Over time, the student came to believe that the professor had taken advantage of the inequality of power between them and that she had never truly consented to any of it.
When she finally broke off, she filed an official complaint with the university and sued the professor for sexual harassment. Her argument: that he had taken advantage of her position as her supervisor when she was 23 to groom her for sex, assault her, and then keep her under her control for years.
But in an unexpected twist, she too was sued by the professor’s wife, accused of adultery and causing mental anguish under Japan’s civil code, which considers extramarital affairs a breach of the marriage contract.
In the end, the wife won almost $20,000. The professor was fired last year for, the university said, having an “inappropriate relationship.” But the young woman herself lost her case when the court ruled that the professor had never forced her to do anything against her will.
The story of Meiko Sano, now 38 years old; her teacher, Michio Hayashi, 63; and his wife, Machiko, 74, highlight the tangled state of sexual power dynamics in Japan, where women rarely bring, let alone win, sexual harassment cases, and where the #MeToo movement has yet to it has become established as it happened in other countries.
