With the sales tax now at a whopping 8% (You think that's high...?) and salaries remaining stagnant, more and more people are considering taking on side-jobs. It may be come as a surprise, but some are even looking into working part time in Japan's always-booming adult business doing some light work. Could there really be job opportunities that pay well and are erotically fun? Let's find out!

For up to 100,000 yen a month, you can work at home during your free time as a Men's Chat Operator

By now we've all heard about live chat girls. However, did you know that there exist a bizarro world counterpart with 'chat boys'? Recently, I tried my luck working as such at Men's Garden. It works essentially the same as female-operated chat sites: users buy points and can engage in a webcam chat with the models. All I needed to get started was a cheap webcam and a computer. It was a financial commitment on my end of about 3,000 yen (approximately $30USD).

Oh, and this site forbids models from showing their genitalia!

While waiting on stand-by, I received messages from men telling me how handsome I was. While in the chat, I was urged by viewers to start saying things. They became angry if I ignored them. It seems like being on the webcam makes it hard to hide your emotions and body language. Experienced users can read you like a book! Also, most customers were apparently homosexual men and they remembered me and said taunts like “Hey, you ignored me the last time!”
 

It took several days, but I finally a woman opted to chat with me and just like the incestuous relationship Japanese hostesses have by visiting host clubs after hours, the woman who chatted with me was a live chat girl herself. Her reason for spending time on the site was exactly the same reason why hostesses mingle with hosts: they can relate.

She actually teased me a bit too and made jests about the potentially small size of my manhood, but it was lighthearted. Before we finished, she did wish me the best.

While often listening to men recount their masturbatory exploits, I somehow climbed the ranking charts and ended up at #7! All in all, people spent 1,000 points on me which equated to 15 hours of their time or 5,000 yen (approx. $50USD).

It definitely was not that bad of an experience for me. Most users are online from 11PM to 2AM so it's totally feasible to do this as a side-job and make some decent pocket change—perhaps as much as 100,000 yen ($1000USD) a month if you're popular. Of course I heard of some minor celebrities making several times that though you'd have to be online all the time to come near it. Lack of sleep would eventually become an issue.

Becoming a live chat boy cost me nothing to register and setup costs at home were almost zero. If you're good at talking, you should easily be able to build up a base of regular customers and make a formidable side-income.

(Translator's note: Interestingly, Men's Garden does not mention nationality requirements on their application page so it may be feasible for a foreigner reading this article and living in Japan to register there and make bank—provided you aren't camera shy and don't mind catering to a predominantly homosexual user base. This site differs greatly from live chat girls websites since men are not allowed to do anything visually explicit.)