Prostitution in Japan

Tokyo's Yoshiwara pleasure quarter, antique postcard
Prostitution at Ahiduoka in Japan, circa 1890. Kusakabe Kimbei.

Prostitution in Japan has existed throughout the country's history. While the Anti-Prostitution Law of 1956 states that "No person may either do prostitution or become the customer of it," loopholes, liberal interpretations and loose enforcement of the law have allowed the sex industry to prosper and earn an estimated 2.3 trillion yen ($24 billion) per year.[1]

In Japan, the "sex industry" (fūzoku, 風俗, literally "public morals") is not synonymous with prostitution. Since Japanese law defines prostitution as "intercourse with an unspecified person in exchange for payment," most fūzoku offer only non-coital services, such as conversation, dancing, or bathing, to remain legal.[2]

History

From the 15th century, Chinese, Koreans, and other East Asian visitors frequented brothels in Japan.[3]

This practice later continued among visitors from "the Western regions", mainly European traders who often came with their South Asian lascar crew (in addition to African crew members, in some cases).[4] This began with the arrival of Portuguese ships to Japan in the 1540s, when the local Japanese people assumed that the Portuguese were from Tenjiku (天竺, "Heavenly Abode"), the ancient Chinese name, thus later Japanese name, for the Indian subcontinent (due to its importance as the birthplace of Buddhism) and that Christianity was a new "Indian faith." These mistaken assumptions were due to the Indian state of Goa being a central base for the Portuguese East India Company and due to a significant portion of the crew on Portuguese ships being Indian Christians.[5]

Portuguese visitors and their South Asian and African crew members often engaged in slavery in Japan. They bought or captured young Japanese women and girls, who were either used as sexual slaves on their ships or taken to Macau and other Portuguese colonies in Southeast Asia, the Americas,[4] and India, where they were a community of Japanese slaves and traders in Goa by the early 17th century.[6] Later European East India companies, including those of the Dutch and British, were involved in prostitution while visiting or staying in Japan.[7]

Edo era

Map of the Yoshiwara from 1846.

In 1617, the Tokugawa Shogunate issued an order restricting prostitution to certain areas on the outskirts of cities, known as yūkaku (遊廓、遊郭, pleasure quarter).[8] The three most famous were Yoshiwara in Edo (present-day Tokyo), Shinmachi in Osaka, and Shimabara in Kyoto.[9][10]

Prostitutes and courtesans were licensed as yūjo (遊女), "women of pleasure", and ranked according to an elaborate hierarchy, with tayū and later oiran at the apex.[9] The districts were walled and guarded for taxation and access control.[8] The prostitutes were rarely allowed out of the walls,[8] except to visit dying relatives[11] and, once a year, for hanami (viewing cherry blossoms).[12]

Prewar modern era

The opening of Japan and the subsequent flood of Western influences into Japan brought about a series of changes in the Meiji period. Japanese novelists, notably Higuchi Ichiyō, started to draw attention to the confinement and squalid existence of the lower-class prostitutes in the red-light districts. In 1872, the María Luz Incident led Government of Meiji Japan to make a new legislation, emancipating burakumin outcasts, prostitutes and other forms of bonded labor in Japan.[13] The emancipating law for prostitution was named Geishōgi kaihō rei (芸娼妓解放令). In 1900, the Japanese Government promulgated Ordinance No. 44, Shōgi torishimari kisoku(娼妓取締規則), restricting the labor conditions of prostitution.

In 1908, the Ministry of Home Affairs' Ordinance No. 16 penalized unregulated prostitution.[14]

Karayuki-san

Karayuki-san was the name given to Japanese girls and women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who were trafficked from poverty stricken agricultural prefectures in Japan to destinations in East Asia, Southeast Asia, Siberia (Russian Far East), Manchuria, and British India to serve as prostitutes and sexually serviced men from a variety of races, including Chinese, Europeans, native Southeast Asians, and others.[15][16]

Postwar era

G.I.s in Recreation and Amusement Association during Occupation of Japan.

Immediately after World War II, the Recreation and Amusement Association was formed by Naruhiko Higashikuni's government to organize brothels to serve the Allied armed forces occupying Japan. On 19 August 1945, the Home Ministry ordered local government offices to establish a prostitution service for Allied soldiers to preserve the "purity" of the Japanese race. This prostitution system was similar to the comfort system, because the Japanese police force was responsible for mobilizing the women to serve in these stations similarly to the way that Japanese Military during the Pacific War mobilized women. The police forces mobilized both licensed and unlicensed prostitutes to serve in these camps.[17] The official declaration stated that "Through the sacrifice of thousands of 'Okichis' of the Shōwa era, we shall construct a dike to hold back the mad frenzy of the occupation troops and cultivate and preserve the purity of our race long into the future."[18] Such clubs were soon established by cabinet councilor Yoshio Kodama and Ryoichi Sasakawa.

SCAP abolished the licensed prostitution system (including the RAA) in 1946, which led to the so-called akasen (赤線, red line) system, under which licensed nightlife establishments offered sexual services under the guise of being an ordinary club or cafe. Local police authorities traditionally regulated the location of such establishments by drawing red lines on a map. In other areas, so-called "blue line" establishments offered sexual services under the guise of being restaurants, bars or other less strictly-regulated establishments. In Tokyo, the best-known "red line" districts were Yoshiwara and Shinjuku 2-chome, while the best-known "blue line" district was Kabuki-cho.

In 1947, Imperial Ordinance No. 9 punished persons for enticing women to act as prostitutes, but prostitution itself remained legal. Several bills were introduced in the Diet to add further legal penalties for soliciting prostitutes but were not passed due to disputes over the appropriate extent of punishment.

On 24 May 1956, the Diet of Japan passed the Anti-Prostitution Law, which came into force in April 1958. The Anti-Prostitution Law criminalized the act of committing sexual intercourse in exchange for actual or promised compensation. This eliminated the "red line" and "blue line" systems and allowed a number of paid sexual services to continue under "sexual entertainment" regulations, e.g., "soaplands" and "fashion health" parlors.

In 2013, Toru Hashimoto, co-leads the Japan Restoration Party proposed “There are places where people can legally release their sexual energy in Japan,” and “Unless they make use of these facilities, it will be difficult to control the sexual energies of the wild Marines.”[19] The U.S. Department of State later criticized Hashimoto's remarks.[20]

Religious connotations

Shinto

The Shinto faith does not regard sex as a taboo.[21] Sacred prostitution was even once practised by the Miko within traditional, pre-Meiji Shinto.[22]

Buddhism

Buddhist teachings regarding sex are quite reserved: "It is true to say that Buddhism, in keeping with the principle of the Middle Way, would advocate neither extreme puritanism nor extreme permissiveness."[23] Buddhism has rules and protocols for those that are to live the Buddhist principles in the monasteries and the secular part of the [Shanga]. For the Buddhist monks or nuns, chastity is mandatory since they live on the premise of getting rid of any feelings of attachment. Their way of living is regulated by very strict rules concerning behavior and this includes sex.[23][24]

As for the secular Buddhists, there are no specific rules to be followed about sex; although any kind of abuse is regarded as "misconduct."[25]

Current status

Article 3 of the Prostitution Prevention Law (売春防止法, Baishun Bōshi Hō) of 1956[26] states that "No person may either do prostitution or become the customer of it," but no judicial penalty is defined for this act.[27] Instead, the following are prohibited on pain of penalty: soliciting for purposes of prostitution, procuring a person for prostitution, coercing a person into prostitution, receiving compensation from the prostitution of others, inducing a person to be a prostitute by paying an "advance," concluding a contract for making a person a prostitute, furnishing a place for prostitution, engaging in the business of making a person a prostitute, and the furnishing of funds for prostitution.[28]

The definition of prostitution is strictly limited to coitus with an 'unspecified person'.[27][29][30] This means sale of numerous acts such as oral sex, anal sex, mammary intercourse and other non-coital sex acts are legal. Paid sex between 'specified persons' (acquaintances) is not prohibited. Soaplands exploit this by providing a massage, during which the prostitute and client become 'acquainted', as a preliminary to sexual services.[1]

The Businesses Affecting Public Morals Regulation Law of 1948 (風俗営業取締法, Fūzoku Eigyō Torishimari Hō), also known as the "Law to Regulate Adult Entertainment Businesses", amended in 1985, 1999 and 2005,[31] regulates these businesses.[32]

Types

Soaplands town Yoshiwara (2008)

The sex industry in Japan uses a variety of names. Soaplands are bath houses where customers are soaped up and serviced by staff. Fashion health shops and pink salons are notionally massage or esthetic treatment parlors; image clubs are themed versions of the same. Call girls operate via delivery health services. Freelancers can get in contact with potential customers via deai sites (Internet dating sites), and the actual act of prostitution is legally called enjo kōsai or "compensated dating" to avoid legal trouble.

Kabukicho, an entertainment and red-light district in Shinjuku, Tokyo, measures only 0.34 km2, and has approximately 3,500 sex parlors, strip theaters, peep shows, "soaplands", 'lovers' banks, porno shops, sex telephone clubs, karaoke bars and clubs, etc.[33]

It was reported in 2003 that as many as 150,000 non-Japanese women were then involved in prostitution in Japan.[34] According to National Police Agency records, out of 50 non-Japanese people arrested for prostitution offences (売春防止法違反) in 2013, 31 (62%) were mainland Chinese, 13 (26%) were Koreans and 4 (8%) were Thai.[35]

Despite this is not regulated, businesses related to prostitution voluntarily bans the entry to foreigners, including tourists, people who can't speak Japanese and, even, people who do not have Asian traits.

Tokyo prostitution

In Tokyo, prostitution dates back several hundred years. In the early 17th century, the first attempts were made to regulate prostitution in the Yoshiwara district of Edo (present-day Tokyo). A law was passed that required prostitutes to register and work in secured facilities, its main purpose being for tax collection.

Because of Tokyo's position as a top five global business and trade city, prostitution continues to thrive in Tokyo.

Terms

Several terms have been used as euphemisms for the sex industry in Japan:

  • Baishun (売春), literally "selling spring" or "selling youth", has turned from a mere euphemism into a legal term used in, for instance, the title of the 1956 Anti-Prostitution Law (Baishun-bōshi-hō, 売春防止法); the modern meaning of the word is quite specific and it is usually only used for actual (i.e., illegal) prostitution. The word for "prostitute" in Japanese is baishunfu (売春婦).
  • Mizu shōbai (水商売), the "water trade", is a wider term that covers the entire entertainment industry, including the legitimate, the illegal, and the borderline.
  • Fūzoku (風俗), literally "public morals", is commonly used to refer specifically to the sex industry, although in legal use this covers, e.g., dance halls and gambling, and the more specific term seifūzoku (性風俗), "sexual morals", is used instead. The term originates from a law regulating business affecting public morals.

Sex trafficking

Japan is a destination, source, and transit country for men, women and children subjected to sex trafficking. Men, women, and children from Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, South America, and Africa travel to Japan for employment or fraudulent marriage and are subjected to sex trafficking. Traffickers use fraudulent marriages between foreign women and Japanese men to facilitate the entry of women into Japan for forced prostitution in bars, clubs, brothels, and massage parlors. Traffickers keep victims in forced prostitution using debt bondage, threats of violence or deportation, blackmail, passport retention, and other psychologically coercive methods. Brothel operators sometimes arbitrarily impose “fines” on victims for alleged misbehavior as a tactic to extend their indebtedness. Trafficking victims reportedly transit Japan before being exploited in onward destinations, including East Asia and North America.[36]

Japanese citizens—particularly runaway teenage girls—are also subjected to sex trafficking. Enjo kosai, also known as “compensated dating,” and variants of the “JK” business continue to facilitate the sex trafficking of Japanese children. Highly organized prostitution networks target vulnerable Japanese women and girls—often living in poverty or with cognitive disabilities—in public spaces such as subways, popular youth hangouts, schools, and online, and subject them to sex trafficking. Private Japanese immigration brokers help Japanese-Filipino children and their Filipina mothers move to Japan and acquire citizenship for a significant fee, which the mothers often incur large debts to pay; upon arrival, some of these women and their children are subjected to sex trafficking to pay off the debts.[36]

The United States Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons ranks Japan as a 'Tier 1' country.[36]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Hoffman, Michael (25 April 2007). "Japan's love affairs with sex". Japan Times. Retrieved 20 December 2017.
  2. ↑ "Law bends over backward to allow 'fuzoku'", Japan Times, 27 May 2008.
  3. ↑ Leupp 2003, p. 48.
  4. 1 2 Leupp 2003, p. 49.
  5. ↑ Leupp 2003, p. 35.
  6. ↑ Leupp 2003, p. 52.
  7. ↑ Leupp 2003, p. 50.
  8. 1 2 3 Ditmore, Melissa Hope (2006). Encyclopedia of prostitution and sex work. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0313329685.
  9. 1 2 "Edo Pleasure Districts". Geisha of Japan. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
  10. ↑ "Courtesans and the Licensed Pleasure Quarters in Edo Japan". Asian Art Education. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
  11. ↑ Becker, J. E. De (2007). The nightless city : geisha and courtesan life in old Tokyo (Dover ed.). Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0486455631.
  12. ↑ Pate, Alan Scott (20 October 2016). Ningyo: The Art of the Japanese Doll. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 978-0804847353.
  13. ↑ Downer, Leslie, Women of the Pleasure Quarters: The Secret History of the Geisha, Broadway, ISBN 0-7679-0490-7, page 97
  14. ↑ Tiefenbrun, Susan (2010). Decoding international law : semiotics and the humanities. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 480. ISBN 978-0195385779.
  15. ↑ 来源：人民网-国家人文历史 (2013-07-10). "日本性宽容："南洋姐"输出数十万". Ta Kung Pao 大公报.
  16. ↑ Fischer-Tiné, Harald (2003). "'White women degrading themselves to the lowest depths': European networks of prostitution and colonial anxieties in British India and Ceylon ca. 1880–1914". Indian Economic Social History Review. 40 (2): 163–90 [175–81]. doi:10.1177/001946460304000202.
  17. ↑ Yuki Tanaka, Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation, Asia's Transformations (NEW York: Routhledge, 2002)133-135.
  18. ↑ Herbert Bix, Hirohito and the making of modern Japan, 2001, p. 538, citing Kinkabara Samon and Takemae Eiji, Showashi: kokumin non naka no haran to gekido no hanseiki-zohoban, 1989, p. 244.
  19. ↑ Slavin, Erik (14 May 2013). "Osaka mayor: 'Wild Marines' should consider using prostitutes". Stars and Stripes. Retrieved 19 May 2013.
  20. ↑ "Hashimoto remarks 'outrageous and offensive': U.S. State Department". Kyodo. Japan Times. 17 May 2013. Retrieved 19 May 2013.
  21. ↑ Velgus, Justin (9 November 2012). "Why Japanese People Are Comfortable With Nakedness". Gaijin Pot. Retrieved 10 December 2015. While sexuality is not encouraged in most Western religions, Japan’s native Shinto religion is more open-minded… Shinto and Buddhism, both practiced and often blended in Japanese beliefs, do not consider most forms of sexuality to be sacrilegious.
  22. ↑ Kuly, Lucy (2003). "Locating Transcendence in Japanese Minzoku Geinô Yamabushi and Miko Kagura". Erudit (in French). Retrieved 12 December 2017.
  23. 1 2 "Buddhism and Sex". Accesstoinsight.org. 16 June 2011. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  24. ↑ "The Rules for Buddhist Monks and Nuns" (PDF). Dhammaweb.net. Retrieved 24 October 2013.
  25. ↑ "Sex and Buddhism - What Buddhism Teaches About Sex". Buddhism.about.com. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  26. ↑ For the name, see WWWJDIC (link Archived 3 January 2015 at the Wayback Machine.).
  27. 1 2 "5: The definition of prostitution is applied to limited sex acts (e.g. Japan)". Sexuality, Poverty and Law. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  28. ↑ Hongo, Jun, "Law bends over backward to allow 'fuzoku'", Japan Times, 27 May 2011, p. 3.
  29. ↑ Ministry of Justice (Hōmushō), Materials Concerning Prostitution and Its Control in Japan. Tokyo: Ministry of Justice, 1957, p. 32. OCLC no. 19432229.
  30. ↑ Sanders 2003, p. 41.
  31. ↑ Hartley, Ryan (Spring 2005). "The politics of dancing in Japan" (PDF). The Newsletter (70).
  32. ↑ Sanders 2003, p. 28.
  33. ↑ "The sex industry in Tokyo". Tokyo Ezine. Retrieved 20 December 2017.
  34. ↑ McNeill, David (11 November 2003). "Running the sex trade gantlet". Japan Times. Retrieved 20 December 2017.
  35. ↑ "来日外国人犯罪の検挙状況（平成25年）【訂正版】" (PDF). National Police Agency. 24 October 2014. p. 44.
  36. 1 2 3 "Japan 2018 Trafficking in Persons Report". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 28 July 2018. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.

Further reading

  • Araki, Nobuyoshi. Tokyo Lucky Hole. Köln; New York: Taschen, 1997. ISBN 3-8228-8189-9. 768 pages. Black and white photographs of Shinjuku sex workers, clients, and businesses taken 1983–5.
  • Associated Press. "Women turn to selling sexual favors in Japan" (archived copy). Taipei Times, 9 December 2002, p. 11. Accessed 11 October 2006.
  • Bornoff, Nicholas. Pink Samurai: Love, Marriage and Sex in Contemporary Japan. New York: Pocket Books, 1991. ISBN 0-671-74265-5.
  • Clements, Steven Langhorne. Tokyo Pink Guide. Tokyo: Yenbooks, 1993. ISBN 0-8048-1915-7.
  • Constantine, Peter. Japan's Sex Trade: A Journey Through Japan's Erotic Subcultures. Tokyo: Yenbooks, 1993. ISBN 4-900737-00-3.
  • De Becker, J. E. The Nightless City ... or, The "History of the Yoshiwara Yūkwaku"., 4th ed. rev. Yokohama [etc.] M. Nössler & Co.; London, Probsthain & Co., 1905. ISBN 1-933330-38-4.
  • De Becker, J. E. The Nightless City: Geisha and Courtesan Life in Old Tokyo (reprint). Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 2007. ISBN 0-486-45563-7.
  • De Mente, Boye Lafayette. Mizu Shobai: The Pleasure Girls and Flesh Pots of Japan. London: Ortolan Press, 1966.
  • De Mente, Boye Lafayette. Sex and the Japanese: The Sensual Side of Japan. Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing, 2006. ISBN 0-8048-3826-7.
  • De Mente, Boye Lafayette. Tadahito Nadamoto (illus.). Some Prefer Geisha: The Lively Art of Mistress Keeping in Japan. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1966.
  • Fitzpatrick, William. Tokyo After Dark. New York: McFadden Books, 1965.
  • French, Howard W. "Japan's Red Light 'Scouts' and Their Gullible Discoveries". The New York Times. 15 November 2001. Accessed 11 October 2006.
  • Goodwin, Janet R. Selling Songs and Smiles: The Sex Trade in Heian and Kamakura Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007. ISBN 0-8248-3068-7, ISBN 0-8248-3097-0.
  • Japan The Trafficking of Women.
  • Kamiyama, Masuo. "The day Japan's red lights flickered out". MSN-Mainichi Daily News. 25 February 2006. Accessed 11 October 2006.
  • Kattoulas, Velisarios. "Human Trafficking: Bright Lights, Brutal Life" (archived copy). Far East Economic Review. 3 August 2000. Accessed 11 October 2006.
  • Leupp, Gary P. (2003). Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 35, 48–50, 52. ISBN 978-0-8264-6074-5.
  • Longstreet, Stephen, and Ethel Longstreet. Yoshiwara: City of the Senses. New York: McKay, 1970.
  • McMurtrie, Douglas C. Ancient Prostitution in Japan. Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1-4253-7206-6. Originally published in Stone, Lee Alexander (ed.). The Story of Phallicism volume 2. Chicago: Pascal Covici, 1927. Reprinted Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-7661-4115-2.
  • Sanders, Holly (2006). "Indentured Servitude and the Abolition of Prostitution in Postwar Japan" (PDF). Cambridge, Mass.: Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, Harvard University. pp. 28, 41. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 November 2011.
  • Seigle, Cecilia Segawa. Yoshiwara: The Glittering World of ihe Japanese Courtesan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993. ISBN 0-8248-1488-6.
  • Sinclair, Joan (2006). Pink Box: Inside Japan's Sex Clubs. New York: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 978-0-8109-9259-7.
  • The World's Oldest Debate? Prostitution and the State in Imperial Japan, 1900–1945
  • Talmadge, Eric. Getting Wet: Adventures in the Japanese Bath. Tokyo ; New York: Kodansha International, 2006. ISBN 4-7700-3020-7.
  • Yokoyama, M. "Analysis of Prostitution in Japan". International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 19, no. 1 (1995): 47–60.
  • Yokoyama, M. "Emergence of Anti-Prostitution Law in Japan—Analysis from Sociology of Criminal Law". International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 17, no. 2 (1993): 211–218.
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