by Harumi Ozawa
By day, she is a mild-mannered office clerk whose modest make-up and
conservative hairstyle allow her to blend in with any crowd.
By night, she dresses in a skin-tight, all-in-one Spandex body suit that
liberated, she believes, from the judgment of others.
the woman, who is in her 20s and says her name is Hokkyoku Nigo (North
Pole No. 2).
ruffling the tight, red shiny material.
Hokkyoku Nigo is part of a small subset in Japan with a fetish for
effacing the physical self.
Some meet through Internet forums and through gatherings like the Tokyo
Zentai Club, whose ten members get together every other month, just like
any other group, to hold barbecues or parties. Unlike any other group,
they are covered head-to-toe in skintight Lycra.
Hanaka, 22, who was introduced to the club by her 25-year-old boyfriend,
Popo.
sewing stockings together. But I stopped, thinking maybe I was doing
something weird.
Zentai Club events with Popo.
While the hobby is a long way from being mainstream in Japan, a country
with an unsurpassed ability to dream up slightly off-the-wall pastimes,
it makes occasional appearances in popular culture.
Among the most prominent was a movie of comedy vignettes that each
focused on common but crushingly awkward social situations that were
resolved through a conversion to zentai wearing.
In one, a recipe-blogging housewife who is a victim of bullying by a
group of homemakers gives up the fight against the overbearing leader
and finds liberation in a circle of zentai lovers.
And in seeming homage to the superheroes whose unspoken presence informs
headlines in Japan after it was revealed he hangs around at the entrance
to a subway station to help young mothers carry their baby buggies down
stairs.
While some might have good deeds on their minds as they slip inside
their suits, others acknowledge that there is something sexual about the
practice.
woman like this. . . . In zentai, it is a completely different kind of
Academic Ikuo Daibo of Tokyo Mirai University said zentai fans seems to
be groping for a different way of expressing their own identity.
He said they take solace from the erasing of their outward appearances
and say they believe it offers a way for people to get to know others as
they are, rather than because of how they look.
--
Q: Why is ObamaCare like a turd?
A: You have to pass it to see what's in it.
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