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The Guardian // Lifestyle

We’re having sex inside Moby Dick! The wild architectural world of Japan’s love hotels

Monday 5th May 2025, 3:09PM

From cruise ships to UFOs, from King Kong to a giant whale, half the sex in Japan may take place in its dazzlingly imaginative love hotels. But have some become just too seedy? Our writer checks inDo whales make you horny? How about UFOs? Maybe you’ve always dreamed of having a tryst in a fairytale castle, or making love inside a gigantic biscuit tin? Whatever your weird fantasy may be, it can probably be catered for on a roadside somewhere in Japan, if a new book on the curious phenomenon of love hotels is anything to go by.French photographer François Prost has been on a 3,000km pilgrimage of passion, driving from Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, to the island of Shikoku in the south, to document Japan’s unique architecture of furtive liaisons. What he found spans from manga-embellished motels and Christmas-themed love nests to pastel-hued stage sets worthy of Wes Anderson. And some things stranger than your most eccentric kinks could dream of. Continue reading...

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