Changes

The [[Kabuki]] theater, as it emerged in the early 17th century, was originally closely connected to prostitution, with most if not all of the performers available for sexual services, and with the dances and skits serving, essentially, as advertisement of their bodies. After women were banned from the kabuki stage in [[1629]] (along with young men in [[1642]], though they were later allowed to return), the theater became more distanced from brothel prostitution, though male-male prostitution continued to be available chiefly through the theater world.

The [[Kabuki]] theater, as it emerged in the early 17th century, was originally closely connected to prostitution, with most if not all of the performers available for sexual services, and with the dances and skits serving, essentially, as advertisement of their bodies. After women were banned from the kabuki stage in [[1629]] (along with young men in [[1642]], though they were later allowed to return), the theater became more distanced from brothel prostitution, though male-male prostitution continued to be available chiefly through the theater world.

In the 18th-19th centuries, with the licensed quarters of [[Edo]], [[Kyoto]], [[Osaka]], and [[Nagasaki]] well-established, the expansion of prostitution was seen mainly in other areas, including [[shukuba|post stations]], port towns, mining towns, regional villages, and so forth, fueled by the growth of travel culture and the expansion of commercial/trading networks.

In the 18th-19th centuries, with the licensed quarters of [[Edo]], [[Kyoto]], [[Osaka]], and [[Nagasaki]] well-established, the expansion of prostitution was seen mainly in other areas, including [[shukuba|post stations]], port towns, mining towns, regional villages, and so forth, fueled by the growth of travel culture and the expansion of commercial/trading networks. In many of these more rural areas, prostitutes operating independent of any brothel or master but only for their own individual livelihoods or profit came to be known as ''goke'' (後家), or "widows," after the idea of a fisherman's wife, or villager's wife otherwise, who sells sex as a way to support herself after the death of her husband; not all ''goke'' were actually widows, however.

===Meiji Period===

===Meiji Period===