In a land smaller and less habitable than California but with a population half that of the combined United States, the strict codification of public and private space is no minor concern. Last year, for example, at the peak of the globally syndicated series about the president and his intern, I sat alongside a 50-ish Japanese linguistics professor at a sake bar in Osaka. We watched Bill Clinton's clown-nosed face on the screen and nodded at one another. America is confused about sex and love. We talk about it a lot.
Sex happens and is talked about almost exclusively in the sphere of honne.
On the face of it, and certainly amid the then-depressing din of White House hysteria, this lends an admirable air of dignity to the daily dance between spirit and flesh. They appear unconcerned with the eyes of fellow commuters pressing over their shoulders and elbows. Context, in other words, is everything. Even so, what's tolerated with little fuss or moral hand-wringing in Japan remains striking. He watches when he is alone.