pink japan

One of the most intriguing slideshows is about to hit Toronto Tuesday night.

Titled Pink Japan, the photos are snapshots of a Japan few ever get to see, or are even aware of.

It was during the filming of a television program that Japanese-American sex educator Midori was granted access to the love motels and sex clubs that make up the Pink Japan show.

"These are little pieces of Japanese life", she explains, "I was shooting from hip using a digital camera, going to interesting places, exploring love motels, maid services, the fetish of the cute, things like that. They're a collection of photos took as I went through the various subcultures."

Well-spoken and friendly, Midori talks about the stereotypes of cultures, including Japan's, and how notions of sexuality -right or wrong -wind up being categorized in a similiar fashion.

"We all have stereotypes of cultures we're not familiar with," she says firmly, "it's not necessarily ingrained in Japanese culture. It's ingrained in human nature. In Japan there are equally weird and bizarre stereotypes of North Americans."

She points out that the "Memoirs of a Geisha/Madame Butterfly syndrome" is equally as inaccurate to the Japanese as the "Britney/Paris/blonde-with-guns" stereotype of North Americans held by some Japanese.

Midori explains that PInk Japan is meant to bust down such stereotypes by bringing a "more realistic experience, a human experience."

Sarah Forbes-Roberts, manager of the Toronto store Come As You Are, which is co-presenting Midori's appearance (with the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto), says Midori "gives such great workshops. We have about six who come to all of her workshops, but we attract more who normally don't come into a sex shop at all. She's very accessible and approachable, and she makes people feel comfortable talking about stuff they haven't said out loud before."

If you're not brave enough to walk into Come As You Are, but want to attend Pink Japan, by all means, go for it, but don't expect to see raunchy scenes or to ogle oodles of pale naked flesh.

"In terms of photo presentation, there is no explicit action, " says Midori, "it's not intended as an x-rated slideshow. I want people to check it out, follow my leads and get more accurate information."

Midori's international experiences have given her an awareness of the differences in approaches to sex and sexuality that most people aren't aware of.

"There's a stylized expression of sexuality that happens everywhere," she notes, " every culture has its own style of courtship and process of mating -the rituals of love and sex -and sometimes it's so ingrained with us culturally, we tend to think of it as natural... but there isn't much that's natural about human sexuality."

"So much is woven in with cultural, values, upbringing, even the facial expressions one would have while having sex is oftentimes heavily influenced by our pop culture, our value set and approach, what is taboo and what holds sexual power over a certain population."

She note that Torontonians have been among her most open and curious of audiences.

"Come As You Are were the first folks that invited me to Toronto," she says, "they got me connected with other things. It's really encouraging to see more shops like this popping up --there's a much greater acceptance for positive sexuality."

Forbes-Roberts concurs.

"We hope we're contributing to the dialogue in having people like Midori here," she explains, "because we want to engage with customers, not tell them what we think they should experience. It's so different for everybody, and we want everyone to have a diversity of experiences and choices."

This leads one to contemplate the notion of interconnectedness, for, surely if sex is among the most intimate of acts, it also stands as a symbol of connectivity, not just in a literal sense?

"The classes I teach at Come As You Are are, yes, about what we do in our bedroom," says Midori, "but the next stage of it is to have compassion for others."

"The world seem to be feeding off misunderstandings - war is based on that, really, the lack of compassion for others. If we are able to laugh and say, gee, sex is funny! and fun! - then there's no stereotypes. It's a global world, and everybody's experiencing the same things in different ways -including sex."

Pink Japan takes place at Innis Town Hall Tuesday at 7.30pm.
For more information, go to www.comeasyouare.com