My father joined Universe and paid for a woman my age.

I never had affairs while I was married. That said, Japan’s legal system of monogamy only dates back to the Meiji era. You can see this by studying classical Japanese: polygamy was a status symbol among the aristocracy. As Makeotoko also points out, the idea that a polygamous system might actually help increase the population is, seriously, quite true. Even when someone can love the same woman emotionally, many couples become sexless physically. Sometimes the cause lies with the man—pardon me for saying so, but he may simply grow tired of the physical relationship. Other times, the woman rejects him; some women see sex as something only for having children. Cutting ties because you see it as betrayal is one option, but if you genuinely face the issue and talk it through, you may come to understand many things. As I get older, I sometimes feel it’s a waste to let one life be overly constrained by fixed ideas. That said, if you’re going to have discreet fun behind someone’s back, you should at least make sure you don’t get caught. I’m single myself, so I don’t think there’s any legal issue, but I keep my activities private.

I can only imagine how hurt you must feel. It must have been a real shock. You probably feel completely betrayed by the father you trusted, so talking about men, human nature, or social systems likely wouldn’t reach you right now. I think it’s only natural to feel anger and resentment toward the system itself. I’m not sure what “Kida-san’s book” refers to, but perhaps the fact that your family was treated as though it didn’t exist—its existence erased—was the bare minimum of conscience your father showed. Honestly, openly acknowledging the existence of his daughter and wife would have felt even more insensitive. I hope that, despite carrying these emotional wounds, the day will eventually come when you can process them in some way.

That gave me a scare… You’d think it was my daughter… There’s a girl who’s the same age and goes to the same school… It’s scary how perfectly everything matches… When we first met, we were both cautiously feeling things out, only to discover the unbelievable coincidence… (Can something like that really happen??) But anyway— > “Even so, how did she know that her father had joined Universe and was paying a woman the same age as me?” Exactly. I was wondering, how could she know that without joining the club herself? > “Polygamy” Maybe it depends on whether or not you can empathize with it? Ideally, I prefer monogamy. Of course, polygamy isn’t necessarily bad, but… For a club woman, if she finds a papa (a male supporter) she feels comfortable with, it’s natural that she’ll want to see him as often as possible, more than anyone else. Then she’ll want to spend every available day with him, and eventually find it bothersome to see other people. If she could see him every day, she’d want to do that—and since an allowance is also part of the equation, she’d naturally start wanting to spend as much time with him as possible even on those days. In reality, though, I imagine the overwhelming majority of men—including papas—are the kind who make women unable to truly relax: men with an imposing presence, dignity, intensity, or pressure, loud voices, or a strong focus on satisfying themselves.

I don’t know… You’re ignoring all kinds of natural instincts and waving around this sense of what people “should” do, but what exactly is going to fall apart in your future? You’re doing it in secret, aren’t you? So what exactly is going to be destroyed? The questioner is also proudly talking about chastity and moral standards, but do you never cheat? Never visit sex workers? Don’t you have any sexual desire? To begin with, I think marriage—a system created by humans—doesn’t necessarily align with human nature. I started papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan) after my wife cheated on me. Nothing has fallen apart, lol. We have children, and we’d already bought a house, so getting divorced would be a hassle. Even if I received compensation, it would only be around two million yen. And if we divorced, there’d be a division of assets—even though I was the one who earned the money. It’s ridiculous, lol. So I chose not to divorce. I haven’t confirmed it explicitly, but my wife is probably still cheating, and I’m doing plenty of papa-katsu. And we’re all very happy that way. There are many different ways of thinking and living, so don’t make assumptions based on fixed ideas. Happiness and unhappiness are determined by how you feel. I think you should pursue whatever makes you feel happy, as long as it doesn’t cause trouble for anyone else. Your father might have reasons for seeking comfort or pleasure outside the family—perhaps his job is unbearably difficult, his family is cold toward him, or things with his wife have completely gone stale. Maybe you’re ignoring how he feels and judging him solely by your ideas about fidelity and morality. But people live by their emotions. I think it’s unrealistic to expect someone to be a saint just because he’s a father, or to say that he shouldn’t have sexual desires just because he has a family. Why not allow it—or simply look the other way—and pursue your own happiness? It’s not about what the other person is doing. It’s about how you feel…

This doesn’t sound like something a woman would write. A man wrote it. What a juvenile, awkward piece of writing. It’s ridiculous. If a woman had written it, it would sound more like, “It seems my father joined Universe and is seeing women my age. I wonder what he could possibly be thinking?”—full of confusion and anxiety. She wouldn’t use a sexist phrase like “buying women.” Besides, this has turned into a condemnation of married men in general, rather than being about the writer’s own father, hasn’t it? There are still two or three other things I could point out, but the questioner should study women a little more before trying to cross-dress as one. As a thought experiment, don’t you think “My father was buying women my age” sounds slightly less morally objectionable than “My father was buying women my mother’s age”? One reason I’m probably fixated on young women is that, although we aren’t married, I have a girlfriend five years younger than me whom I see on weekends. I suppose I feel somewhat guilty about it. In Yozakura’s case, do you think there might be an element of spite in deliberately choosing men around the same age as her husband? If so, I think it’s the reverse of what I’m doing. P.S. This has nothing to do with the question, but I’ve posted another column, so I wanted to announce it here. I don’t always reply because I dislike being accused of “mutual backslapping,” but I’d be happy to receive comments, and they’re always a learning experience for me. Thank you in advance. m(_ _)m > Come to think of it, how did she find out that “her father had joined Universe and was buying women her age”? She could probably find out by looking through her father’s computer. Maybe he has his login password saved in a password manager. Here’s another thought experiment: when you’re having sex with a young woman, imagining, “This girl is my daughter,” and projecting your daughter onto her is a turn-off. But if you project yourself onto the father, thinking, “I’m this girl’s father,” it can actually be pretty arousing. Give it a try. With that in mind, the questioner would probably feel sick imagining her own father having sex with an unfamiliar girl her age. But if she imagined herself having sex with that girl’s father, wouldn’t she feel far less disgusted? In other words, the essence of that emotion is jealousy over having her father taken away—not ethics. If it were really about ethics, she should feel just as much resistance and nausea in the second scenario. I’m siding with Fuu. It must have been difficult, but the wife who created the circumstances that led Fuu to those feelings may actually be a good wife. Of course, it’s also a testament to Fuu’s own qualities. Choosing a state of mind that makes no one unhappy—including yourself—is what justice means. That said, if you reverse the genders, women aren’t necessarily free to spend money as they please, and society doesn’t really offer a system for buying men with money. So I suppose there is inequality there. Also, I finally understood the story Fuu previously told about the long-term partner he confessed his serious feelings to, only for her to run away. A papa who says he can’t forgive his unfaithful wife, wants a divorce, and wants to be with you would be a papa with strong possessiveness and jealousy, wouldn’t he? She may have felt that things would become suffocating and that her freedom would be taken away. Perhaps, like Yozakura, she was the type who felt safer having multiple supporters, because she had a strong fear of abandonment. In that sense, the message left by the long-term partner who walked away—“Please forgive your unfaithful wife”—may mean that Fuu once again happened to meet a good woman.

I’m close with an absolutely beautiful married woman who always has more than five people she dates or sleeps with, including both casual partners and men she has serious feelings for. Her husband is wealthy, handsome, and around her age. I sleep with him too. I support this woman and always encourage her, telling her, “You only live once, so go for it and make sure you have no regrets.” This week, she came to me for advice about a new man—whether she should sleep with him or not. Sometimes I think it’s stranger to remain devoted to one’s wife and continue loving only her for life. Humans are biologically polygamous; marriage is simply something the law forces us to confine ourselves to. I even wonder whether making polygamy legal would help increase the population. Polyandry should be allowed too, of course. Legally speaking, what your father did was wrong, but only the people involved can truly understand what their marriage is like. There’s a woman who got married for love and had a child, yet still comes to see me with her child. She’s one of my highest-paying regulars. We haven’t slept together since she found out she was pregnant, but the fact that she comes to my place means she’s already crossed the line, doesn’t it? Even so, I won’t turn her away. I know that if I disappeared from her life, hers would clearly fall apart. She’s someone who has gone beyond papa-katsu. I know this may sound distasteful, but she and I love each other. We love each other on a level far deeper than the shallow word “romance” can express. And I think it’s only natural for the person who asked this question to absolutely despise me after reading this answer.

I don’t think it’s right to destroy a family or make someone else unhappy, so it seems best to be considerate of that while also making sure the person doesn’t bottle everything up and drive themselves to neurosis. One possible way to do that would be: “In that case, why not simply avoid having a family and live that way?” For example, I think a lifestyle like Akira Narita’s is perfectly valid, since he didn’t make anyone unhappy. Akira Narita became famous for his comics about telephone dating clubs. Unlike today, there was no money involved at the time, so it was a different situation from “buying” someone. Apparently, there was plenty of competition. There’s an episode about how he would go to meeting spots in his ordinary car, only to lose out to men arriving in foreign cars, so he pleaded with his wife for permission to buy a Porsche—and did so. (This must have been before he became successful, when he didn’t have much money.) Apparently, the Porsche made a huge difference, and after that, women stopped choosing other men over him. That makes me think the women may also have arranged to meet several men at the same place and time, then chosen the best one. He married at 27. He considered himself a “super womanizer,” and apparently asked his future wife, “Are you really okay with marrying someone this promiscuous?” before they got married. So I don’t think his lifestyle had anything to do with destroying a family. At the time of his marriage, his series had been canceled and he had no income beyond occasional part-time work, so his wife, who was a pharmacist, supported him. They had three daughters, who occasionally appeared briefly in his manga. Apparently, the family knew that their father went to telephone dating clubs and slept with other women. He even had his wife go out with other men. He would wait nearby, and if he decided that a particular man seemed trustworthy enough to leave his wife with, he would give them the signal that it was okay. (There were no mobile phones back then.) In today’s terms, they also engaged in what would be called cuckolding. In the end, he went from being practically unemployed, to having his telephone-dating-club manga become a hit, to starting a telephone dating club himself, and then opening a matchmaking café. So I think he was able to sleep with various women without causing trouble for his family. He was also on television about five years ago. Even though he was 75 at the time, he said, “I can still get an erection without taking any medication,” which surprised everyone. Since there are people who don’t make their families unhappy through their relationships with women, I think it’s too narrow-minded to categorically say it’s wrong. What matters is that both parties accept it, and that they don’t do anything the other person can’t accept. There are various ways to make that work. That seems to be the conclusion. Still, how did they find out that “my father joined Universe and paid for a woman the same age as me”?