Did Geisha Engage in Acts of Prostitution?

 

This is a bit of an emotive subject. It's the cause of many a heating under the collar and numerous ruffled feathers, with some geisha enthusiasts becoming fiercely protective when the subject is raised. Well, referring only to 18th and 19th century geisha, as that's the period I have both feet firmly planted in, the answer is yes. It should be noted, however, that I'm making a distinction between being a prostitute, where an income from the profession is the sole or main means of support, and engaging in acts of prostitution, and it is the latter that I'm addressing.

First of all we have the practice of mizuage. Basically, this was the ritual deflowering of a young maiko (apprentice geisha) to mark her coming of age. Some do not regard the mizuage as an act of prostitution. However, if we look at the process ~ a young virgin has her virginity auctioned off to the highest bidder and receives a large sum of money for it ~ I think the evidence speaks for itself. Offering sex for money is an act of prostitution, and there's no getting away from the fact. The mizuage in its traditional form, involving a patron paying to take a young maiko's virginity, became illegal when prostitution was banned in Japan in the 1950s, and that tells you something of where the law stands on the matter.

Geisha in the Yoshiwara were strictly prohibited from engaging in prostitution within the quarter, to prevent them from competing with the courtesans who worked there. Now, ask yourself why it would be necessary to prohibit something if it were not being done to begin with. That would be like prohibiting vegetarians from eating hamburgers. It was a known fact that geisha in Edo who worked outside of the quarter did exchange sex for money, and that only the ones within it were forbidden from doing so. Whether or not those working within the quarter did refrain from engaging in prostitution we'll never know. The temptation must have been great, when considering the sums of money that were to be made, and these women were only human after all.

Anyway, in conclusion, whilst geisha may not have been full-time prostitutes who relied upon selling sex for their income on a daily basis, they did engage in activities which would fall within the bounds of that profession.

Comments

[Travis]

I don't disagree with you on the whole - certainly, it makes sense that geisha in the Edo pd would have on occasion, if not frequently, had sex for money.

But, I remember when the movie "Memoirs of a Geisha" came out, there was an uproar over the inaccuracy of the depiction of the mizuage. I remember hearing, or reading, angry rebuttals that that was not at all what mizuage was all about, and that geisha did not (do not) sell their virginity in that way.

So, what's the story here?

[Gina Collia-Suzuki]

I think that 'Memoirs of a Geisha' upset quite a few people for a number of different reasons, including the fact that Chinese actresses were chosen for the lead roles. Also, there were a number of inaccuracies in the book. But most of the hoo-hah is due to the fact that Mineko Iwasaki, upon whom Golden based his fictional book, decided to sue him and has denied that the mizuage rite ever involved the sale of a girl's virginity.

Views on sex were very different in 18th-19th century Japan, and the problem comes when we view the practises of 18th-19th century people with 21st century eyes. I can well understand why Iwasaki would want to deny that the mizuage rite ever involved an exchange of sex for money, but she is contradicting a number of other geisha in doing so, and historical evidence.

Pre-WWII geisha didn't seem to have any issue talking about the mizuage rite of passage as being just another part of their lives; there wasn't the stigma attached to it that has come into play since the war. A geisha's training was expensive, a wealthy man would agree to be her sponsor, and he'd be entitled to deflower her.

[Marianne K Nishibayashi]

Have you read "Madame Sadayakko" by Lesley Downer - the story of the most famous geisha who was an international superstar? The beginning of chapter 2 discusses the document that Sadayakko's family still have from her mizuage, when she was deflowered by Hirobumi Ito. She says the cost of paying for a maiko's virginity was equivalent to that of a small house.

[Gina Collia-Suzuki]

I've had the book for a couple of years, but haven't read it yet. It's one of those tomes that sits and looks at me accusingly... along with a million others. So many books, so little me to read them with.

I did just check out chapter two, though... interesting.

[lena]

I don't know very much about Japanese culture but it always made me interested. Thank you for the post, it was really interestting along with comments here.

[Gina Collia-Suzuki]

I'm glad you enjoyed it, Lena.

[Travis]

Thanks much for the explanation, Gina. I was taking Iwasaki at her word, unknowing that there were other sources contradicting her assertion.

[Marianne K Nishibayashi]

Iwasaki gets a lot of press, other sources don't. It gives an unbalanced view.

[Linda Austin]

The correct wording might be they "occasionally" engaged in activities the could be construed as prostitution, such as mizuage and having a patron. I always thought a "real" geisha, trained in a "real" geisha house did not engage in any acts of prostitution because that was just one of the rules involved in being a geisha. There were, of course, "fake" geishas, especially post WWII who could do what they wanted, and so cheapened the real geisha reputation. Incidentally a Caucasian geisha in Japan was just on Oprah and made a point to say geisha did not sell sex.

[Marianne K Nishibayashi]

"Real" geisha had mizuage and patrons. Patrons were long term, so not occasional. What we call prostitution and what people of Tokugawa Japan, for example, called prostitution are two separate things, so the rule that geisha weren't supposed to be prostitutes gets fuzzy. They could sell their virginity and have a patron who they didn't love, who paid for everything for them in return for being with them, and that wasn't looked at as prostitution back in Tokugawa Japan. Modern geisha would never say they had sex for money because it's illegal and they'd be in trouble. There was a case, I can't remember all the details, where a modern geisha tried to sue her house for trying to force her to have sex. Rules are made to be broken, no?

[Gina Collia-Suzuki]

I doubt very much that there would be the controversy that exists around this subject if prostitution weren't considered so shameful (by society, not me personally). There's this notion that selling sex makes you less than you would be if you didn't do it, so of course there's denial.

To get a balanced picture of what did and did not take place, I think we need to forget Golden and Iwasaki, consider more reliable sources, and try to examine the facts... without moral judgement.