Shigeo Tokuda is like any other 74-year old man in Japan – a salary man, has a heart ailment and a happy family man except he is more physically active and has a glowing skin than most retirees. That’s because he needs to maintain his good looks and fine body features for his part time job as a porn star.
Shigeo Tokuda, in fact his screen name has appeared in 350 films already without her wife and daughter knowing over the past 14 years. He is one of the factors that make elder porn one of the fastest growing trends in Japan which contradicts the survey of World Health Organization that Japan is one of the most sexless societies in the industrialized world.
Tokuda stated the attraction of elders to his work: "Elderly people don't identify with school dramas," he says. "It's easier for them to relate to older-men-and-daughters-in-law series, so they tend to watch adult videos with older people in them." He plans to be in the industry until he reach 80 or older as long as the industry keep on casting him.
He even said: "People of my age generally have shame, so they are very hesitant to show their private parts. But I am proud of myself doing something they cannot." Still, he says, laughing, "That doesn't mean that I can tell them about my old-age pensioner job."
Director Gaichi Kono stresses that the eroticism of elders is captivating to younger viewers. "I think that, as a subject, there is this something that only an older generation has and the young people do not possess. It is because they lived that much more. We should respect them and learn from them," says Kono passionately.
According to industry insiders, Japan’s adult-video industry profits as much as $1 billion a year. Tsutaya, the largest video-store chain in Japan releases about 1,000 new titles monthly and out of 1000, 300 are elder porn.
The market for elder porn has doubled over the past decade, according to Ryuichi Kadowaki, director of Ruby Inc., which specializes in mature-women titles. "In view of [Japan's] aging society," he adds, "I think that in the future, we will see a steady increase in demand."