I hadn't heard of maid cafes before I saw these morally dubious flyer girls on every street corner in Akihabara, but as someone who was brought up with the controversial world view of gender equality, and having seen enough preachy Star Trek allegories to know that servitude isn't generally something to be encouraged, things didn't look promising.
When I later found out what sort of stuff goes on behind that cheery facade it wasn't quite as bad as I feared, but was still pretty sickening. Which basically means the girls are paid to find all of their customers' conversations fascinating and their personal quirks endearing rather then creepy, but that any excitement the customer may get from this endorsed superiority has to remain a secret. He has to keep his hands to himself, and not in that way.
I'm using the third person because I decided not to cross the moral line and visit a maid cafe myself, but once I'd come up with the blog title I had to mention it some time. Plus, it was pretty expensive and I wanted to save my yen for the cat cafe, which isn't an outrageous Are You Being Served? style euphemism for pussy. They're cafes where you hang out with some cats. It's ridiculous, but at least they don't make the cats wear debasing French maid outfits. Actually, what am I talking about - they definitely do.
