In Japan, cheating husbands who suspect that they're being followed and frantically check their mistress for a wire are not unreasonably paranoid. The Times Online reports that the country has a new booming profession: seduction.
Companies with teams of private investigators -- including a stock of stereotypical temptresses "from unintimidating secretaries and housewives to full-blown sirens" -- are now at the disposal of unhappy wives having trouble divorcing their husbands. For nearly $4,500 a month, women can send a seductress on Mission: Infidelity. The target and his femme fatale are followed by a reconnaissance team armed with Ethan Hunt-style equipment, including cameras built into pens and cigarette packs (but, sadly, no infrared contacts or explosive gum).
The private eyes will go to any end to complete their mission: Professional seductress Kyoki, 20, told the Times, "I sleep with all of them." (She insists that it isn't prostitution, since the target doesn't pay her -- his wife does. Um, right.) If the target isn't lured by the siren's song into initiating divorce himself, the evidence of his cheating is presented to him (and then, presumably, the divorce court).
The scope of services doesn't end there, either. The Times sums it up like so: "In Japan, if you have the money you can sort out virtually any problem in your love life. If you want to get rid of an unwanted spouse, retrieve a straying one, get back with an ex or even get together with someone you've seen but don't yet know, there are companies that will help you, using all the technology and expertise in human psychology at their disposal." It turns out that in Japan money can buy love -- of the short-lived, professionally manufactured variety.
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