Interesting article!

[winterspel]

[Warning: Sexually explicit discussion of cultural customs in historical Japan found in the comments. Proceed at your own risk.]

Many thanks to icajoleu for forwarding this to me! :) I love that my friends keep an eye out for my crazy interests...this article is short but addresses a few different interesting ideas.

Harry Potter Loves MalfoyBy Jennifer

Comments

Part 1

[riccichan]

If you ever want to tell me more about this topic I would be happy to learn/discuss.

I'd love to! I wrote a paper about this, too (called "Shudô - the end of a way"), in which I detail how the advent of the West changed this special part of japanese culture, but unfortunately it is in German. I'll just try to excerpt its main points. I hope it doesn't turn into a novel, but I may have to split the comment into several parts. :)

1. I'm fascinated that this gender issue exists at all in a culture that is so conservative in so many ways. (although I realize that it really isn't in other ways)

Well, things were different before the western world intruded and Japan adopted a whole set of moral norms that often were in direct contrast to those which had developped over the course of hundreds of years.

The term "shudô" is derived from "wakashu" (youth) and the "dô" (way) that also appears frequently in words like judô, aikidô or budô (martial arts in general), sadô or chadô (tea ceremony), shodô (calligraphy). In translation, these words have nothing in common. But in japanese they are all written with the character for "way" (道), implying that they are not just a sport, a hobby, a cultural fad, but a special type of art form. To master this art, you had to "walk the way" of it - more even than an art form, the principle of "dô" implies a certain way of living. We'll come back to this point later.

It is important to keep in mind that in former times, not only the pleasure quarters but the whole lot of literature, "etiquette guides" and entertainment venues of shudô existed for men. You couldn't be a woman and be a connoisseur of shudô (which is not to say that the rich women of the successful Edo merchants didn't indulge in the pleasures that Yoshiwara, the red light district, provided). Another thing to keep in mind is that one can't apply the terms and concepts of homo- or bisexuality to the japanese society before the advent of the West. These terms developped in a different cultural setting, and the underlying norms and values partly didn't exist in Japan.