America’s golden age—that is, its sexy stewardess era—of aviation might be over, but Asian airlines still uphold a reputation for hiring beautiful female flight attendants. Over in Japan, Japan Airlines is struggling to curb the smuggling of flight attendant uniforms to the country’s sex clubs. Since announcing bankruptcy in January, JAL has worked to prevent former employees (among others) from selling their uniforms to the black market, which drop major bank for outfits that come with a polaroid of their previous owner.

According to Joan Sinclair, a photographer who documented Japan’s sex clubs, there’s a venue in Osaka called Air Touch, which caters entirely to the flight attendant fetish. After choosing between business and first class, customers sit back while sex workers make "in-flight" announcements, serve them drinks and snacks, and help them buckle their seatbelts… among other things.

Sure, a part of us wants to yell "scandal!" or "misogyny!" but we can’t say we’re really surprised. Some professions are simply more sexualized than others; "golden age" over or not, flight attendants are still up there, along with nurses, despite that scrubs and sneakers have largely replacing their iconic (read: sexy) form-fitted white dress. 

We’re no experts on the black market or airline sex clubs, but we do know a thing or two about hookup-worthy professions. We’re not talking about bankers, doctors, or lawyers here, either. There’s a difference between marriage material and fantasy material, and we’d be lying if we said that we didn’t entertain the idea of getting frisky with a jazz drummer, the Spanish priest who’s a dead ringer for Gael Garcia Bernal, or the ice-cream scooper guy with a really buff right arm. Thanks to Mariah Carey’s "Touch My Body" music video, we’ve even started fantasizing about nerdy computer technicians. Backup my system, indeed.

Unlike JAL, though, those professions aren’t necessarily tied to a company with a brand reputation to preserve. Hey, Japan? You’re good with technology. Why not insert tracking chips into the uniforms? 

For now, JAL has employed a staff dedicated to tracking down stolen uniforms, which have a serial number sewn into them. Worn-out or old uniforms get destroyed instead of handed down. For hygiene’s sake, we also hope that any uniforms recovered from the black market are promptly incinerated as well.

Another related link: Air Hostess Fetish Trend for Japanese Sex Club Patrons