In the floating world where all things change
Love never changes by promising never to change.
(Geisha song)
During Edo-period Japan (1600-1867), the yujo were the highest class of all courtesans. These sex professionals were trained in the bedroom arts from the time they were young: blossoming into womanhood, mastering the erotic arts, flourishing as a prostitute of a high order. Prostitution during that era of Japan was legal, but carefully licensed. One such ‘red lantern district’ was Shimabara, the Pleasure Quarter of Kyoto. Another was Yoshiwara, the Pleasure District of Edo (Tokyo).
The yujo were not geisha. They were the royalty of prostitutes, the refined artisans of erotica and lovemaking. Seduction was their art form from the way they used their harigata (dildo) to how to pleasure a man (shakuhachi しゃくはち or fellatio). Yujo knew about aphrodisiacs and the exotic practice of kissing (seppun). The Yujo women were “love artists.”
This romantic era of Japan was called Ukiyo
(Japanese: 浮世 “Floating World”)
From the Wikipedia resource, this Renaissance period of art and pleasure described the Edo pleasure district as:
“Yoshiwara, the licensed red-light district of Edo (modern Tokyo), which was the site of many brothels, chashitsu tea houses, and kabuki theaters frequented by Japan’s growing middle class.
People involved in mizu shōbai (水商売) (“the water trade”) would include hōkan (comedians), kabuki (popular theatre of the time), dancers, dandies, rakes, tea-shop girls, Kanō (painters of the official school of painting), courtesans who resided in seirō (green houses) and geisha in their okiya houses.
The courtesans would consist of yujo (women of pleasure/prostitutes), kamuro (young female students), shinzō (senior female students), hashi-jōro (lower-ranking courtesans), kōshi-jōro (high-ranking courtesans just below tayū), tayū (high-ranking courtesans), oiran (“castle-topplers,” named that way for how quickly they could part a daimyō (lord) from his money), yarite (older chaperones for an oiran), and the yobidashi who replaced the tayū when they were priced out of the market.
In addition to courtesans, there were also geisha/geiko, maiko (apprentice geishas), otoko geisha (male geishas), danna (patrons of a geisha), and okasan (geisha teahouse managers). The lines between geisha and courtesans were sharply drawn, however – a geisha was never to be sexually involved with a customer, though there were exceptions.
The term “water trade” (mizu-shobai 水商売) is the “floating world” which is metaphor for floating, drinking, and impermanence. Sex was like water. Water was “yin” and feminine, and, conversely, a man’s sexual energy was “yang” energy. Sex during the Edo-period Ukiyo life was imbued with poetry, art, and dream-like desire. Longing and secrets, mystery and lust.
Waiting anxiously for you
Unable to sleep, but falling into a doze—
Are those words of love
Floating to my pillow,
Or is this too a dream…?
My eyes open and here is my tear-drenched sleeve.
Perhaps it was a sudden rain.
(Geisha song)
Geisha were not permitted to have sexual relations with the yujo’s customers. The term “Geisha” means “Artist” and the art of Geisha was entertainment— dance, shamisen playing, and flirtatious conversation. The yujo were the sexual artists, great lovers, and ladies of pleasure. They were elegant enchantresses of the pillow.
Within the shoji screened worlds of tea houses, brothels, and the theater, geisha and yujo were not the only women of pleasure. There were varying levels of class and status within their own floating worlds— the Shiro (white) Geisha that entertained and flirted, the Joro (whore) Geisha were the tawdry types, and the Machi (town) Geisha were former dancing girls (odoriko). Lower class prostitutes and amateur whores were illegally working the towns outside of pleasure districts.
Even further into darkness were the unmentioned girls and women that came into the world of prostitution without a choice. Girls sold into brothels, not the beautiful sort of life that the yujo and geisha led. The Yoshiwara district alone was home to about 1,750 women in the 18th century.
Geisha embody the extreme feminine allure in Japan, as opposed to the wife’s position in Japanese society. Geisha are witty and elicit fantasies; they intrigue and delight. The wife at home may appreciate the geisha’s art of entertaining her husband, relieving her of such matters. The wife ruled the domestic household and her husband’s finances, raised children, while the geisha entertained, flirted, and enchanted.
Shunga-e paintings were the erotica of the Edo-period, and the artists that created shunga-e were sometimes the same as those who made the famous Ukiyo-e woodblock prints— famous artists of Edo were also the creators of erotic prints and pornographic fantasies.
Artists of the Erotic Shunga-e were also great artists in general. Such as Katsushika Hokusai, who created Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 Fugaku Sanjūrokkei) and the famous image The Great Wave off Kanagawa (神奈川沖浪裏 Kanagawa Oki Nami Ura).
Hokusai’s erotic art was also made with great talent. Most notably, The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife
(蛸と海女 Tako to ama, Octopus and shell diver).
Making love with you
Is like drinking sea water.
The more I drink
The thirstier I become,
Until nothing can slake my thirst
But to drink the entire sea.
(Marichiko)
(Hokusai ~ Exhausted Lovers)
Romance and courtship in Heian-period Japan, pre-Edo times set in ancient Kyoto (Heian-kyo), painted the landscape for lovers brushing their hearts out in calligraphy into fervent love letters. Poetry was the vehicle of erotic love, longing, passion and desire. Lovemaking etiquette was such that even the ladies of the court and their noblemen were hot for sex and romance, writing poems to pursue, to enchant, and to express their innermost secrets of their hearts.
An excerpt from Lesley Downer’s book, Women of the Pleasure Quarters: The Secret History of Geisha:
“But what made Heian period most extraordinary was the way in which art and the cult of beauty were bound up with love. For more than sexual desire or gut-wrenching passion, love was an art form, an opportunity to put brush to paper, to immortalize the moment in a small literary gem.
Having heard that a certain lady was very beautiful or, even more titillating, had beautiful handwriting, a nobleman would sit down to compose a waka, a thirty-one syllable poem, and brush it, in his finest calligraphy, on delicately hued scented paper. When she received it, the lady would assess the handwriting and color of the paper as well as the wit and appropriateness of the poem before brushing a reply. The nobleman would be waiting with bated breath to see whether her handwriting and poem lived up to expectations.
If the exchange of poems was satisfactory, he would eventually assay a visit. He would creep in at night and immediately, in the pitch darkness, remove his clothes, lift the silken counterpane, lie down on the hard straw mat next to the lady and without further ado consummate the relationship. Slipping away before dawn, he would then brush an eloquent morning-after poem, bewailing the rising of the sun or the crowing of the cock announcing the hour of farewell. The lady in her turn would brush a reply. Thus through poems they communicated their decision as to whether to continue the affair or not.”
Erecting like
The upwards curve of a
Threatening shakuhachi
The shakuhachi is a flute, and ‘shakuhachi curve’ suggests a strong penis. The phallic symbol of the instrument allowed Edo-minded lovers to playfully muse about fellatio. As provocative as blowing a flute was to the lustful minds of Ukiyo era, the flute was used in many woodblocks prints to suggest the oral pleasure. Other slang terms for sex and sexual innuendos were “jade gate” for a woman’s sex and “jade stalk” and “matsutake” (or mushroom) for a man’s penis, and “selling spring” was to suggest selling sex, as the season “Spring” was utilized in poems and the sex trade as a multi-purpose term for sex.
I hold your head tight
Between my thighs and press
Against your mouth and
Float away forever in
An orchid boat
On the River of Heaven.
(Marichiko)
Geisha were not allowed by their very nature to fall in love. Neither were prostitutes. It was the danger of the heart that neither sort could manage. It would mean disaster for their very existence as temptresses. To pretend to love was one thing. To fall in love was another thing entirely. Flirtation and courting was full of sexual desire— the art of seduction was a play, an illusion. So then, what happens when the geisha or the prostitute falls in love?
Historically in such circumstances the geisha and prostitute were ruined, overcome by passion and desire, the longing too great for them to handle while luring and beguiling other men. Suddenly, the art of seduction she used for others is seemingly powerless, as her heart is unable to bear the games she once so artfully played, with her mind lost in reverie for her lover. She becomes overwhelmed by dreams of running away with her beloved. No longer can she play the seductress to the many men that pay her for her attentions. She is consumed by passion and caught in the great tidal pull of life’s mystery: Love.
Love me. At this moment we
Are the happiest
People in the world.
(Marichiko)
And her art and erotic craft is love. Like the saying “live by the sword, die by the sword,” the prostitute and geisha, artists of seduction and flirtation, are the femme fatales, the unattainable feminine, for which men would do anything for, and therefore the power they wield is turned upon them. Longing. Heartache. Waiting.
Night without end. Loneliness.
The wind has driven a maple leaf
Against the shoji. I wait, as in the
old days,
In our secret place, under the
full moon.
The last bell crickets sing.
I found your old love letters,
Full of poems you never published.
Did it matter?
They were only for me.
(Marichiko)
In this world
love has no color—
yet how deeply
my body
is stained by yours.
(Izumi Shikibu)
There are many stories about geisha and prostitutes falling in love with their customers that are married and cannot change their lives or young and impoverished men that cannot rescue them out of their bondage or position. In such cases, the solution was death. Like Romeo and Juliet, the lovers were doomed to tragedy. Kabuki plays such as Love Suicides at Sonezaki re-enacted the true story of a double suicide in 1703 by the great Japanese dramatist Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724) known as the “Shakespeare of Japan.” The story was about a beautiful courtesan Ohatsu that falls in love with handsome Tokubei, who is too poor to buy her out of her position as prostitute. He cannot follow through with his arranged marriage to another, due to his love for Ohatsu. His dowry already granted to him for his arranged marriage is then revoked by his uncle. The story continues and sorrow unfolds as the star-crossed lovers cannot be together.
Black hair
Tangled in a thousand strands
Tangled my hair and
Tangled my tangled memories
Of our long nights of lovemaking.
(Yosano Akiko)
But sometimes, when lovers meet, the erotic desire flames their very souls. Even as a customer pays for sex and affections, whether pretended or not, it enters a realm that is human. It can be a source of inspiration. The nature of sex is union, when two lovers are as one. Regardless of money and position, sex is the essence of life and the mystery of our being alive. If sex and flirtation and the realm of erotic are the prostitute’s trade, then the question is — what does the prostitute do when she herself falls in love? How can she continue being a lover to many men, when she only wants to belong to the one man she loves? Like any other, she feels it ravage her very soul— awakening her, making her feel alive, passionate, and creative. The heart has its own reasons and mysteries. But how can she give her body to other men for money (her livelihood) when her instinct is to be devoted to the one she loves?
Your tongue thrums and moves
Into me, and I become
Hollow and blaze with
Whirling light, like the inside
Of a vast expanding pearl.
(Marichiko)
”To fall in love is to play with fire,” Beautiful Eiko laughed. She had a tumbling mane of silky black hair, porcelain skin, and a mouth that tempted. She had many customers that adored her, dazzled her with gifts and exquisite kimonos. Then she met a man who had nothing but himself to give. He listened to her, understood her. For the first time in her life, she felt alive, inspired by love. But their love affair had to be secret. She was locked within the world of the prostitute’s life. This was unbearable for Eiko. When other men touched her, she felt only her lover’s hands. When other men embraced her, she longed for her lover only. When in the arms of her beloved, he became the only man in her world. She only wanted him, to belong to him, as her love was an all consuming passion, the very fire that awakened her soul and lit her aflame with desire.
No different, really—
a summer moth’s
visible burning
and this body,
transformed by love.
(Izumi Shikibu)
{References used for this article: Downer, Lesley, Women of the Pleasure Quarters: The Secret History of the Geisha, and Dalby, Liza, Geisha}
]]> https://eroticadujour.com/women-of-pleasure-the-floating-world-of-desire/feed/ 0
Born into poverty in a squalid East St. Louis slum, a child out of wedlock, wearing newspapers for shoes, she hustled for food and was subjected to abuse. Her grandmother then took her in, loved her, and brought her up on fairytales. Later on, as a young woman, she created her own fairytale as a supreme goddess.
She was the darling of Paris. It was 1925, the curtain rose at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, revealing an all-black revue. Goddess Josephine! There she was in her magnificent splendor of gyrations, legs flying, arms hypnotic, mesmerizing everyone with her Charleston dance. She was the “Ebony Venus” and “Creole Goddess” of the day. She gave all of Paris an erection.
Completely nude except for a bright pink feather between her thighs, she ushered in the Jazz Age with her black magic. Now, Jazz used to be Jass, which was a euphemism for “screwing,” and that was a smutty term for the uninhibited swing of music during those days. Jazz… Josephine was Jazz. She was a sorcière du jour, and men everywhere fell under her spell. La Belle Sauvage she was called. She was most famous for her “banana dance” or “La Danse Sauvage,” wearing only bananas.
Picasso painted her, Calder sculpted her.
The author Hemingway called her “the most sensational woman anybody ever saw.”
She had a sexual appetite of an Amazon goddess to boot. She was super sexed, erotic, and commanded the right of a sex goddess to have as many lovers as she pleased. Having tried conventional ways (she was married numerous times) no one could pin her down or put her in a gilded cage— she had Counts, Princes, and Lotharios alike all showering her with gifts, money, jewels, and adoration.
Even in her 60′s she still had the magical aura of a goddess and captivated the world with her sexuality.
Josephine Baker has been compared to an African female deity, Mawu, a creator goddess, associated with the sun and moon, with a “personality like thunder.” The Brazilians believed she actually was a goddess, because as she danced, she revealed the cosmic secret of the drum, and brought that power to the earth.
She spent the rest of her life in France.
The Official Site of Josephine Baker
]]> https://eroticadujour.com/goddess-du-jour-josephine-baker/feed/ 0
“You, first parents of the human race, who ruined yourself for an apple, what might you not have done for a truffled turkey?” ~ Brillat-Savarin
“A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible.”~Welsh Proverb
Apples, the fruit of Eve, the golden apple of Aphrodite, the symbol of love and seduction. Snow White was offered a poisoned apple. Red apples, golden apples. A symbol of the breast, female. Adam and Eve were tempted. Forbidden knowledge. Seduction.
Apples and Apple Blossoms are symbolic of love. Eve, the temptress, was the first to seduce with a round, juicy apple. Breasts. Inside the apple, seeds. Mating. Sex. Desire, with all its delicious seduction, is fruitful, its power manifest in fertile mouthfuls. Kisses, tasting of mouths, biting into apples. Love, in all its manifestations, exists within an apple. Cheeks, like apples. Breath of the lover is sweet: “Let thy breasts be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy breath like apples.”
The poet Robert Frost’s symbolic poem, After Apple Picking describes the ‘apple picking’ as metaphor for chasing human desires.
The Song of Songs mentions apples and pomegranates, and apples that refresh one’s love: “Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love” Song of Songs 2:5. To “sustain” or “hold” alludes to a lover’s embrace:
As an apple tree among the trees of the wood,
so is my beloved among young men.
With great delight I sat in his shadow,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.He brought me to the banqueting house,and his intention towards me was love.Sustain me with raisins,
refresh me with apples;
for I am faint with love.
O that his left hand were under my head,
and that his right hand embraced me!
The Spring Equinox, a sacred passage of time, especially to the Nordic Goddess Iduna, who kept “magical apples” as the Immortal Goddess of Spring. Her husband was the God of Poetry, Bragi. She welcomed the magical moment of her Spring Equinox with birds and apples. The apple represents nature’s rebirth. It reminds us of Aphrodite, and her birth from the sea foam.
Cider was considered magical, used in the orgiastic rites of the goddess. Strong cider is called “The Witches Brew”. And, if so, then… Eve was the “Great Goddess”. Witches, Goddesses, Aphrodite, the origins of Feminine Mysteries and Life, Birth. Pre-monotheism, the “Great Goddess” was the creatrix of the universe. The “Mother-Goddess” originated in Pre-Indo-European neolithic matriarchies.
The apple of love, lust, desire and seduction, a symbol of life and creation, its lore revealing its magical qualities and essence. Greek warriors threw apples to their desired ladies, hence “she was the apple of his eye,” and that apple was much like a engagement ring. As an aphrodisiac, apples are juicy, refreshing after lovemaking. Sweet, full of anti-oxidants, and wonderful temptations in pies and desserts. The simplest and most sensual combination to me is apples dipped in honey. We eat them especially for the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, to bring sweetness into the coming year. I find apples dipped in honey to be a very sensual experience. Perhaps those seductresses of Hebrew folklore used them to tempt their lovers?
PUTTING IN THE SEED (Poem by Robert Frost)
You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed, The sturdy seedling with arched body comes, Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.
I found a Harvard Classical Literature article by A.R. Littlewood, that mentions an essay written in 1899 by Benjamin Oliver Foster titled “Notes on the Symbolism of the Apple in Classical Antiquity” which dilgently traces the apple’s symbolism to Aphrodite.
After reading through the essay by Foster, I noticed through many passages where the “apple” is mentioned as a love token for mortals as well as Gods and Goddesses. The ‘love apple’ was used in Ancient Greek and Roman times, as an advance, a declaration, an engagement offering. Love notes were written upon them as declarations carved into the flesh of the apple. In this article, many ancient Greek passages, left untranslated by Foster, basically coming to the round-about conclusion that yes, the apple is the ancient connection between the ancient rituals of apple tree worship (fertility/fecundity) and the fruit of the tree, the “apple” being the symbolic breast of Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love.
Another essay by Anne M. Avakian titled “Three Apples Fell from Heaven” notes the phrase in numerous Armenian, Turkish, and Persian folktales that end with the saying, “Three Apples Fell from the Sky…” and variations on the same theme, its use in place of “Happily Ever After” to end the tale. It use was also to illustrate the attainment of desire.
For more on APPLE LORE, click the APPLE
“Ti kallisti” (“to the fairest” in ancient Greek)
BRAVA ITALIA for bringing back the CURVE.
The Hips, the Breasts.
Woman.
Soft, Strong, Warm, Fleshy
Venus of Willendorf, Primal Womb
Ripe, Juicy, Sensuous, Curves of the Cosmos
Primordial Sister Moon, Mother of Life
Breasts, Goblets of Milk, Elixir
Hips, Thighs, Buttocks
Beautiful Woman.
Feminine beauty for centuries has been based upon the round, soft hips, the swell and dip of breasts. Rubenesque. Zaftig. Curvy. Venus had them. Aphrodite, as she was called by the Greeks. Femme Fatales. Sirens. Seductresses. All of them had a powerful gift: femininity.
Photographer Steven Meisel has captured, and only with his lens, the magnificence of the curve, the way we women are supposed to be. Enough of this dieting, the maniacal efforts to be slim, to squeeze into a size too small, for our true beauty is built in. Honor the curves, don’t fight them, as we have for decades now. What have we been doing? It’s like trying to control a tidal wave. A natural force. Corsets to control our tummy, “body shapers” and “tummy tamers” and contraptions to bind our curves? Enough of them. Unless you enjoy wearing a corset along with your garters and stockings to accentuate the positives of your curves.
Tara Lynn, Candice Huffine and Robyn Lawley are on the June issue cover story of VOGUE Italia, portrayed by Steven Meisel.(Interestingly, Steven Meisel was also obsessed with models such as Twiggy, Veruschka, and Jean Shrimpton at 12 years old. To meet famous model Twiggy, the 12-year-old Meisel stood outside waiting for her to appear). But, here we have curves like never before. Unlike Twiggy, these curvaceous beauties are bringing back the bounce, the boom boom, and the vavoom. Or the… abbondanza!
The Renaissance of Feminine Beauty, Power, and the Goddess. Real Goddesses. The Archetype of Woman.
And VOGUE Italia is fighting the war against Pro-Anorexia websites with their buxom beauties.
PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION
“On learning that Facebook is considered today the culprit of anorexia, and since I believe it is impossible that a social network alone may be held responsible for the spreading of such phenomenon, I did some research and found that there are countless pro-anorexia websites and blogs that not only support the disorder, but also urge young people to be competitive about their “body shape”.
Vogue Italia, the magazine par excellence that deals with and promotes aesthetics and beauty, has decided to make use of its authority and its readers on the web (over one million of contacts per month), to battle against anorexia and collect signatures with the final goal of shutting such sites down.
Fashion has been always blamed as one of the culprits of anorexia, and our commitment is the proof that fashion is ready to get on the frontline and struggle against the disorder.”
~Franca Sozzani
]]> https://eroticadujour.com/curvy-goddesses-italian-vogue-rediscovers-venus-belle-vere/feed/ 1
