What's going down at Tokyo's first boutique hotel, the Claska? www.claska.com

Not much it seems.

If you want to take on a room as a weekly resident, you need leave your libido along with your trainers at the front door.

Yet again, Tokyo takes on the tatemae of a foreign idea (in this case a boutique hotel) but discards the honne beating heart.

It is a terrible irony that long term residents are encouraged to redesign their rooms, and then not allowed to have anybody stop over to admire their taste & handiwork. It also seems cruels that DJs can inflame passions in the grooving lobby and yet nobody who lives at Claska can then invite a prospective partner upstairs for a quick knee trembler.

Europe's boutique hotels thrive as stylish backdrops to exciting rendezvous, where 'hollywood' twin beds are, thankfully, a rarity. Tokyo's first attempt at a boutique hotel instead ensconses young people away into individual cells, making a policy of forbidding joint occupancy (even if the couple in question 'live' next door to each other.) Its a far cry from a bachanalian Saturday night at London's Great Eastern Hotel. I don't think I could ever stay at the Claska, it would be too grim feeling sorry for the other residents.

Maybe people in Japan are so desperate to aquire a sense of stylish living that they fear speaking out would be considered 'uncool'. Personally, I think giving up the prospect of sex in your own space is far too high a price to pay. Turning residents into 'eunochal' monks for the privilige of staying at some design joint is totally unhip. And the Claska isn't the only residential hotel in Tokyo to forbid any hanky panky amongst its residents. Alas, it seems to be the norm.

Tokyo is truly a city of contradictions, few places with such a happening facade could have such a zealously puritanical core.

I can't understand why young Tokyoites put up with this kind of cr*p. This isn't Singapore. Creative stylish people have the right to have sex at home. (things are going to be tough enough as it is for them once they're married with kids, why castrate their youth too?)

I can't be the only one who hates sleeping in a room with an unwanted, unused extra bed. Why do so many hotels in Japan have twin beds anyway? It's not like they're any cheaper than getting two single rooms. Is it because of all the old American films that showed married couples in seperate beds? (Due to the censorship laws of the time, obviously).

P.S. And YES, I know about the Love Hotels - but they just seem to absolve people like the owners of the Claska of any responsibility. Better to make your clients pay outrageous sums of money rather than tackle any of your own unpalatable issues.