In Japan they call them herbivores and on Saturday nights they come out to graze: a perfumed army of preening masculinity. Groomed and primped, hair teased to peacock-like attention and bodies wrapped in tight-fitting clothes, their habitat is the crowded city where they live in fear of commitment and the carnivorous females who prey on them.
For much of this decade, the older men who made Japan an economic powerhouse have looked on in bewilderment at the foppish antics of the younger generation.
The country's twenty- and thirtysomething males seem uninterested in careers and apathetic about the rituals of dating, sex and marriage. They spend almost as much on cosmetics and clothes as women, live with their mums and urinate sitting down. Some have even been known to wear bras. 'What is happening to the nation's manhood?' asks social critic Takuro Morinaga.
Now they have their answer: Japanese males are transforming into 'grass-eaters'.
Coined by columnist Maki Fukasawa, the term soshoku-danshi (herbivorous male) refers to a generation of men who are less interested in sex (flesh). The term has been popularised in a best-selling new book called The Herbivorous Ladylike Men (who) are Changing Japan, by Megumi Ushikubo, president of Tokyo marketing firm Infinity.
Her company claims that about two-thirds of all Japanese men aged 20 to 34 are now partial or total 'grass-eater' and a long way from the twin stereotypes of 20th century Japanese masculinity: the fierce, unyielding warrior and the workaholic salaryman.
