CC Club, Japan's first "soapland" catering solely to women clientele, closed its doors in October of 2007 only eight short months after it opened.
The manager was reported to have said that the initial response to the club's opening exceeded expectation. "Women traveled from all over the country to visit us, but we couldn't establish enough repeat business with local women."
The service offered by CC Club was similar to that of ordinary soaplands: there was a private room with a bath and a bed, and women were provided with a "healing treatment" from the "soap boys".
CC Club charged ¥30,000 for the first ninety minutes and an additional ¥10,000 for every thirty minutes thereafter.
"It's what men generally have to pay at an upscale soapland," said the manager. "Shortly after opening we were inundated with calls from all over the country. Our homepage also got a lot of hits."
While most of the clientele were in their 30s, a wide range of women from their 20s to 50s patronized the establisment, many traveling from as far away as Ôsaka and Tôkyô.
The manager believes the failure of the club can be attributed to its location in the heart of Nakasu's red light district. Women living in Fukuoka may have been hesitant to visit it out of fear that they would be seen by someone they knew. "The main constituent of our client base was clearly women from outside of the prefecture. In the end, we had to abandon the business."
The women who frequented CC Club were more likely than men to seek emotional interaction with their soap boys in addition to sex, and if comfortable with a particular host they would continue to request that host in future visits. As a result, there was an inevitable backlog with popular hosts. Another problem was the limited number of women a host could "accomodate" in a single day.
To cope with the overwhelming demand for the more popular hosts, CC Club removed pictures of its soap boys from the club's homepage and limited the hosts to a maximum of three clients per day.
Soap boys, many of whom had to rely heavily on Viagra to be up for the task, reportedly called the work "a living hell" and were physically worn out by the end of their shifts.
CC Club, which has changed its name to Hitozuma (another man's wife) Club Lady Lady, reverted back to an ordinary soapland in November 2007 and now services male customers.