Japanese feudal prostitution: literary appearance

With more than 1 million inhabitants, Edo (Modern Tokyo) is the largest city in the world around the 18th century. It’s also the most literate. About half of the population is samurai, and they are proficient in classics. But Edo also has a booming pop literature community, and the other half of the city enjoys it very much.

Along with adventure epics, dramas and comedy, the common people’s favorite thing is the stories involving city prostitutes. Although most of them are fictional, these stories help us understand the nature of sex work and the culture of the Japanese capital hundreds of years ago.

Images of Yoshiwara Workers by Kitao Masanobu (c.1800) | British Museum Collection (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Looking down at the nighthawk

Yoshiwara, a government-approved red light district, is one of only three places in Japan, aiming to better control the country’s sexual workflow. It quickly became a common environment for popular books in the Edo era, many of which and juxtapose it with “Nighthawk”.

Author Yamaoka Matsuake explains it in his classics Sekifujinden That nighthawks or period, It is an unlicensed prostitute operating outside Yoshiwara, sometimes on the slopes of its moat, but also across the city.

story Focusing on the high-level Yoshiwara worker succumbs to the Nighthawk while trying to get her to join the brothel area, for which she eloquently lies in the hypocrisy of the gilded cage and its suffocating, dominating, dominating, and by the high-level institutions of the outside rules.

Licensed prostitutes look down at the nighthawks, but they live and work on their own in a place with stiff etiquette systems and mean girl-style pecking order.

Yamaoka probably doesn’t personally think that Nighthawks are better than Yoshiwara’s women (unlicensed prostitutes are actually homeless and have no protection outside of local gang bosses). But he just refuses to romanticize a place about the rules of sexual behavior.

Terakado Seiken provides additional details about Nighthawks Or HanjokiAmong other things, their concentration is designed to hide skin conditions and other diseases.

He also wrote about swing sheds for entertaining clients. It is obviously common for people to peek at these occasions and get severely beaten when caught.

Odake Kokkan’s “Yoshiwara 8pm”. Meiji Period (1906) | Collection of British Museum (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

To be a cool guy in Edo you have to visit a prostitute

Physical contact was restricted in Japanese feudalism. Things like hugs, caresses and kisses are reserved for prostitutes, so it is common for young men to fall in love with professional women. But it will make them notTSU.

“TSU” is the cool, vivid and emotional distance that people decide from Edo, which is the definition of the real person in the capital. While the concept is a little more complicated than simply “not caring”, it is an important part of it and the best way to show with a prostitute.

Umebori Kokuga’s Keiseikai Futasujimichi Describes Yoshiwara’s prostitute and her clients, both microcosm of TSU. They seem to focus only on what they want, and they spend most of their time playing tricks on each other.

In fact, the two are painful, and the only happiness in their life is each other’s company, but they would rather devour the Yoshiwara moat (essentially a public toilet) than admit their feelings. Finally, they break up in a sarcasm, as TSU beats personal happiness every time. Or, in some cases, common sense.

Santo Kyoden’s ED UMARE UWAKI NO KABAYAKI Tells the story of Endiro, the son of a wealthy Edo businessman who wants to be famous for mastering tsu. In this way, he has failed because Being tsu automatically doesn’t matter – you should show up naturally – but he can still try it.

For example, he visited the most expensive prostitute in Yoshiwara and hired a live mistress to yell at him and was jealous of his many conquests. He even paid a person to pretend to be a stable client of a prostitute so she could sneak away and be with her beloved Enjiro. Because letting a prostitute fall in love with you – while you keep your emotional love yourself – is the ultimate cool fantasy in the Edo era.

Only monsters will get angry at her husband’s visit to a prostitute

Feudal Japan actually had a very free attitude towards sex… Moral panic Sweep the capital. Overall, if the husband visits a prostitute or has a mistress, he hopes his wife is good for it.

No attitude is more obvious than Baba Bunko’s attitude Todai Edo Hyaku Bakemonoincluding a collection of short stories, including a story of a businessman, a businessman falls on a prostitute and starts spending all his time with her, giving up his family and business.

His wife eventually disguised herself as the prostitute’s aunt in order to seek help from the brothel, reflecting the legend No tsunami in Watanabehis demonic enemy Ibaraki-Doji also disguised as a hero’s relative.

After entering the room, the wife tries to drag her husband home, through this and Ibaraki-Doji reference, she is called “monster” by the author who uses a liar to disturb her husband’s good times.

Haifu Yanagidaru, During the Edo period, a humorous poem shows that wives should accompany their children with their husbands during outings to prevent them from hiring prostitutes.This loose attitude towards Fidelity continued into the 20th century, once involving Prime Minister Katsura Taro, who actually had to break up publicly with his lover to save her, but could not save her from his wife. These two women are reportedly Good together.

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