Yobai (Night crawling)
Until quite recently in rural Japan, yobai, or “night crawling” would have been an introduction to sex for many young people. While a young woman slept, a silent intruder would creep into her room, slide behind her and make his intentions known. If she consented, they would have discrete sex until the early morning, when he would have to slip out of the house as stealthily as he had slipped in.
The young man might be known to the girl and her family. Also, in a seasonal agricultural economy, farmers might have a number of laborers sleeping under their roofs sometimes, knowing that their daughters might be targets for yobai. In some cases, groups of friends would travel miles to neighboring villages, where the embarrassment of capture wouldn’t be as great, and each target a different girl.
In many cases, yobai would be conducted entirely with the knowledge of the girl’s parents. In fact, it was sometimes a prelude to marriage – parents would turn a blind eye the first few nights a young man secretly visited their daughter, but then he would be “caught”, and a more public courtship would begin.
Yobai tactics
- Take your clothes off before you even sneak into the house. In Fukuoka, it was once illegal to attack a naked intruder, as he was probably engaged in yobai rather than theft.
- Keep it quiet, even if socially questionable acts are required. One technique to avoid detection was to urinate along the bottom of doors to prevent them squeaking as they were slid open.
- Practice safe sex. A night crawling man would often cover his face with a cloth, protecting himself and his chosen lady from embarrassment if she rejected his advances.
Yobai clubs
Reportedly, yobai still happens in the more remote areas of Japan, and there seems to be nostalgia for the practice elsewhere. The seduction of sleeping women is a popular theme of Japanese pornography, and some image clubs offer special yobai services – providing prostitutes who pretend to be asleep while the client slips into their futon.
- ‘Bonk to the future: Business booming at old-style cathouses’ (MDN WaiWai)
“Night crawling, the Japanese practice of stealing into a sleeping lady’s boudoir for purposes of making clandestine whoopie, has roots in remote antiquity.” - YOBAI lit. NIGHT CREEPING (Sex Glossary)
“Before the advent of Love Hotels, Karaoke Boxes, personal vehicles, and other such sites of sexual liaison, a young man would have little choice but to visit the bedroom of his lover in a practice known as Yobai.”
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58 Comments, Comment or Ping
Anonymous
Dear Japan, what the fuck?
Sep 20th, 2007
Anonymous
what the fuck is right, damn
Sep 20th, 2007
Animusdelendi
Lol , cool prepude to marriage
Oct 4th, 2007
Anonymous
“Dear Japan, what the fuck?”
LOL
Nov 13th, 2007
Anonymous
Hello, may i rape?
Nov 15th, 2007
S
We have so much to learn.
Nov 19th, 2007
Anonymous
I am SO visiting a Japanese village this summers
Dec 4th, 2007
ANONYMOUS
“Suprise!”
Apr 3rd, 2008
Anonymous
Practice safe sex, where a hood. lol!
May 6th, 2008
Anonymous
“Practice safe sex, where a hood”
LMAO xD
May 13th, 2008
:D
… Oh god.
Japan, how I love thee.
May 24th, 2008
Anonymous
Surprise sex!
May 28th, 2008
sugoi...
“damn i can’t wake her up.. oh well… *goes at it…*”
Jun 4th, 2008
lonelygirl51
Hmmmm…if he was hot…then maybe..(did I just say that..? fuck….I need a boyfriend)
Jun 9th, 2008
Anonymous
Lonelygirl51: yes, you definitely do.
Jul 2nd, 2008
Tenrou
That is so amazing how Japanese are so slutty
Jul 8th, 2008
Anonymous
lol. I would kick a person in the fac if that happened to me. lol wtf is right.
Aug 6th, 2008
McBush
America needs to learn from japan
Sep 1st, 2008
miramira
that explains the old man in my room last night!
he was so dissaoppointed when I turned on the lights!
Sep 4th, 2008
Anonymous
I love tradition.
Sep 29th, 2008
ershnuff
Japan has got to have one of the weirdest and simultaneously the most interesting cultures I’ve ever heard of. One would think that peeing on a door is stupid and immature upon first thinking about it, but the reason for which it is done, stealth, is actually quite practical and intelligent, albeit kinda gross at the same time.
Japan has completely different liability laws than we do in the United States. One could say that they are more free, but at the same time they are not because more things could be done to an individual and there would be no consequences or repercussions. The culture in Japan still largely focuses on the people as a whole, the commonality, rather than a society full of individuals–this is a more Western school of thought.
Yobai would essentially be some sort of oxymoronic consensual rape… something you’d never find in the US.
Sep 30th, 2008
Anonymous
So that’s where the Santa Claus tradition came from; only in a really mediocre way.
Maybe that’s why my chimney was full of piss last Xmas…
Oct 28th, 2008
Jami
Sooo romantic!!!!! i would love 4 my future husband 2 sweep me off my feet dat way….. lol, ya right. i’ll try beat da crap out of some1 who tried dat 2 me n they would hav some problems walkin n havin children 2. at less they r practicin safe sex, lol
Nov 28th, 2008
anice
seriously what the fuck. Oh Japan, you never fail to amuse the West
Nov 30th, 2008
SMUTBAGS
I wonder if this is how the X-Mens Nightcrawler got his name…”Oh shit someones coming*BAMF!*”
Dec 6th, 2008
Hentaikid
Aah, Japan, you always deliver. I like the bit about oiling the doors with urine.
So romantic…
Dec 11th, 2008
TaylorBombx
“Lonelygirl51: yes, you definitely do.”
LOL, kudos. xD
seriously, japan is “supposedly” very creative and smart and.. very strict with being polite.
but then men go jumping into girl’s windows asking
for “safe” sex.
ridiculous xD
Jan 18th, 2009
Anonymous
This is the most awesome story I’ve ever heard XD
Jan 27th, 2009
sick of the big white man
thank God we do not adhere to the standards of the “west”, who, up until now thinks that everything revolves around their corrupted, self-righteous ideals. fuck the human who thinks he is better than his peers. In the end, we all share the same fate as dust.
Jan 28th, 2009
Mobility Aid
This is an incredibly awesome tradition
Feb 18th, 2009
Anonymous
How desperate do you have to be to do that
Mar 2nd, 2009
Thanatos
Wow…
It’s definitely an interesting read. The urine to stop the squeaking is ingenious.
Mar 20th, 2009
Nyx
Just found this. I lol’d in real life over it. XD
But seriously, for someone who’s studied a bit of anthropology and all the diverse customs and traditions that human societies have had throughout the ages this doesn’t even seem that extreme – it’s pretty interesting actually. Still, Japan is one of the most economically advanced and modernized countries in the world, so to hear that a tradition like that is still alive there is shocking for someone who has an exclusively Western view on things. Honestly, Japan is like the ultimate land of contradictions.
Apr 3rd, 2009
cara
wow, is this a meme yet?
Apr 15th, 2009
cale
this is also common in some areas of rural china. it is definitely not acceptable for foreigners to try this.
Apr 19th, 2009
LEONZU
WOOOOW I LIKE YOBAI…TO JAPAN GOOD FUCKING CULTURE..
Apr 22nd, 2009
RAPE
they’re gonna taste rape (sung to the frosties advert)
May 9th, 2009
Ambey
o.0
…
Uh…
“Hi. My name is Bob, and um, yeah, you can’t see my face cuz I have a cloth over it. Don’t be afraid, I practice safe sex~! Hey, you wanna get laid and then marry me~?! Sounds good. Please don’t break open a can of whoop-ass tsundere on my hormonal self.”
Oh, gosh, I can imagine something like that… XD Japan, Japan, you stun and bewilder me, all the while enchanting me.
May 10th, 2009
Dan Atson
What happens if the night crawler is “gay”?
May 10th, 2009
Anonymous
Heh.. I’m going to Japan.. >.> Like the saying goes “When in Rome, do like Romans do.” XD
May 20th, 2009
lonelygirl52
Sounds fun.
May 30th, 2009
the one who blogs
Wikipedia doesn’t know about it this, so this thing doesn’t exist.
If it’s not in Wikipedia…
May 30th, 2009
Hedcase
Hahaha WtF Japan ^.^
May 30th, 2009
imominous
Japan confuses me. I haven’t even figured out the giant angry robots yet, and now this?
May 30th, 2009
Angelababy
Please I need night climbing in my high rise apartment building in Hong Kong
Jun 3rd, 2009
Nakata
It is exactly a rude behaviour if they don’t make a deed before doing it. Supposed it was an excited idea to do it with a girl you love, just make sure when the right time are both really enjoy, move it to be a magic moment.
Jun 3rd, 2009
Tampon
Try to fix the night crawling vertically outside a high rise apartment building.
Jun 3rd, 2009
Anonymous
It is a folklore of love on a side look interesting and seductive. The dark side is that the similar animal behavior still happening in civilized society.
Jun 3rd, 2009
Anonymous
That’s why I am happy to stay in old fashion japanese homestay.
Jun 4th, 2009
crabby
How depressing to read something interesting and then see a bunch of witless fools comment on it.
“Where a hood”: I don’t suppose you know wear to find a dictionary?
“Hmmmm…if he was hot…then maybe..(did I just say that..?”: Ooh, how edgy, a woman who expresses an interest in sex with attractive men. EDGY. Maybe someday you will get the right to vote and have a job and drive a car?
“some sort of oxymoronic consensual rape”: If it is consensual it isn’t rape. I know you are dying to use the word “oxymoronic” but come on.
“What happens if the night crawler is ‘gay’”: Maybe he sneaks in the window of someone who has a cock, then? Either that or he only pretends to enjoy screwing the young woman? It is one or the other, Socrates.
Jun 5th, 2009
char
This is what you call night life.. japanese style..LOL..
Jun 6th, 2009
creepus
There is actually an amazing short story by the late Nobel prize winning writer Yasunari Kawabata called House of Sleeping Beauties about this very kink… written in the 60s!
Jun 13th, 2009
Ace
Glad to see that thousand-year-old traditions are still alive and well. XD That’s awesome.
Jun 20th, 2009
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