Susukino
Susukino Sex Guide advises where to find sex, working girls, prostitution, street hookers, brothels, red-light districts, sex shops, prostitutes, erotic massage parlors, strip clubs and escorts in Susukino, Sapporo, Japan.
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Susukino
Susukino is a Red-light district in Chūō-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaidō, Japan. It is one of the major red-light districts in Japan along with Kabukichō, Tokyo, and Nakasu, Fukuoka. Currently, the district is congested with many restaurants, bars, hotels, clubs, karaoke boxes, host and hostess bars, adult-entertainment establishments and ordinary tourist nightlife. Susukino is often noted as "薄野" in kanji, and "ススキノ" in katakana, and directly translated as "zebra grass field".
Today Susukino is not a simple open hooker street. It is more like a big entertainment and tourism zone with adult business mixed into the normal nightlife. The old red-light name still sticks, but the street scene is far less open than old guidebook talk makes it sound. Men looking for Susukino prostitutes, Sapporo red light district, Sapporo escorts or Susukino sex clubs are usually looking at a scene that has moved more toward delivery health, online contacts, host/hostess nightlife, bars, soap-style businesses, massage, private rooms and web-based booking.
Name
Various origins for the name Susukino are discussed, but the true origin is not definitely known. One theory is that the area currently known as Susukino was previously covered by Miscanthus sinensis ("Susuki" in Japanese). Another theory states that the Susukino is named after Tatsuyuki Usui, a supervisor in the construction of the red-light district in Sapporo (Usui is written as "薄井" in kanji, and the letter "薄" refers to the Susuki in Japanese) .
Overview
Susukino is not an official designation of any municipality. Rather, it is a commonly used name for a rough area with uncertain borders. Susukino Tourist Association defines the area of Susukino as lying between the roadways of Minami 4 and Minami 6 to the north and south, and from Nishi 2 chome to Nishi 6 chome to the east and west.
The name Susukino is widely used in the names of landmarks, such as the Susukino Crossing, Susukino Station, a station of the Sapporo Street Car and Sapporo Municipal Subway, and the new COCONO SUSUKINO complex at the crossing. Older texts still mention Robinson's or Lafiler around this area, but those are old names now. The modern landmark at the crossing is COCONO SUSUKINO, sitting right where a lot of visitors now first understand that Susukino is not only a sex district but also a normal Sapporo nightlife and shopping hub.
Area
Susukino Crossing is located between Nishi 3 chome, Minami 4 and Nishi 4 chome, Minami 4, and many neon signs were installed on the buildings along the street. One of those signs is the Nikka sign at the front of the Susukino Building, which has a painting of the Nikka symbol, the King of Blenders, and the background whose colors are changed one after the other. Every September, the Hokkaidō Marathon is held in Sapporo, and runners pass Ekimae Dōri through the Susukino Crossing and Susukino district, which leads to the finish line in Nakajima Park. Every August, the Susukino Festival is also held, and the line of people bearing Mikoshi parades down the street. The Ganso Rāmen Yokochō and Shin Rāmen Yokochō, where Rāmen restaurants are lined up along the pathway and visitors can have many types of the Sapporo Rāmen, are also located in the Susukino and are an attraction to sightseers.
The adult side of Susukino is not sitting in one clean street. It is scattered through the nightlife grid: small buildings, signboards, private elevators, delivery-health ads, hostess bars, girls bars, massage places, information offices, love hotels and online listings. Open street touting is now much more restricted than in the old days, and local ordinances make aggressive solicitation and nuisance touting risky. The old image of men being openly pulled around the street by touts should be treated as old Susukino talk, not the clean current reality.
Sex Scene and Prostitution
Susukino still has a heavy adult reputation, but the working style has changed. The old street-based and brothel-style image has shifted more toward web-based listings, delivery health, soap-style services, private rooms, hostess bars and quiet introductions. You still see signs, adult ads and buildings that clearly smell like the business, but it is not an open prostitution strip where everything is laid out for foreigners.
Street prostitution is much less visible than before. Some nightlife girls, freelancers and working women may still move around the area, but most commercial sex is handled through phone, web, shop systems or private arrangements. This is Japan, so the language is coded, the legal fiction is strange, and everything sits behind signs, reception desks, websites and little rules that outsiders do not always understand.
Prices in Susukino move by shop type, girl, time, language and how foreign the customer looks. Cheap street-style prices are not the main story anymore. Delivery health and private services can climb fast, especially with outcall, hotel visit, longer time, better-looking girls or foreigner-friendly service. Anyone expecting Thailand prices in Sapporo is already thinking wrong. Japan is expensive, and Susukino follows Japan prices.
Foreigners can have trouble in Susukino because some places do not accept gaijin, do not speak English, or do not want the headache. A place may look open from outside and still quietly refuse. Other places are foreigner-friendly but charge more or use staff who know exactly how to handle lost visitors. The safe rule in Susukino is not to act loud, drunk or entitled. Quiet manners matter more here than in most red-light streets.
History
Susukino originated in 1871, when the Hokkaidō Kaitaku-shi, the Settlement Envoyship pioneering Hokkaidō, designated the area from Minami 4 and Minami 5 to Nishi 3 chome and Nishi 4 chome as the red-light district. After the construction of the district, the Kaitaku-shi named this place as "Susukino Yūkaku" (Susukino red-light district), and integrated other brothels into this district. One of the reasons the Kaitaku-shi constructed a red-light district in this place was to keep laborers engaged in pioneering Hokkaidō in Sapporo.
In 1872, a 1.2 meter wall, 900 meters long, was erected around the Susukino Yūkaku and a gate was placed between Nishi 3 chome and Nishi 4 chome by Kaitaku-shi. In the fall of the same year, an act to emancipate prostitutes was announced by the new government, which had little influence on the district. With the establishment of licensed prostitution, Susukino Yūkaku and its surrounding area have smoothly thrived. In 1880, Susukino Kōban (Susukino police box of the Sapporo Precinct) was placed in the Susukino.
The transfer of Susukino Yūkaku to the neighbourhood of the Kamokamo River, headwaters of the Sousei River, was planned in 1901, in consideration of the elementary schools and women's professional schools that were located around the red-light district. The transfer, however, was not realised until the summer of 1920. Prior to this year, in 1918, the exposition of the 50th anniversary of Hokkaidō was held in the Nakajima Park, which was located close to the Susukino, and the Susukino Station of the Sapporo Street Car was also opened. Two years later, although the transfer of the red-light district was not carried out in time for the exposition, the district was moved to the place where Kikusui district in the Shiroishi-Ku, Sapporo, is currently located.
After all the brothels in Susukino were removed, many restaurants, cafes, and movie theatres were constructed and popularized in their place. It was quiet during World War II, but the cabaret and dance hall were erected right after the War, and the American occupation troops also walked around the district. Susukino was not an Akasen (red-line) district, an area where prostitution was acknowledged by the government, but was actually an Aosen (blue-line) district, where a lot of restaurants and bars illegally promoted prostitution.
The Prostitution Prevention Act was enacted in 1958, however, prostitution in Susukino did not disappear. The street stalls were the actual hotbed of the promotion of the prostitution, which were eradicated by their compulsory removal by the government in 1964.
In the late 1960s, Sapporo City was reserved as the site of the 1972 Winter Olympics, and the expansion of the Sapporo Ekimae Dōri (Sapporo Street in front of the station), the construction of the Sapporo Municipal Subway Nanboku-line, and the maintenance of the underground shopping arcade, Sapporo Poletown, were carried out in around 1970. In 1974, a department store, Matsuzakaya Sapporo Branch, later Robinson's Sapporo Branch and then Lafiler, was opened, which was the first department store in the district of the Susukino. That old department-store line has now given way to COCONO SUSUKINO, the newer landmark at the crossing. Other notable buildings were included the "Emperor" opened in 1973, which was a huge cabaret and later closed its business in September 2006, and the "Mikado" opened in 1974, which was also a large cabaret and later closed in the spring of 1982. Since the late 1970s, disco-style bars began to be popular in Japan and many discos were constructed in Susukino, while nightclubs decayed.
In 1980s, a lot of hotels were constructed around the Susukino district. The Susukino Snow Festival (Susukino Kōri no Saiten) was held as a part of the Sapporo Snow Festival in 1983, and since that year, ice statues and other snow objects are lining up the street of the Susukino district every February. In 1986, a natural hot spring was dug in the ground of Susukino. This was called "Susukino Hot Springs", and is used currently in hotels in the Susukino area. The Hōsui Susukino Station, a subway station of the Tōhō line, Sapporo Municipal Subway, was inaugurated in 1988.
Today Susukino is stuck between both worlds. It is still one of Japan’s famous adult-entertainment names, but it is also a normal Sapporo nightlife, food, hotel, shopping and tourist zone. The red-light district is still there in the signs, buildings and web listings, but it is cleaner, more regulated, more hidden and less street-open than old red-light hunters imagine.
Stay Safe
Susukino is safer than many foreign red-light districts, but that does not mean soft. Japan is polite on the surface and very expensive when a man gets stupid. Bar scams, padded bills, fake hostess charges, drink pressure, tout trouble, bad massage shops, language confusion and foreigner overcharging can all happen.
Street touting and aggressive solicitation are not something to play with. Some touts may still appear around nightlife streets, but the area is watched and the rules are tighter than before. If a stranger on the street pushes too hard to bring you somewhere, that is usually a bad sign.
The usual Escort and Sex Scams, Bar and Nightclub Scams, fake prices, surprise charges, hotel trouble and Massage Parlor Scams apply. Susukino is best handled quietly: cash under control, no loud drunken foreigner act, no fighting in the street, no filming girls or signs like an idiot, and no following random touts into elevators just because the sign outside looked hot.
See Also
- North America | South America | Europe | Africa | Oceania
- Age of consent | Stay safe | Common scams | Safe sex | STD | HIV/AIDS
