Lady Gaga sang of bad romance. Was she singing about Japan?
For the fourth consecutive year, Japan’s “romantic satisfaction” rate has ranked among lowest in an international poll.
According to a survey by the Paris-based Ipsos, 51% of people in Japan are satisfied with “feeling loved,” significantly lower than the 29-country average of 77%.
Only 33% of Japanese respondents were satisfied with their romantic and sex lives, a 6-point decrease from 2025 — and the lowest satisfaction rate among the 29 countries (the 29-country average was 60%). Only 6% of respondents in Japan said they were “very satisfied” with romance and sex, the only country with a single-digit result for that response.
Japan has now ranked last in terms of romantic and sexual satisfaction for four years in a row.
Between December 24, 2025, and January 9, 2026, 23,268 people aged between 16 and 74 across 29 countries were polled online on the questions “Overall, how satisfied are you with feeling loved?” and “Overall, how satisfied are you with your romantic/sex life?” (We might quibble over the choice of bundling romance and sex together. We would argue that you can have satisfying romance without satisfying sex, and vice versa.)
We cannot seem to find exact data for how many respondents there were in Japan (the full Ipsos report says the sample size in Japan was “about 2,000”), and no doubt some will pick holes in the metholody, but these dire results are similar to past Ipsos surveys, which we have covered before.
Japan is best by demographic issues caused by a declining population and low birthrate, with grave consequences in the decades ahead. The government is intent on making immigration a short-term solution. Japan’s GDP is also dropping and the yen is ridiculously weak.
Is this all connected to dissatisfaction with romance and sex? We will leave the hot takes to others, but widespread emotional dissatisfaction is never a good thing (unless you want to start a dating app for married people looking to have affairs).
One thing’s for sure and that’s the mainstream media’s obsession with perceived sexlessness in Japan is not going away any time soon.
