Soil flush: A peek into the world of the Japanese burusera

“A posting on China’s leading auction site Taobao for the sale of Beijing Olympics cheerleaders’ uniforms, including their unwashed bras and panties, has whipped up a minor storm on China’s Internet. An agent claiming to represent one of the many international teams of Olympics cheerleaders put up the intimate innerwear items for auction and ‘guaranteed their authenticity’ and their ‘unwashed’ status. In language intended to appeal to panty fetishists, the agent wrote, ‘They are sure to excite you. When you hold them up to your nose and sniff, you’ll smell the youthful fragrance of the young girls’…the auction listing has been flamed by incensed Chinese netizens as a ‘vulgar, shameless insult to the Olympics spirit’…From all accounts, the ‘panty donors’ may have been cheerleaders from Japan, where there exists a thriving market for used innerwear that are used in auto-erotic practices. In fact, so-called ‘burusera’ shops in Japanese cities and towns cater to the kinky needs of hormonally driven men to this day” (Story in DNA India, 2008).

According to the Wikipedia entry, ‘burusera’ is a word of Japanese origin and is a hybrid of the word ‘buruma’ meaning ‘bloomers’ (i.e., the bottoms of a gym suit), and ‘sera-fuku’ meaning ‘sailor suit (i.e., the traditional school uniform for Japanese schoolgirls). In Japan, burusera shops sell second-hand clothes and undergarments as well as items (including sanitary towels and tampons) that are soiled with bodily fluids from the owner of the original items (e.g., urine, fecal matter, menstrual blood, etc.). Typically, the sold merchandise is accompanied with a photograph of the girl wearing or holding the item, and acts as a ‘certificate of authenticity’. The buyers of such items typically smell the items as a source of sexual stimulation and gratification. In Japan, there was even a film released (Burusera: Shop of Horrors, a 1996 film directed by Takeshi Miyasaka) about three high school girls from Tokyo that to make extra pocket-money sell their underwear to a burusera shop for pocket money (but don’t actually realise that they are facilitating the latest Japanses fetish craze). According to the Wikipedia entry:

“[Japanese] schoolgirls once openly participated in the sale of their used garments, either through burusera shops or using mobile phone sites to sell directly to clients. When laws banning the purchase of used underwear from minors were introduced in Tokyo in 2004, it was reported that some underage girls were instead allowing their clients (called kagaseya or sniffers) to sniff their underwear from directly between their legs. In August 1994, a burusera shop manager who made a schoolgirl sell her used underwear was arrested by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department on suspicion of violation of article 34 of the Child Welfare Act and article 175 of the Criminal Code. The Police alleged violations of the Secondhand Articles Dealer Act which bans the purchase of secondhand goods without authorization. Child pornography laws imposed legal control over the burusera industry in 1999. However, burusera goods in themselves are not child pornography, and selling burusera goods are an easy way for schoolgirls to gain extra income. This has been viewed with suspicion as child sexual abuse.Prefectures in Japan began enforcing regulations in 2004 that restricted purchases and sales of used underwear, saliva, urine, and feces of people under 18. Existing burusera shops stock goods from women at least 18 years old”.

A short article by ‘Morana’ about burusera at the Heaven 666 website provides pictures of Japanese vending machines that were once used to sell pre-packed and ‘ready-to-sniff’ used panties. The same article also makes reference to ‘namasera’, a variation of burusera that means ‘fresh’. Apparently, the namasera concept is the same as burusera, but in this case “the goods are still being worn by the girl who then removes them and hands them over directly at the point of sale”. A more in-depth article by journalist Agnes Gaird reported that:

“[The burusera shop business] concerns a very small minority of Japanese but big enough to support about 30 burusera in Japan. Customers often return to provide themselves with ‘fresh’ products (that is to say, still warm). Under the names of ‘Ado’, ‘Love and ready’, or ‘Lemon club’ these specialised sex-shops sell many more things than undies. They sell the fragrance of eternal youth. For in Japan, pants are synonymous with youthfulness and innocence. In a corner of the shop, dozens of small packets carefully wrapped in plastic, hermetically closed, are lined up on a shelf. Each packet contains a pair of pants, worn before and unwashed, whose prices vary according to several criteria: fragrance, ‘cooking’ time, sedimentation and ideally should be as dirty as possible; the smellier, the better. Prices range between 800 and 8,000 yen. But the customer is not permitted to open the bags for quality control testing. He can choose only according to the picture decorating each packet by way of certificate: the photo of the girl taken in the shop the very day it was purchased by the shopkeeper. Her first name, her age, sometimes even her blood group, all these details come as an extra bonus increasing the added value of the fragrant pants, filled with her shadow presence”.

An interview with a self-identified ‘burusera girl’ (‘Marina A’) at the Pantydeal.com website, provided some personal insight into the burusera phenomenon.

“When I was little, many middle school and high school girls used
 to make frequent trips to burusera shops for quick cash. Freshly taken off
 underwear were sold [for higher prices] than dried up panties…I have been [selling burusera items] for about 6 months now…I have done some transactions in Japan, but now I do 
most business here in the US. I don’t think there is [a typical burusera client]…I have had sales 
from older guys or someone really young…I have had guys who are single, also guys who are married 
because they just like the taste of women and their ladies in their lives do 
not let them…[Menstrual] period items are popular, but I have an ability to hold 
blood inside my body. So I have requests for pure blood. I sold it in a test
 tube…The fun part of [burusera is] the notion of guys enjoying my scent discreetly”.

Another first-hand account of the burusera business was described by an anonymous Japanese woman who began selling her used panties at the age of 14 years. She worked in a burusera shop in the Shibuya area in Tokyo that sold “used girls’ undies, bras, socks, gym suits, as well as school uniforms”. She claimed:

“At the shop, the girls wearing the school uniform could sell almost everything they wear and ‘produce’. Some of them sell even used sanitary napkins, tampons, saliva, urine, s**t and others if there are ‘demands’…The burusera shop is the great place for the girls who want avoid spending time with their family. It allowed them to work from 10am to 10pm, 7 days a week and earn $100-1000 per an item. Usually girls could set the price of their items. If the item is sold, a half of the fixed price goes to the girl, and another half goes to the shop’s revenue. For instance, I set the price of my undies as $200…I sold my bra for $300, socks for $200, shoes for $400, shirts for $400, saliva for $350, and urine for $400. I never sold my s**t, but there were girls who sold their s**t for $300-$500”.

The number of academic writings on the topic of burusera appears to be minimal. I did unearth a 2004 discussion paper by Dr. Iria Matsuda (Kobe University, Japan) that examined the cultural discourse surrounding Japanese school uniforms but it only had two paragraphs on burusera with little relating to the sexualized aspect. There was also one paragraph about burusera in a 2011 paper by Amelia Groom in the journal New Voices but only mentioned the existence of the phenomenon. Another 2000 paper by Dr. Yumiko Iida on Japanese identity and the crisis of modernity in the 1990s also mentioned burusera but again it was only mentioned in passing. Unfortunately, the most relevant paper I found was by Dr. S. Kreitz-Sandberg that examined the sexual revolution in Japan during the 1990s and new forms of commercialized sexuality (and most specifically burusera). However, it is written in German and I was unable to work out what was in it.

Given the obvious overlaps with various sexual paraphilias such as urophilia, coprophilia, salirophilia, menophilia, and mysophilia, it’s debatable as to whether burusera can be seen as a sub-genre within these more established sexual behaviours or whether research can be carried out in a standalone manner.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Giard, A. (undated). Arigat-oh! Agnès Giard uncovers Japanese sub-cultural erotica. ISBN Magazine. Located at: http://www.isbn-magazine.com/publications/rene_gruau/agnes-giard/index.html

Groom, A. (2011). Power play and performance in Harajuku. New Voices, 4(1), 188-210.

Iida, Y. (2000). Between the technique of living an endless routine and the madness of absolute degree zero: Japanese identity and the crisis of modernity in the 1990s. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, 8, 423-464.

Kreitz-Sandberg, S. (1998). Sexuelle Revolution im Japan der 90er Jahre? Neue Formen der kommerzialisierten Sexualität von burusera bis enjo kØsai. Minikomi. Informationen des Akademischen Arbeitskreis Japan, 4.

Matsuda, I. (2004). Deliberately regulated consumption? Discourse on school uniforms. Discussion paper (Center for Legal Dynamics of Advanced Market Societies, Kobe University

Morana (2008). Burusera. Heaven 666, February 19. Located at: http://www.heaven666.org/burusera-24070.php

Ryang, S. (2006). Love in Modern Japan: Its Estrangement from Self, Sex and Society. London: Routledge.

Suzuki, N. (2007). Love in modern Japan: Its estrangement from self, sex and society. Social Science Japan Journal, 10(1), 143-146.

Vembu, V. (2008).   On sale: Beijing cheergirls dirty lingerie. DNA India, September 13. Located at: http://www.dnaindia.com/world/1189777/report-on-sale-beijing-cheergirls-dirty-lingerie

Wikipedia (2013). Burusera. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burusera