Friday March 29th, 2024
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Take My Money, Sleep with Me!

Looking to sleep with someone? Literally? A café in Japan has just the thing...

Staff Writer

Sex and companionship are two things most people (especially in the Middle East) struggle to get a hold of. The Japanese are notorious for their inventions (in terms of goods and services) that are at times both controversial and just plain weird. One of such services is The Soineya ‘co-sleeping specialty shop’ in Tokyo’s Akihabara district. It’s a café that offers its customers the chance to sleep (literally) next someone, for $80.

We can laugh now at something that seems to be so strange on the surface. But if you take a second to consider the need gap in society that propels such ideas into existence, it makes you ponder on the demise of companionship between people today. We all know what one night stands involve, the old “in-out” or “wham-bam-thank you ma’am” procedure, but what of the act of sleeping and spooning next to someone? In a fast paced world of subways and jumbo jets, our sexual lives have begun to emulate the “time-is-money” approach that has taken transport and communication by storm… leaving the cathartic come down of company, a depleting experience.

The cynic in us is determined to laugh and scoff at the “you can sleep but nothing more” approach that has been adopted by this café, but what about the more optimistic light that provides “the simple and ultimate comfort of sleeping together with someone?” Then again, there is an argument to be made, that the hefty pricing for such a service is only further comodifying what was once an intimate and natural interaction between two (or more) people.