Last week was a bad one for certain Japanese women and the men who love to buy them drinks. Two stories described the downmarket vibe in Tokyo’s Roppongi Hills* (it’s always the “Hills“) section, a new-money, work/play development where local gals could heretofore count on snagging a Western banker for the night, if not a lifetime. But thanks to the death/ailing of Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs, two firms that kept offices there, the Roppongi meat market has become a bear market.

“The well-rehearsed choreography of girls coming in from the suburbs in their finery, tasting the good life, then snagging an investment banker to prolong the party is yesterday’s dance,” death-knells the London Times, which narrowed in on one particular bar whose website copy serves up such irony-tinis as “I will not chase after the fickleness of time” and “I will not be captured by the sense of values that bind my thoughts.”

Japan’s Mainichi Daily News adds that the U.S.-bred financial crisis has left single Japanese women, even those with good educations and white-collar jobs, little more to aspire to than the “survival marriage”: finding a husband with a steady job in the civil-service sector who can reliably put food on the table. (Who’s bringing sexy back? Mailmen, that’s who!)

“In an age when it is no longer possible to associate sweet dreams with marriage,” says the MDN, “what will be necessary is the resolve to be self-reliant and to not have to depend on others.” Yikes. And I’ve thought myself shallow for sweet-dreaming about a hubby who’ll split the rent with me on a 1BR with an EIK. Oh, and whom I love.

At least one of the young women profiled in the Times piece escapes the sense of values that bind her thoughts: “I’ll just go out in Kawasaki from now on,” she says. “No rich princes to buy me Champagne, but at least I can afford the first drink there on my own.”

Something about these two articles reminded me of the news from a couple weeks ago that Craigslist will begin cracking down on those who post ads under its “erotic services” section, enforcing greater scrutiny of both johns and escorts by requiring them to pay a $10 fee by credit card. The money will be donated to various non-profits, but still…man, things are tough all over. Keep hope sex alive!