 > 7 > 10 > 3. Sex-industry services and compensated dating may look similar to people who aren’t particularly good at thinking things through, but in reality they’re very different, so I don’t think they should be compared so simplistically.