Mark Steyn: Japanese Rent Cats to Cuddle
The Japanese are living out a dystopia like the one described in P.D. James's novel The Children of Men, which portrays a world where everyone is infertile and no children are being born. Mark Steyn writes:
In Lady James's speculative fiction, pets are doted on as child-substitutes, and churches hold christening ceremonies for cats.
In contemporary Japanese reality, Tokyo has some 40 "cat cafés" where lonely solitary citizens can while away an afternoon by renting a feline to touch and pet for a couple of companiable hours.
In Lady James's speculative fiction, all the unneeded toys are burned, except for the dolls, which childless women seize on as the nearest thing to a baby and wheel through the streets.
In contemporary Japanese reality, toy makers, their children's market dwindling, have instead developed dolls for seniors to be the grandchildren they'll never have: You can dress them up, and put them in a baby carriage, and the computer chip in the back has several dozen phrases of the kind a real grandchild might use to enable them to engage in rudimentary social pleasantries.
Mark Steyn describes here how the Japanese are opting out of sex and marriage too.
Also of Interest
Welcome to the World of Newspeak
Pro-Same-Sex "Marriage" Lesbian: "Institution of Marriage Should Not Exist"
