The Meaning of “Using Comfort Stations” for Japanese Soldiers: Reading Japanese Soldiers’ Memoirs

Japanese soldiers left behind many records about “Comfort Women” and “comfort stations.” In particular, the memoirs freely written by former soldiers as they recalled their experiences reveal their candid thoughts. The Center for Research and Documentation on Japan’s War Responsibility (日本の戦争責任資料センター), which conducts research in Japan, has investigated these memoirs and identified approximately 1,000 cases that describe “comfort stations” or “Comfort Women” since the 1990s.

Years ago, I came across an image of Japanese soldiers smiling while standing in line in front of a “comfort station.” I couldn’t understand what could bring them such joy when powerless women were being forced into repeated sexual acts. Are men incapable of controlling their sexual desires? Does the relentless violence of the battlefield distort human nature?
While examining related narratives in these memoirs, I came to understand the social meaning of using “comfort stations.” In this article, I will focus on soldiers’ descriptions of their use of comfort stations to explore their function within the Japanese military.

The Right to Visit Comfort Stations

Which soldiers were allowed to go to comfort stations? Many memoirs describe how it was difficult for recruits to visit them. This was likely because they had neither the time nor the mental freedom and had to be mindful of their senior soldiers. However, as they became second-year soldiers and gained junior subordinates, their workload decreased, and they had fewer seniors to care about. It was at that point that the idea of visiting comfort stations began to take hold. From then on, most soldiers with at least two years of service visited comfort stations as if it were the natural thing to do. An ordinary soldier who served in Shandong Province (山東省) in central China recalled:

Michiyasu Nagai (長井通泰), who was stationed near Hebei Province (河北省) in central China in 1937, used a different metaphor to describe comfort stations:

All the terms “communal latrines,” “excretion,” and “tranquilizer” bluntly expose how comfort stations functioned as spaces to ease the soldiers’ anxiety and fear. At the same time, these descriptions reveal how the women in these stations were treated as nothing more than tools—mere “toilets.”

reference website : https://www.archive814.or.kr/record/recordDetailView.do?recordId=276&recordDetailType=formDetail

Many soldiers recorded how they received condoms from the army and headed to the comfort stations with a sense of triumph. Kazuomi Osada (長田一臣), who was stationed in Haimen (海門), near Shanghai, China, shortly before Japan’s defeat in 1945, reminisced about the day he visited a comfort station:

Private Osada, who was one of the soldiers marching in formation heading to the comfort station, described his actions as “not relinquishing the right to go to the comfort station.” Many soldiers went without hesitation, and most indulged without question. This suggests that living each day with the uncertainty of “not knowing what tomorrow would bring,” the soldiers viewed visiting the comfort station as a right or privilege they were entitled to.

“Raise your hand if you have no sexual experience with women.”

However, not all soldiers saw visiting a “comfort station” as a given from the start. Many Japanese soldiers enlisted in their late teens or early twenties, and some had no prior sexual experience. These soldiers often felt ashamed or embarrassed about going to a comfort station and hesitated to go on their own. However, their comrades didn’t leave them alone. Instead, they took it upon themselves to prepare them for their first visit. For instance, a soldier (name unknown) stationed in Zaozhuang (棗荘), Shandong Province (山東省), China, left the following detailed account of the situation at the time:

Hiroshi Nishikawa (西川浩), a cadet in the accounting division, was once ordered by his instructor to visit the comfort station.

Neither their superiors, their comrades, nor they themselves refused to go to the comfort station, even though they pretended to be “reluctantly forced into going and claimed to feel uncomfortable.” They all shared the belief that going to the comfort station and engaging in sexual activity with women was part of the process of “becoming a good man.”

Then why did they send those with no sexual experience to comfort stations, even providing a “justification”? This can be explained through the concept of “Homosociality” proposed by Eve Sedgwick, an American scholar specializing in gender studies and critical theories. According to Sedgwick, men trade women to suppress their homosexual desires and maintain homosocial relationships while in the company of one another. By doing so, they affirm their sociality, with women serving only as objects of desire. The solidarity between men is strengthened through the exchange of these objectified women. This explains why comfort stations and objectified women were necessary in the military, where a sense of solidarity was needed.

Appeasing the Fear of Death

On the other hand, some soldiers vowed never to visit comfort stations, even under these circumstances. They were considered outcasts in the military because they deviated from the homosocial norms that most soldiers had learned and practiced throughout their lives as men. However, some soldiers confessed that their firm resolve crumbled when they confronted the harsh reality of upcoming death.

Notice the reasons they vowed not to go to comfort stations: they wanted to “live as virgins until marriage” or “maintain their chastity.” At the time, male youths in Japan were educated to avoid brothels to prevent contracting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Schools taught them that in order to build a healthy family and succeed in life, they must remain free of STDs until marriage, and they were required to undergo strict STD tests upon enlistment. In other words, men were taught that staying free of STDs was a prerequisite for a happy future, and some soldiers followed this teaching diligently. However, such norms easily collapsed in the face of the fear of death. When they could no longer envision a future or expect a happy family or career, their resolve to avoid comfort stations also broke down.

At the beginning of this article, I argued that we can uncover the social meaning of the Japanese military’s use of comfort stations by examining soldiers’ memoirs. At the time, soldiers viewed visiting comfort stations as both a choice and a right, a way to cope with their anxiety and fear in a life where “tomorrow was uncertain” and individual rights could not be asserted on the battlefield. Many soldiers also felt uncomfortable when their comrades chose not to visit comfort stations, and tried to build relationships rooted in homosociality by persuading and coaxing these colleagues to share their experiences. Here the women forced to serve soldiers at comfort stations were seen merely as tools to maintain order and discipline among the men. Even soldiers who practiced STD prevention in pursuit of career advancement turned to comfort stations when confronted with the fear of death. In these moments, too, the women at the comfort stations were regarded as tools to help soldiers overcome the fear of death.

Ultimately, soldiers’ visits to comfort stations gave them the illusion of personal freedom and strengthened the military organization based on homosociality. Providing comfort stations also ensured that soldiers fought more effectively on the battlefield. In other words, comfort stations served as a tool for the Japanese military to maintain control over their soldiers and ensure smooth war operations.