Essay on DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A WIFE COURTESAN AND A PROSTITUTE IN JAPAN
Sexuality in Japan has evolved disjointedly from the mainland Asia, as the nation did not accept the Confucian opinion on marriage. Monogamy in the marriage was never prized in this nation, and married males usually looked for pleasure with the courtesans. Prostitution has an extremely long history. It has existed throughout nation’s history. In the country, the “sex industry” is not the same as the prostitution. As Japanese law describes the prostitution as “sexual interaction with unnamed person in exchange for money,” many sex clubs only suggest non-coital services to maintain legal. This paper is meant to describe the difference between a wife, courtesan and a prostitute in Japan, paying special attention to caste, rights, roles, obligations and responsibilities including issues around sex and morality.
Courtesans and Prostitutes
The courtesans and the prostitutes take cash or presents for certain sexual services. Whilst usually thought of as females, prostitutes may also be men acting in the homosexual competence. The dissimilarity among titles is the quantity of clients females or boys have and the social class. The prostitute solicits men and charges for the usage of own body. She offers many services for which there are changeable rates, which are agreed in advance. She may satisfy dreams of men who cannot get it anywhere else (Segawa-Seigle 1993, p. 215-294).
A courtesan comes from the French term for courtier, a person from sovereign’s court. Thus, there is the class dissimilarity. A courtesan could be female from a well to do background who becomes a mistress. This lady is often a mistress of a wealthy person or man of rank. She is a kept female, in that all the financial requirements are met by a client. In case it is one man he might set a mistress in the apartment, which is convenient to him. At times a lady has many wealthy clients to whom she provides sexual services. Whilst ladies function in the same capacity the sexual suppliers, the social standing is dissimilar. Prostitutes become known to the police and are at the hazard of prosecution for soliciting, as the action of suggesting the sexual services is immoral. Courtesans work at own apartment and there is no need for anybody to know what they do. In Japan the sexual health of the female may differ as well. A female who works with many clients cannot be confident if they are carrying any sexually transmitted disease. A lady who works with one person also cannot be confident either, but there is more possibility of better health care (Dalby 1995, p. 47-66).
Japanese Courtesans and Geishas and Wives
A recurrent locus of misapprehensions in regard to Japanese live is the institution of geisha. Sooner than being a simple prostitute, this female was a lady trained in dissimilar arts such as music or cultured conversation, and who was accessible for non-sexual interactions with the clientele. These ladies differed from wives that the patrons almost certainly had at home as, except for geisha, females were normally not expected to be ready for anything other than the execution of the household responsibilities. This restriction imposed by usual social role of the majority of females in the conventional social order evolved a decrease in the pursuits that those females could enjoy, but also a restriction in the manners that a male could enjoy a company of own wife. The geisha fulfilled many non-sexual social roles, which usual women were prohibited from fulfilling, and this is exactly the service they were paid for. That being said, a geisha was not deprived of chances to demonstrate themselves sexually and in other erotic manners. A geisha might have the client with whom she enjoyed intimacy, but this sex role was not part of a role or accountability as geisha.
The courtesans have existed in practically each culture and historical civilization. Moreover, baring the more intimate parts of the profession, courtesans from dissimilar cultures were all extremely skilled in the same sphere – the arts. Whether they were Chinese, Indian, Korean or Japanese, these females were skilled in the arts. Courtesans created poetry, they played the instruments, sang and danced. Although they entertained males (and females at times) of an upper class, in most cases these females were a part of the lower-class. These females were higher than slaves or usual prostitutes, but they were the members of the lower-class.
Courtesans were not really happy and though they were more independent than other types of females, especially wives, they were still not too independent in patriarchy. Moreover, they were in the social orders, where the value of a female and her contentment were placed on kids and marriage, which as courtesans they could not have. The low status of courtesans is opposed to the females of the noble class. Any noble lady, wife could devastate a courtesan’s existence, if she wished to and no one could help a girl (Longstreet and Longstreet 1989, p. 23-31).
Anybody who has discussed an issue of courtesans and geisha in Japan has come across the question: “Did geisha participate in prostitution?” Surely, this is a question, which has been asked numerous times. May people think that geishas were engaged in prostitution (Dalby 1998, p. 1-367). After all, it was as the outcome of the Occupation period that US citizens came to be familiar with the notion of the “geisha girl”, the whores who lived in the red-light districts, for instance, Yokohama’s Isezaki-chô, dressed in conventional kimono and either asserting to be part of this long custom, or merely misconstrued by the Americans as linked to genuine geisha tradition. Thus, the Occupation played a huge role in forming this piece of “conventional wisdom” that still persists nowadays (Segawa-Seigle 1993, p. 215-294).
The majority of more informed stories about the geisha demonstrate the geisha as noticeably dissimilar from prostitutes. Geisha is not paid for sex; she is paid for entertainment with music, conversation, dance, and pleasant company more commonly. Geisha is a refined professional. Cecilia Segawa-Seigle, one of the major experts on Yoshiwara district, asserts that “As the initial Yoshiwara was mainly a spot of socializing and entertainment, sex was a secondary and discreet part of the business” (Segawa-Seigle 1993, p. 215-294). Thus, courtesans in Japan were not merely low-class whores. The Yoshiwara district and other pleasure areas were cores of Edo era popular culture and even the fashion symbols. They were professionals at a pleasurable company and conversation, at music and dance. The Yoshiwara reflected its own universe of compound etiquette and appropriate conduct, and the higher-level ladies reserved a right to decline a client (Segawa-Seigle 1993, p. 85-167).
Nevertheless, these girls were, by definition, in a business of selling own bodies, whilst geisha were not, at least in theory. Geishas are not prostitutes, but they are sophisticated, elegant females, professionals of the arts. However, the Ukiyo-e specialist Gina Collia-Suzuki attacks this idea, stating that geishas of the Edo period were engaged in prostitution, although it should never be confused for being part of the primary profession (Collia-Suzuki 2008, p. 94-134).
Collia-Suzuki also asserts Mineko Iwasaki, the geisha whose living, revealed through the interviews, was the foundation of Arthur Golden’s work, was basically lying when she denied the mizuage ceremony comprised the selling of geisha’s virginity for cash. Current attitudes being what they are, Mineko Iwasaki would probably have been very embarrassed to admit this thing, and more significantly, perhaps, the lady may have had in mind the defense of reputation and representation of the geisha in general (and the geishas still working nowadays) (Collia-Suzuki 2008, p. 94-134).
With the respect for Ms Collia-Suzuki’s point of view, it seems this topic remains a complex issue. Although it does appear quite rational to believe the geisha of the Edo era, so closely linked with the enjoyment quarters, did on occasion engage in prostitution, it should be admitted and stressed this was not an element of the profession, not an element of what it presupposes to be geisha.
Conclusion
To make a conclusion, as for the preconceptions of the courtesans, geisha, and enjoyment districts of Japan, nothing in this world is as easy as conservative wisdom would have it. Courtesans were not merely whores, but were treated as refined, cultured, fashion idols, at the heart of Edo popular culture, professionals in entertainments. Geishas, in the meantime, are experts of conventional music and dance, far more sophisticated and cultured than a stereotype of the geisha girl that appears to have settled in US minds; yet, that is not to say they never participated in prostitution on the side.
A courtesan is a prostitute with courtly, upper-class, wealthy clientele. At the same time, they were also artists, poets and musicians. The refined courtesans arose in reputation, status and popularity in those wealthy, evolved civilizations that greatly liked female forms of the art. Courtesans largely could not have happy lives, however, they were the most independent females in the patriarchal society. Basically, the single profession, which ensured a little bit of female’s liberty and independence was to be the profession of the courtesan.
