What are men in their 20s and early 30s looking for when they sign up for papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan)?

I first started seeing someone in an allowance-based relationship when I was around thirty. Relationships with women who weren’t looking for that kind of arrangement often ended up with them wanting marriage after a while, and I found that bothersome. If you ask what I was looking for, it was a transactional relationship. Regardless of age, aren’t most people who sign up with dating clubs looking for a transactional relationship?

Surprisingly, there are quite a few papas in their 30s who are genuinely looking for a marriage partner. It’s not exactly a bad idea to look for someone to marry, but until you actually tie the knot, I really think they should continue giving her an allowance. One of my monthly-arrangement girls even says she’d be open to marrying her papa. But she started papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan) because she was struggling financially at the time. So even if the ultimate goal is marriage and moving beyond a financial relationship, he should still give her an allowance in the meantime. Without the allowance, they’ll never make it to marriage.

Apparently, dating apps are dominated by roughly the top 20% of men and the top 60% of women, so they take most of the attention. That means there’s probably demand among the remaining 80% of men for paid services that help them meet someone. (Conversely, if women choose based on looks, it basically means most of them end up being pursued by guys who only want one thing, lol.) Fuu tried the dating-site challenge at first too, but, well, it didn’t work out. There are so many fake profiles, and if you spend money on a dating app but get zero results… If you have a bit of money, then if paying the club’s offer fee and an allowance actually gets you results, it might offer better time efficiency—and in some cases, better cost efficiency too. With papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), women can say no if they’re not interested. Unlike working in the adult entertainment industry, they don’t have to keep doing it. It’s easy to start and easy to quit, they can set their own price and decide their own value, and they can quickly earn a reasonably good amount of money. I think it’s a great win-win system for both men and women, which is why it’s become fairly widespread. Without a doubt, Universe Club did a wonderful job of popularizing and casualizing the term “papa-katsu,” broadening its appeal while still running things properly. I can only be grateful, lol.

In my 20s and 30s, I was too busy trying to establish myself to think about anything else! I didn’t even know about dating clubs, and I had no need to（笑） I don’t really understand how men who use dating clubs from a young age feel. If I had to put it one way: Like women who do papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), they’re not thinking about marriage—but while the women want money, the men want a woman’s presence in their everyday lives. That’s probably about it. Though dating clubs are expensive, so you can’t really participate unless you’re wealthy（笑）

For younger people: If you’re just looking for something casual, use a dating app. If you’re dating with marriage in mind, use a marriage-focused app. If you’re looking for a relationship without marriage as the goal, this is probably the right place.

I rarely hear about other men, but some men in their 30s were doctors or otherwise respectable, ordinary men who continued their arrangements, and they didn’t seem all that different from the older men. Women who made the first offer seemed to face especially strict terms when it came to their allowance, but that was true of both younger and older men. Their looks weren’t bad, so perhaps things were simply stricter because it was Tokyo. I’d never been interested in apps or dating clubs. Then a young woman I had been seeing—without any exchange of money—confessed that she had joined a dating club. She told me about the men at the club and asked my advice about dates with men her own age. That was when I realized that women this young and beautiful really did exist, rather than it all being some kind of scam, so I joined right away just to see what it was like. I never considered any other dating clubs or apps. If you don’t know about it, it’s a dark world you would never need to enter in ordinary life. But precisely because of that, once you discover it, it becomes an amazing hidden world. Almost unbelievably so… These days, in an age when both truth and lies spread instantly, I think it’s quite natural that a young man might become curious and decide to join. That said, unless you’ve reached something close to a papa’s age and gained comparable life experience, it’s difficult to radiate not only kindness and thoughtfulness, but also the calmness, generosity, and composure needed to fulfill a woman’s wishes. For young people who still have their whole lives ahead of them, it’s not easy to understand the true feelings of women in the hidden world of papa-katsu or to offer them genuine comfort. The reason is that, as people used to say long ago, life expectancy was only about 50 years. Once you pass 50, you begin to think about death, and perhaps only then can you truly act selflessly. Even being willing to die for a complete stranger’s child during a disaster or hostage situation is not something most people can do without having lived a substantial portion of their own life. This got a little long, but in this information age, my view has changed, and I now think it’s only natural for younger men to join as well. The one thing that hasn’t changed is that a man’s most popular years are when he’s young and through his 40s. You can enjoy meeting people freely and falling in love, so don’t forget to make the most of that time. As long as Universe exists, it remains possible at any age to meet an unbelievably beautiful woman—and not just someone attractive, but someone whose personality, values, adult relationship (intimate) compatibility, and outlook on it all match yours to an incredible degree. There’s no need to rush through life.

On dating apps, women can get hundreds of offers almost immediately. For men, dating apps may be as tough as a 1:100 ratio, with a handful of handsome, married guys looking for sex taking all the attention. The free dating world is such a hassle. I’d recommend Universe Club even to men who aren’t looking to get married.

Are there men in their 20s among the male members these days? I looked into it and found: 20s: 30 30s: 268 (This is for Universe members only, excluding international members.) There aren’t many members in their 20s, as expected, but there are quite a few in their 30s—at least compared with before. On apps, it seems some men in their 20s casually offer a low amount after meeting, and women sometimes just go along with it, thinking, “Well, whatever.” Maybe those men realize that apps are full of agents—and that female agents probably have fixed rates because it’s their job—and are moving over to dating clubs instead. As for men in their 30s, some may have achieved success at a young age, so they might have the same mindset as men in other age groups. That said, since they’re younger, they may enjoy themselves a little differently.

This is something I heard from a female member I’ve been seeing. There seem to be more offers coming from men in their 30s, and many of them are single as well. - They suggest that, because they’re young, the allowance can be lower than what other papas offer. - They have looks that wouldn’t get them any attention on dating apps. - They’re eccentric and seem to have little experience with women outside compensated dating. One woman who received offers from three men in their 30s in the same month said that more and more men may be entering papa-katsu because dating apps have completely beaten them down, while here they get fawned over. Of course, it may also be that more young people want a clean, no-strings relationship made possible by money being involved. Just some food for thought. Mac-san, Nice to meet you. Please keep in mind that this is only based on what one woman honestly told me, so I don’t know how representative it is. Apparently, besides me, she has one man in his 50s and another man in his 50s who has some issues. By “issues,” I mean the opposite of having good personal hygiene. She apparently immediately cut off all three men in their 30s: The allowance was too low, one was too eccentric to consider, and another had an unacceptable personality. I did suggest that perhaps she needed to compromise a little, though. To get back to the point, I get the feeling that, as with the men you know, a certain number of good-looking men who are perfectly happy with a transactional relationship, as well as men with decent money who can’t do well on dating apps but can easily approach younger women through papa-katsu, are increasingly entering the scene. Whether that’s good or bad is another question. Writing this reminded me: last year, another woman told me an awful story about meeting a 32-year-old doctor and being left feeling completely miserable afterward. Just some food for thought.

Obviously, when money is involved, there’s less mess when it’s time to part ways. How many years have you been a papa-katsu girl? Are you stupid? There are two groups among middle-aged and older men: those who aren’t popular with women, and those who could find someone on their own but don’t want things to get complicated. What they have in common is a strong sex drive. I’m not sure of the ratio between the two groups. And having had enough of serious crushes or stalkers isn’t something that only happens to women. Andy, Really? I haven’t verified it myself, so if that’s what the women told you, then it might be true. The guys in their twenties I know who are idols use adult services, and they said it was because they felt safer when money was involved. So I assumed that was probably the reason. I’ve heard that some men join a dating club because they can’t make things work on matchmaking apps—or rather, because their standards are too high and they have some misguided expectations. Kazu, That’s right. I’d completely forgotten, but there probably is a group of young men who prefer a transactional relationship because they’re afraid of being pressured into marriage. You can’t go on dates and enjoy feeling like you’re in a relationship at an adult service. I’m siding with Kazu.