Prostitution
Unlike in the West prostitution has long been seen as sinful and immoral specifically because female promiscuity was itself seen as sinful and immoral, debates in pre-modern and early modern Japan regarding prostitution largely revolved around concerns about its negative impacts on household and community, and on agricultural productivity, as men worried that prostitutes would distract or lure men away from their work, or from their wives and families.
Still, whereas in the West prostitution has long been seen as marginal and undesirable, and as a result has been outlawed in many modern countries, in pre-modern and early modern Japan it was an integral part of the economy in certain important ways, and contributed as well to popular culture and fashion. Many examples of local and regional administration in Edo period Japan show that despite officials expressing serious concern about the negative social impacts of prostitution, they in many cases acted in favor of the positive economic impacts prostitution would have for their communities, as the expansion of prostitution was tied in with ideas of urbanization & economic development.
Courtesans, especially of the Yoshiwara, were highly romanticized in the popular publications (ukiyo-e woodblock prints, illustrated books, etc.) of the Edo period, and had a dramatic impact on popular culture and fashion. Courtesans' fashions were the inspiration for fashions among both commoners and elites, and they were seen as models of cultured elegance and refinement. As a result, much modern scholarship, especially in art history, has similarly emphasized the Yoshiwara as a site of great cultural dynamism and activity, and as a wellspring of popular culture. However, scholars such as Amy Stanley point out how oppressive life in the Yoshiwara was for the women living and working there, the vast majority of whom were indentured servants.
There were also male prostitutes in pre-modern and early modern Japan. However, they operated in very different circles and circumstances; in the early modern period, male prostitutes were closely tied to the theater, operating out of kagema jaya teahouses attached to theaters, and not out of brothels. Male prostitutes do not appear in official economic records the way female prostitutes do, and discussions about their moral impact upon communities centered on rather different concerns.
History
Medieval Japan
In the Kamakura period, women could inherit and own property, separately from their fathers or husbands, and exercised authority over their own hereditary servants. Their bodies, however, were still considered the property of the head of household – if a woman was raped, the rapist owed compensation not to the woman, but to her father or husband. Up until the 14th century, there was little differentiation between women who sold sex professionally and those who didn’t. Payment from a client and gifts from a lover were not well differentiated, those who did explicitly sell sex, such as asobi and kugutsu, were seen as skilled entertainers, not as "prostitutes." Further, sexual practices more generally were somewhat loose, with women sleeping with multiple partners, often in rather temporary relationships, and so forth, making the line between "sex for money" and other sexual activities a bit blurrier than in later periods.
By 1500 or so, there was a clearer division, with certain women being properly recognized as “prostitutes.” Whereas previously girls who did sell sex were often seen as formally adopted "daughters" and members of the "families" of their madams, blurring the lines between kinship and ownership/employment, by 1500, much prostitution was organized by male pimps, and took place increasingly in urban and post-station settings. However, the chaotic circumstances of the Sengoku period meant that many women were still being stolen/kidnapped, held as hostages, or kept as wives or concubines when one samurai house raided a town or village or defeated another samurai house. Some women were even bought by Portuguese who took them back to Europe as, essentially, sex slaves. Hideyoshi’s armies also brought both men and women back from Korea.
Concerned about the negative impact on agricultural production (among, perhaps, other negative impacts of the sex trade), Hideyoshi issued proclamations against domestic trading in people (jinshin baibai), though he showed indifference to the hostages/slaves taken in Korea.
All in all, the trade in human beings, especially in women, continued despite injunctions and proclamations, as daimyô and other local authorities hesitated to do anything which would threaten economic productivity/prosperity.
Edo Period
In the early decades of the Edo period, women to a great extent continued to be seen as property, as assets which could be bought, sold, or rented out. In at least some areas, men found it difficult to successfully petition for debt forgiveness if they had not sold off their wives and daughters, along with their other assets, in attempts to make the money to pay off their debts. In many cases, men who refused to sell their family members saw them seized by creditors or authorities. Still, girls sold into prostitution had some recourse against unfair treatment, and could appeal to authorities on the basis of their own filial piety - in other words, representing themselves as virtuous daughters working for the sake of supporting their parents. This was effective to a certain extent in the first half of the Edo period, but by the latter half of the period, the situation reversed. Wives and daughters were now considered subjects with their own autonomy, and could not be bought or sold in such a manner. And girls sold into prostitution, though trapped by their contracts of indentured servitude, were likewise seen to possess enough autonomy, enough personhood, to have chosen that path for themselves - no longer seen as filial daughters & as victims, they were now seen as lascivious and profit-seeking, and so could no longer effectively petition the authorities for protection against unfair treatment.
Historian Amy Stanley argues that this set of attitudes in Edo period Japan represents an ironic reversal from many feminists' attitudes today regarding prostitution. Whereas many feminists today might celebrate a woman's agency, her freedom and power to choose to do what she wishes with her body, it was that self-same agency that made Edo period prostitutes the object of stigma.
In the 17th century, prostitution was concentrated chiefly in urban centers, as those cities emerged and grew into some of the largest in the 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 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.
Meiji Period
Giving in to pressure from both domestic and international critics, the Meiji government enacted in 1872 a Prostitute Emancipation Act, freeing all geisha and prostitutes from their contracts of indentured servitude. This had the significant impact of introducing the possibility, and the concept, of "liberation" to the national conversation about prostitution. However, while a great many women were in fact freed by this act, for many others it had little meaningful impact, as they were left with no other source of work or income to turn to, and so prostitution resumed, but merely went further underground. In 1875, indentured contracts began to be recognized as legal again.
Terminology
In Tokugawa shogunate documents pertaining to the shogunal cities of Edo and Nagasaki, the term yûjo (遊女, "fun girl" or "play girl") always refers to a licensed prostitute, and baijo (売女, "sold girl") to one who is not licensed; many of the latter operated underground, and so might be referred to as kakushi baijo (隠売女, "hidden sold girl"). However, in popular usage, and in official usage outside the major cities, yûjo was used quite widely, and less specifically, along with terms such as keisei (傾城, lit. "castle toppler"). The word baita (売女), which Stanley translates as “whore,” meanwhile, is seen relatively frequently in popular/commoner documents. Certain other terms, such as tayû and oiran, were specific ranks within the Yoshiwara hierarchy of courtesans.
In provincial areas, and in the big cities in the early Edo period, prostitutes were often called simply serving girls (meshimori onna), tea-steeping girls (sancha), drink-pouring girls, bathhouse girls (yuna) and the like, reflecting the rather blurred boundary between sexual and non-sexual work.
The activity or industry of prostitution itself is often today called, euphemistically, baishun (売春), lit. "selling spring" (as in the season). More direct terms for the sex trade include jinshin baibai (人身売買, "buying and selling of human bodies").
References
- Amy Stanley, Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan, UC Press (2012).