Selling Songs and Smiles: The Sex Trade in Heian and by Janet R. Goodwin

By Janet R. Goodwin

Promoting Songs and Smiles explores woman sexual leisure ("songs and smiles") in the course of Japan's Heian and Kamakura classes, studying the sluggish development of a transgressive id ("prostitute") for girls engaged within the intercourse exchange. Over a few 400 years, the nature and public photo of sexual leisure used to be formed by way of turning out to be regulations on woman sexual intercourse and more and more adverse perspectives of the feminine body--themselves the results of socioeconomic switch in society at huge. even though it is feasible to color an image of the overall decline within the prestige of ladies within the intercourse alternate, there have been additionally ambiguities in how they have been looked by means of society within the very oldest extant references to them in old resources. utilizing essays, diaries, felony records, tales, and illustrated works, this unique and distinct learn unravels social attitudes towards woman sexual entertainers and examines adjustments of their alternate and the therapy they bought by the hands of the courtroom, the bakufu, and spiritual institutions.

Compellingly argued and stylishly written, promoting Songs and Smiles demanding situations a number of triumphing interpretations, so much particularly the natural connection posed by way of students among shamans and sexual entertainers. according to her exhaustive examine into a number of varieties of basic resources, Janet Goodwin perspectives ladies interested by the intercourse alternate neither as totally social marginals nor artisans positioned inside common societal bounds. What emerges from her learn is the complicated and sometimes contradictory nature of the Heian and Kamakura discourse on sexual leisure.

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By Janet R. Goodwin

Promoting Songs and Smiles explores woman sexual leisure ("songs and smiles") in the course of Japan's Heian and Kamakura classes, studying the sluggish development of a transgressive id ("prostitute") for girls engaged within the intercourse exchange. Over a few 400 years, the nature and public photo of sexual leisure used to be formed by way of turning out to be regulations on woman sexual intercourse and more and more adverse perspectives of the feminine body--themselves the results of socioeconomic switch in society at huge. even though it is feasible to color an image of the overall decline within the prestige of ladies within the intercourse alternate, there have been additionally ambiguities in how they have been looked by means of society within the very oldest extant references to them in old resources. utilizing essays, diaries, felony records, tales, and illustrated works, this unique and distinct learn unravels social attitudes towards woman sexual entertainers and examines adjustments of their alternate and the therapy they bought by the hands of the courtroom, the bakufu, and spiritual institutions.

Compellingly argued and stylishly written, promoting Songs and Smiles demanding situations a number of triumphing interpretations, so much particularly the natural connection posed by way of students among shamans and sexual entertainers. according to her exhaustive examine into a number of varieties of basic resources, Janet Goodwin perspectives ladies interested by the intercourse alternate neither as totally social marginals nor artisans positioned inside common societal bounds. What emerges from her learn is the complicated and sometimes contradictory nature of the Heian and Kamakura discourse on sexual leisure.

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Extra resources for Selling Songs and Smiles: The Sex Trade in Heian and Kamakura Japan

Sample text

Others include Koso, Miyako, Rokumei, and Shōmi. They are all reincarnations of Kushira [the black cuckoo of India, which has a splendid voice] or Sotoori-hime [a famous beauty who appears in the Kokin wakashū preface]. From the highest nobility down to the hoi polloi, the women invite all to their bamboo-matted chambers and bestow favors upon them. Some men make these women their wives and mistresses and love them until death. Even wise men and princes are not exempt. To the south lies Sumiyoshi shrine and to the west, Hirota.

When it comes time to distribute the earnings, the women lose all sense of shame and become incredibly Goodwin01 19 10/4/06 8:50:30 AM 20 · Delightful Sirens and Delighted Patrons quarrelsome. The arguments that ensue, both major and minor, turn into a real battle. One solution is to cut lengths of unpatterned silk into short pieces, or to divide rice into smaller measures, just as Chin Bei33 divided up the meat. ” They can earn a small amount— some extra for the day. 36 Even though one can read the essay by the scholar Gō [Ōe Yukitoki], I thought I’d set down some additional details here.

105 In terms of artistic production, however, the most important contribution of female entertainers was imayō. The musical form shaped the way in which the women were portrayed in Heian and early Kamakura sources. Probably sung at first among ordinary people, imayō became popular among the lateHeian aristocracy. 108 The lyrics in Ryōjin hishō address a variety of topics. The extant sections lean heavily toward Buddhist themes —this may be due partly to Go-Shirakawa’s piety and partly to accidents of text preservation.

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