Hikikomori and the Rental Sister (Jeff Backhaus)

In Japan, it is something of an epidemic that young men who feel too much pressure become hikikomori, withdrawing from the world, and rental sisters are employed to coax them out again - here the concept is applied to a man closer to middle age who withdraws after a family tragedy. After trying for three years to get her traumatized husband to emerge from his room, his wife engages a young Japanese woman as his rental sister. The story was engaging enough, but ultimately not really satisfying. It seemed that there was too much sex involved; it distracted from the actual inner lives of the people involved. It seems to be the view of the male author that a sister couldn't accomplish what a lover could. I don't agree.