[Pantyholic]

First posted April 2004

Girls who need extra money can earn a pretty penny by selling their well soiled panties to Sex shops which line the back streets of Shibuya
This city is well known for its sexual fetishes, and for the sordid trading of school girl panties which has been flourishing for more than a decade.
But now the city has outlawed the panty trade.
The Tokyo metropolitan government last month ruled that shops caught peddling dirty panties can be fined up to 500,000 yen ($7,900) and the panty sniffers who buy the scented knickers can also face fines of up to 300,000 yen.

The city's section chief for youth affairs, Mr Tatsuo Mizuno, said: "We can't punish the kids for supplying them because they are under age. But we can punish the adults who buy them, and the ones who sell them."
The move is one of several legislations aimed at keeping the vice industry from exploiting the young Japanese, whose target includes girls as young as nine who drop into the shops on their way home from school to trade their dirty panties for an extra buck.

They also get paid more if they attach their photos to them, or leave their stained sanitary pads inside.
The soiled undies are then wrapped in clear plastic bags, and then sold from 1,500 yen to as much as 10,000 yen. Customers can for extra payment watch the girl remove her panty in silhouette.
All this is part of a raunchy business catering to men desiring almost anything that schoolgirls have worn - from sweaty PE shorts to sailor style school uniforms.
Other new laws include penalties on those who solicit girls for the sex business

Those in the trade ridicule the moves, especially the ban on used panties.
A 33-year-old sales assistant from the New Style Wild One Sex Shop, said: "It's meaningless, as long as there is money to be made, people will go on doing it. People know where to get these things." Mr Mizuno agreed that it will be hard to stamp out the trade, and acknowledges that it can go underground, and that also it will be hard to regulate.

He added "We are just sending out a message that this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated."
sniff sniff.