Entering post-bubble Japan, along with the thriving economy, sex seems to take a leave of absence in marriages. So-called セックスレス・カップル sexless couples, a neologism by psychiatrist 阿部輝夫 Abe Teruo, become focus of scientific discourse when Abe introduced his first case study on a significantly rising number of patients in counseling on their lack of sexual intercourse.

The Japanese Association for Sexual Science stimulates the discourse by defining and monitoring セックスレス sekkusuresu (or レス resu). Since the middle of the 1990s the term has spread into society, even prompts a Japanese government worrying about declining birth rates to surveil its citizen's bedrooms.

The Japanese media landscape shows a spike in publications, surveys controlling for frequency of marital intercourse report steadily increasing　numbers of sexless relationships, all proof of a new sexless-ified normal?

This paper is an attempt to understand and trace ‚sexlessness‘ via discourse analysis from its　beginning in medical sciences to its reception in a wider socio-political frame.

This topic has yet to gather scientific attention; the few available studies concentrate on why people are sexless, leaving unanswered why this term is successful in changing Japan’s discourse on sexuality.

The knowledge production of sexlessness mirrors Foucault's analysis in the west, making for an interesting case to understand sexuality and its social construction and preconditions. Lastly, it reflects seemingly similar developments in South Korea, China, the US and Germany.