Love Industries

Japan is a country that is dying—literally. Japan has more people over the age of 65 and the smallest number of people under the age of 15 in the world. It has the fastest negative population growth in the world, and that's because hardly anyone is having babies. In these difficult times, the Japanese are putting marriage and families on the back burner and seeking recreational love and affection as a form of cheap escape with no strings attached. We sent Ryan Duffy to investigate this phenomenon, which led him to Tokyo's cuddle cafes and Yakuza-sponsored prostitution rings.

Soon, virtual reality is going to crash into our lives in a way we never even imagined. Though dating and masturbating have long been commandeered by the web, it's only been as a kind of middleman. Now we're nearing the possibility of falling in love with your computer, as meeting your dream partner could be as easy as slipping on Oculus Rift—the most advanced virtual reality headset in the world.

With one of the lowest birth rates in the world, South Korea is in danger of disappearing by the end of the millennium. If the situation stays as it is, South Koreans are predicted to become extinct by 2750. Because of the rapidly aging population, elderly prostitutes known as "Bacchus ladies" have cornered a number of public parks as their working areas. Meanwhile, South Korean kids are living with their families well into their 20s—as a result, an entire economy of sex motels has sprung up to give kids a place to fool around outside the watchful eyes of their parents.

There are one million divorces in the United States every year—that's one every 36 seconds, nearly 2,400 per day, and 16,800 per week. It's hardly surprising, then, that the divorce industry is worth a whopping $50 billion annually—that's a hell of lot of heartbreak.

In this episode of Love Industries we’ll look at the ways in which mobile apps have become an essential part of our search for the next hook-up, true love, and everything in between.

These days, there's a fetish for pretty much everything. If you can imagine it, there's a corner of the internet where it's a thing. One fetish gaining traction is "financial domination"—an extreme form of submission based on the pain of giving away thousands of dollars, only to be told you're a piece of shit by some domme you'll likely never meet and won't ever have sex with.

Are sex dolls the future of prostitution? Joel Golby heads to Barcelona to visit the centre of this strange battleground for the future of sexual politics.