[thomasfromcdnjs]

Okay, I looked into it more.

So Techcrunch references the quote below from the Guardian.

"Look to Japan to see the start of this growing trend: over 25 percent of young men and 45 percent of young woman say they are no longer interested in sex."

The Guardian makes this quote;

"The number of single people has reached a record high. A survey in 2011 found that 61% of unmarried men and 49% of women aged 18-34 were not in any kind of romantic relationship, a rise of almost 10% from five years earlier"

and references the formal study that is linked in the top comment and the one I also linked.

http://www.ipss.go.jp/site-ad/index_english/Survey-e.asp

But this quote that Techcrunch took from the Guardian;

" A survey earlier this year by the Japan Family Planning Association (JFPA) found that 45% of women aged 16-24 "were not interested in or despised sexual contact". More than a quarter of men felt the same way."

... is linked to another study. Well they don't actually link to the study, just to the homepage of the people who did.

http://www.jfpa.or.jp/

Which has in the website title, "Every Child a Wanted Child", which isn't quite likely to be as unbiased as the official census linked above.

Now I'm trying to track down the actual study which hasn't been referenced by either Techcrunch or The Guardian which has the major quote they are selling their articles with.

Edit: Huffington Post ran a similar article with the same reference, they linked to this article as the source

http://www.medindia.net/news/Government-Says-Young-Japanese-...

That article also does not have a reference to the survey.

[thomasfromcdnjs]

Aha I went on some huge investigative journalism trip.

Finally I found what I was looking for, the entire sex-less youth of Japan sentiment is a sham.

This guy writes about the whole ordeal and how it began.

http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/suckers/

And the relevant quote;

"In other words, the Internet was agog over a report that 22 males and 38 females aged 16-19 said either that they had no interest in sex or despised it. When the Huffington Post spun this story as “a third of the nation’s youth” disliking sex, they were basing it on the response of 60 self-selected people."

[tinco]

Haha, very nice work! So let me get this straight. They selected only 3000 people from 16-49 (not 9000), then of those, they managed to find the addresses of only 2693 to give them the survey, and then only 1540 actually did the survey. Of those 1540 just 126 were between ages 16 and 19, and from those slightly under half, so 60 people, said the thing that was quoted.

That's some serious sensationalism going on..

[thomasfromcdnjs]

My housemates were just talking about this Japanese issue yesterday and coming up with all sorts of conclusions and hypotheses as to why this cultural phenomenon might occur, when actually there is no hard evidence that it exists!