Chapter Five: Making Japanese by Taking off Clothes

To complement the previous chapter on nudity, this one is about sex. It is far from a comprehensive examination of sex in modern Japan. Instead it focuses on certain aspects of the intersection of the modern state and its attempts to regulate or transform personal behavior, the emergence in Japan of an academic/scientific discourse on sexuality, and the spillover of this discourse into mass media and into broader realms of culture. Like all the chapters of this book, we take special interest in the creative process of Japanese cultural identity, which is the very essence of "making Japanese." And as we will see, the kinds of sex-related issues discussed in this chapter were not unique to modern Japan. On the contrary, in Europe, the United States, China, and elsewhere, the concerns with sex and its regulation for the betterment of society and/or the nation were remarkably similar.

Although this chapter draws on several sources, it is especially indebted to an article by Sabine Frühstück, "Managing the Truth of Sex in Imperial Japan" (The Journal of Asian Studies, 59.2 [May, 2000]): 332-358. Her recent book, Colonizing Sex: Sexology and Social Control in Modern Japan ranges much more widely than the article or this chapter, linking matters of sex with broader issues in Japanese history. If you find this chapter interesting, you may want to try reading the book.

Historical Background: From Tokugawa to Meiji

A major change took place in Japan during the nineteenth century in official attitudes about sexual behavior and in the relative importance of sexuality in general as a matter for official state concern and regulation. Simply stated, in modern times the range of proper or generally acceptable (socially, morally, legally or otherwise) sexual behaviors narrowed significantly, and the state took an increasingly greater interest in regulating these behaviors. Here is a a list of the major changes concerning sexuality that took place across the span of the nineteenth century, that is, from about 1800 to about 1900:

Let us briefly examine most of these items before moving on to examine the modern situation in more detail. The Tokugawa period was a time when explicit, erotic woodblock prints were produced in large quantities for sale to the urban public. Many of these prints have survived to this day and are widely available in museums, art books, and on-line galleries (search for "shunga"). A common reaction from contemporary viewers of these prints is that they seem not so much erotic as strange—or even grotesque. This reaction is common for both Japanese and non-Japanese, although, because such images have been and are so commonly available in Japan, many Japanese are simply more accustomed to them. This generally negative reaction to Tokugawa-era visual eroticism is not usually the result of prudery, although the anti-sex crowd would certainly condemn this genre of prints as evil. Instead, major shifts in views of the male and female bodies account for today's viewers of Tokugawa-era erotic images regarding them as odd and unrealistic.

Perhaps the most obvious distortion in these prints to contemporary eyes is the exaggerated size and detail of the male and female sexual organs. The degree of exaggeration varied from print to print, but striking examples are common. Take *this print* as a typical example. You should have no trouble seeing the tendency to exaggerate the sexual organs—especially the penis in this case. And just to be sure you have grasped the point, take a look at *this example* as well. Why might the sexual organs in these and numerous prints like them have been depicted so prominently? Can you make any kind of a guess from studying the images? As a hint, study this *French erotic image* from the eighteenth century. Notice that, although the man's penis is visible, it is not prominent. Indeed, were it to be covered over, the painting would lose little if any of its erotic impact. So what is it that makes it erotic? As a further hint, examine *this image* from Europe. Now you should be able to see a major difference between Tokugawa Japan and early-modern Europe in the representation of eroticism.

In the popular imagination of Tokugawa Japan, there was little difference between male and female bodies. Go back and look at the two Japanese examples. Compare the faces and overall body shapes of the men and women. Note that there is little difference in secondary sexual characteristics. Therefore, it is the genitals that must bear nearly all of the markings of difference between men and women, and thus they are prominently depicted in erotic images. In the European example, on the other hand, it is the secondary sexual characteristics—facial hair or its lack, breast shape, shape of the pelvic area, facial features, etc.—that mark the boundaries between men and women. The genitals need not even be displayed, and when they are, they usually appear in roughly realistic proportion to the rest of the body and its many other markers of sexual difference.

Perhaps more basic is another difference in erotic representation. Notice the extensive depiction of elaborate clothing in the Japanese examples, especially the second one. This depiction of lush clothing was the norm in Tokugawa eroticism. Indeed, there is very little nudity---often just enough to display the huge sexual organs---in many such Tokugawa prints. By contrast, most Western eroticism depicts extensive nudity, and even what clothing may be depicted is often designed to emphasize the presence of nude skin. In other words, in Western traditions of erotic depiction skin itself is sexy, and, indeed, in ordinary life, there was very little skin to be seen on the streets of Europe. Thus, the display of skin became sexually charged.

In Japan, as we have seen, a high degree of nudity was common in the daily life of most ordinary people. Skin was no big deal, but splendid silk clothing was rare and expensive. In Tokugawa Japan, prostitutes, especially the elite courtesans, advertised their sexuality not by displaying skin but by parading through the streets in multiple layers of elegant clothing. To touch and feel such exquisite cloth was something only the rich could do on a regular basis. For most Japanese, the fondling of such cloth might take place only in their fantasies. Thus, elegant, finely-woven, brightly colored cloth, not skin, became sexually charged in Tokugawa-era erotic art. This phenomenon, of course, is also a good example of the merging of fantasies of wealth with fantasies of sex. The merging of these two types of fantasies is a common occurrence anywhere, though the details might well be very different from place to place, as in the examples we have seen.

There is a more general point that these details reveal about erotic depiction in Tokugawa Japan: that Tokugawa-era Japanese did not have a strong sense of gender difference based on physiology. Language, gestures, and certain aspects of clothing, hairstyles, jewelry--not basic differences in physical features--served to differentiate men and women. Because all these markers of difference were social constructs, it was entirely possible that men could pass as women and vice versa by carefully studying, practicing, and then utilizing all the appropriate social markers of the gender one sought to imitate. The most famous example of such imitation is the category of male actors, today called onnagata 女形, who played women's roles on the Kabuki stage.

Because Tokugawa-period Japanese tended to regard the overall body shapes of men and women as nearly the same, the only significant physical marker of difference were the sex organs themselves. In Europe at this time, by contrast, the bodily shapes resulting from secondary sexual characteristics were thought to be so distinctive in marking gender that no man could pass as a woman or vice versa, and attempts to to so usually took place only within the context of comedy or farce. Indeed, depictions of men, and, especially, women often exaggerated these secondary characteristics unrealistically. Probably the most common example was exaggerating the width of the pelvic bone and hips. The main point of contrast here is that in the Western world, at least in early modern times, gender differences were regarded as hard-wired products of biology first and foremost, and social markers of gender were typically regarded as following "naturally" from these biological differences. In Tokugawa Japan, it was the social markers of gender that were most prominent in people's imaginations. For those who want to delve into this topic further, read Timon Screech, Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan, 1700-1820 (Honolulu, University of Hawai'i Press, 1999).

This Japanese view of the male and female bodies underwent substantial change in the direction of Western perceptions during the Meiji period. In the background, this shift was a major contributor to an increasing rigidity of gender roles for ordinary people in modern times, a topic we examine in a later chapter.

Another distinction that became common (i.e., common sense) in the Western world but which was absent or very weak in Tokugawa Japan was that of homosexuality versus heterosexuality. Many Japanese history textbooks point out that homosexuality was common in Tokugawa Japan and widely accepted. While this statement is roughly correct in terms of modern categories, a slightly deeper look at the situation is necessary. Specifically, we should question the very existence of categories like "heterosexual" or "homosexual"--at least in their modern sense of fundamental orientations. In Tokugawa Japan, there was only one category: sexuality. This category included a variety of erotic behaviors, which could further be distinguished by two general flavors joshoku 女色 (sexual activity between men and women), and nanshoku 男色 (same-sex sexual activity, also pronounced danshoku). Significantly, these flavors were not categories of people but of behaviors. These two flavors of sexuality were available for anyone, and partaking of one did not necessarily exclude the other. Indeed, a sufficiently wealthy or influential person might combine them both at the same time and place.

(Those with some knowledge of Japanese will notice that the terms joshoku and nanshoku are male oriented. The former is more literally "female allure" and the latter is "male allure." There was a slang vocabulary at the time, however, that was more versatile and not necessarily male oriented. Sex between two women, for example, was often called "kai-awase" 貝合せ ["shell matching"], a word that normally indicated a game in which participants would find compatible halves of seashells containing painted scenes and match them.)

In today's terminology, therefore, the typical Tokugawa Japanese was more or less bisexual, although Tokugawa Japanese generally recognized that people tended to have a preference for one flavor of sexuality or the other. But either way, joshoku and nanshoku were not radically different things. They were simply two broad varieties of sexuality and sexual activity. Was there any major condemnation of those who preferred nanshoku? The answer depends on what is meant by "major." Mark Ravina makes the following observation in the context of discussing an institution called gojū, neighborhood schools consisting of boys and teenagers in nineteenth-century Satsuma:

Was gojū culture gay? The question is both intriguing and anachronistic. "Homosexual," as a label for people, did not exist in Saigō [Takamori]'s day: sex with men was a practice rather than an identity. Like drinking or fishing, one could enjoy homosexuality regularly, occasionally, or never, according to personal preference. Lacking a biblical story of Sodom, Tokugawa-era Japanese had no concept of sodomy, and Tokugawa-era laws did not criminalize homosexual conduct itself. Legal injunctions against male-male sexuality focused largely on the result of "outrageous" or "provocative" sexual conduct. Like consorting with a geisha or drinking, male-male intercourse became a vice rather than a diversion only when taken to extremes. When Yonezawa domain issued regulations on homosexual activity in 1775, for example, it mentioned violence rather than perversion. Any conflict among a handsome young samurai, his father, and his lover could easily lead to drawn swords and mayhem. Homosexuality was a problem only because male lovers' quarrels tended to grow violent and threaten the public order. (Mark Ravina, The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigō Takamori [Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2004], p. 33.)

In addition to violence, another possible "extreme" of homosexual behavior would have been failure to reproduce. Elite and commoner society expected men and women to get married and produce some offspring, and obviously exclusive indulgence in homosexuality would have hindered fulfilling this expectation. The *third Tokugawa shōgun Iemitsu* is a good example of nanshoku, its potential for violence, its possible conflict with expectations to reproduce, and connections between sexuality and politics. Looking at the wide range of social commentary in Tokugawa Japan, we can find a few Confucian scholars and other moralists who denounced nanshoku as morally improper, though often in the context of a broader critique of a society allegedly obsessed with sex. Overall, however, these moralists did not enjoy a large or influential audience. Generally speaking we can say say that there was little or no social censure of non-violent nanshoku in Tokugawa times for those who met their basic social obligations. For more on this topic, see the book by Screech mentioned above.

During the Meiji period this situation began to change---again, in the general direction of Western views of heterosexuals and homosexuals being radically different types of people who engaged in radically different forms of behavior. And, as you might have guessed, an official line soon developed to say that heterosexual behavior alone was legitimate. Almost certainly because of the lack of Christian influence, modern Japan was never so intolerant of homosexuality as were many Western societies. But it was precisely this Western hostility to homosexuality that drove the Meiji state and its successors to sanction only heterosexual behavior as normative. In other words, if for no other reason that to appear "civilized" in the eyes of the powerful imperialist countries, it was virtually inevitable that the Meiji state would put its weight behind the creation of a Japan that recognized heterosexuality alone as correct and proper. By the twentieth century, most Japanese probably saw homosexuality and heterosexuality as radically different personal orientations, much like most Westerners did.

This official opposition to and redefinition of the nanshoku flavor of sex was part of a broader effort by the state to regulate the sexual behavior of its citizens. In part, this desire to regulate was a reflection of efforts to make Japan's people look better in the eyes of the powerful foreigners. In part it also reflected the state's desire to promote a well-ordered society whose citizens worked hard on behalf of the nation. Such a society would tend to limit sexual freedom as part of an effort to regulate family life and instill in its youth a sense of discipline and sacrifice.

During the Tokugawa period, sexual customs varied considerably based on social status, and, to a lesser extent, on geography. Generally speaking, rich urbanites and samurai lived by more restrictive codes of behavior (official or unofficial) than did ordinary Japanese, especially those in the countryside. The burden of strict norms of sexual behavior fell especially heavily on the backs of elite women, and it was among elite Japanese in the Tokugawa period that gender roles in every respect tended to be rigid and unequal. For the majority of peasants, however, customary practices allowed greater sexual freedom for women. Furthermore, economic needs and the patterns of daily life tended to encourage a blurring of social gender roles in rural areas and to promote relative economic, social, and sexual equality among men and women.

During the Meiji period this situation changed markedly. Through civil law, legislation, police orders, popular media and, perhaps most importantly, the emerging state-run school system, we find a strong tendency to take the gender- and sex-related norms of the former samurai class and reformulate them as norms for all Japanese citizens. This chapter and later ones will elaborate on certain aspects of this development.

As in all modern societies, Meiji Japan saw a sharp rise in the number of experts and specialists. In some realms, the norms of expertise were well established, either by prior custom or by adopting European standards. In many new realms of knowledge, however, the promoters of certain forms of expertise had to work hard to market themselves. In other words, they had to make a convincing case that their academic or professional discipline was both legitimate and necessary for the betterment of society. This process of struggling to establish new realms of knowledge as formal disciplines went on everywhere in the modern world. Psychology, for example, became a legitimate discipline with professional standards and formal recognition only around the turn of the twentieth century, even though physicians and many others had long been interested in mental health (broadly speaking) throughout previous centuries. One fascinating example of professional/academic discipline that arose in Meiji Japan was "monsterology," described in detail by Gerald Figal in Civilization and Monsters: Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan. This chapter will be concerned with the rise of sexology as a professional discipline in modern Japan and its connections with the state's attempts at social management. The typical rhetorical strategy employed by the practitioners of most new disciplines aspiring to full legitimacy in the eyes of society was to describe monsterology, sexology, or whatever as a "science" and to liken its workings to a scientific discipline like biology that was already well established.

In Tokugawa Japan, sexuality was widely recognized as an important realm of life, both for individual people and society as a whole. There were various theories about connections between sexual activities and physical or mental health, and literate Japanese could read about such matters in published books. There were no special qualifications that authorized someone to write about this topic, though physicians and Confucian scholars (and many Confucian scholars were also physicians) were perhaps the most likely groups. There was an even larger literature about how to have fun via sexual activities, which ranged from relatively restrained advice to what would strike many modern readers as pornography. As an example of the more restrained variety of academic writing about sex in Tokugawa times, let us take the example of Kaibara Ekken, a Confucian scholar whose interests ranged widely but tended to center on what today we would call the natural sciences. In some of this writings, this interest in natural sciences took the form of advice for healthy living. In typical Confucian fashion, Kaibara tended to emphasize restraint and discipline, as in the following example from the chapter "How to Keep Good Health" in Yōjōkun (Principles for Nurturing Life):

Although if one indulges in food, drink, and sex as one's desires dictate, at first there is a sense of pleasure for a while, afterwards this pleasure will certainly turn to physical damage and long misfortune. If one wishes to avoid the consequent misfortune, one must not seek the initial pleasure. Anything that affords pleasure at the outset metes out misfortune in the end. On the other hand, if one makes an effort at self-restraint in the beginning, one will surely be rewarded with pleasure afterwards. [several sections later:] The four essentials of health preservation are not to get angry, not to worry too much, not to talk too much, and not to indulge one's desires too much.i

Later in this volume, Kaibara devotes an entire chapter to keeping sexual desire well under control at various stages of life and in various circumstances. He includes specific recommendations about the ideal frequency of sexual "discharges" for people at different ages (we will briefly return to this specific point later, when discussing modern obsessions regarding masturbation). Kaibara's view of health is ultimately all about ideal balances, however, and so he warns that excessive self-restraint in the realm of sex can also be harmful. For those tormented by sexual urges but who have already "maxed out" on the ideal number of discharges, he recommends sexual activity that stops short of orgasm, which "is easy to practice, and gives sexual satisfaction even without discharge and is therefore a good way to improve circulation of the vitality and preserve one's energy" (p. 87). Other advice includes never engaging in sex in front of a shrine, temple, or other holy place, or when "boils and other skin eruptions have not yet healed" (p. 89). Another of Kaibara's essays is entitled Principles of Enjoyment (Rakkun). In it, he takes the same approach as we have seen with regard to sexual matters, namely, that maximum enjoyment is the result of a well-ordered, balanced life.

Kaibara's disciplined approach to life always had its adherents in Tokugawa times, but it tended to sound stuffy and old-fashioned to those with the means to indulge in the pleasures afforded by the large urban centers. Many historians of Tokugawa Japan have pointed out that urban popular values tended to emphasize conspicuous consumption and a life of sensual pleasure. The basic thinking went: you can't take your money with you when you go, so live it up while you still can. In the context of such values, publishers frequently put out guides to the various brothel districts and writers like (most famously) Ihara Saikaku celebrated a life of lust in his widely popular novels and short stories (e.g. #Life of an Amorous Man,# Life of an Amorous Woman, and many others).

Whether in Tokugawa times or modern times, writers like Ihara made no special claim to academic training when writing about sex. Kaibara, on the other hand, carefully argued his points based on a large body of Chinese and Japanese academic literature, and references to classical writings are found throughout his advice on sex, enjoyment, and anything else. But there was no recognized academic specialty in sexuality or the sexual sciences in Kaibara's day. Instead, writers like him included sexual matters within a much broader context of human, social and cosmic affairs. Tokugawa-era Confucian scholars like Kaibara were often wide-ranging generalists.

With this background of general changes from Tokugawa to modern times in mind, let us now turn our attention to some of the major sex-related issues in modern Japan. We start with bodily metaphors.

The National Body

Prior to modern times, it was common in East Asian political rhetoric to liken states and the societies over which they governed to the human body. Although this metaphor derived from Confucian political thought, it did not require Confucianism for its continued usefulness. During the Meiji period, Confucian political thought lost much of its former influence, but the use of bodily metaphors to describe the state, and, now, also the nation, continued undiminished. Indeed, one general trend in the modern world, a trend very much evident in Japan, was a steady increase in the importance of the human body. The reason for this development was that biology and politics began to make common cause during the nineteenth century.

One of the most significant results of this tendency for the biological sciences and politics to overlap was the nineteenth-century rise of what many now call "scientific racism" (defined in Chapter Two and elsewhere). As we have seen in previous material, the foundation of scientific racism was the premise that human beings naturally fall into groups of sub-species, which are marked by certain external physical differences. Furthermore, these external differences allegedly correspond to deeper bio-social characteristics and thus are the major determinant of culture. Although few biologists accept any of these postulates today, in the 1850s, such ideas were part of the cutting edge, so to speak, of scientific thought.

Social scientists soon borrowed such ideas from the natural sciences and began to explain large-scale disparities in power, wealth, technological development, etc. in terms of allegedly hard-wired cultural differences. By the late nineteenth century, such explanations had become "common sense" to most educated people around the world. Today, many biologists no longer think it possible to categorize humans into races (unlike, for example, dogs) because of a lack of concordance of features and a greater genetic variation within a given "race" (however defined) than between it and another one. Nevertheless, the average person still tends to think along late nineteenth century lines, assuming that there must be some sort of causal link between physical appearance, especially skin pigmentation, and culture. And, needless to say, certain aspects of physical appearance continue to influence human political activity around the world. (Incidentally, to my knowledge, one of the few comprehensive attempts to explain world history in an explicitly non-racist fashion is Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.)

A closely related concern with human bodies that also featured a crossover from the biological sciences to the social sciences was the late-nineteenth century body of thought called #Social Darwinism#. Social Darwinism derived from the application of a simplified version of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection of species to human societies. The basic argument was that in human affairs (economics, politics, cultural production, etc.) the strong tend to survive and the weak tend to perish, much like the broader struggle to survive and pass on one's genes in the natural world. Social Darwinism also tends to hold that the flourishing of the strong and the declining of the weak in human societies and between human societies is both natural and morally good. Like scientific racism, Social Darwinism has long been discredited but remains influential in popular thought.

In Meiji Japan, ideas about "race" (defined in many different ways), social struggle, evolution, culture, and politics often merged with each other, owing in large part to the influence of European thought and the prestige of "scientific" modes of learning. One result was the emergence of a discourse on Japanese bodies, which took several different forms. For example, starting with specialized academic writings early in the Meiji period, but eventually expanding to popular media such as newspapers, we find numerous discussions alleging certain unique qualities to "the Japanese race." This sort of talk was not always self-congratulatory. Indeed, it was not unusual for Japanese writers or speakers to attribute at least some negative traits to "we Japanese," many of which mirrored Western prejudices. But what is significant here is the emergence of the very idea that "the Japanese" have distinctive cultural traits as a direct result of their alleged unique physical makeup. By the twentieth century, this way of thinking had become common sense to most educated Japanese. In short, although there was rarely unanimous agreement on the details, it quickly became the norm for modern Japanese to assume deterministic links between physical makeup, culture, and, owing to Social Darwinism, national destiny. Therefore, Japan's national destiny was, at least in part, the result of the physical makeup of the Japanese people.

As you might expect, there was substantial fuzziness about how these alleged physical characteristics came to exist and whether, how, and to what extent they might be changed for better or worse. Still most specialists (physicians, anthropologists, sociologists, etc.) and ordinary citizens tended to assume that the physical makeup of Japan's people could be modified to at least some extent. Furthermore, this modification could be in the form of either improvement or degeneration. The physiological makeup and health of Japan's people, therefore, became an important political issue insofar as politicians and citizens imagined a variety of possible links between bodies and the nation.

And they frequently imagined such links. Indeed, perhaps the most politically charged term in the entire modern Japanese vocabulary was kokutai 国体, often translated "national politiy," but which literally means the "national body." Although in many of its uses, kokutai was a relatively abstract concept, it reflects in part the linkages that many Japanese (and modern people in general) imagined between individual bodies and the essence of the nation. Even today, kokutai remains a potent political term (#see article#), and we will return to it in a later chapter.

Although it was common to equate the emperor with kokutai in political rhetoric, it was the duty of all Japanese citizens to contribute to the glory of imperial rule. This duty not only included extraordinary service such as bravery on a battlefield in times of war, but matters of a more mundane sort. As a Japanese, for example, one had a duty to maintain a healthy body and mind. Were all Japanese to take this duty seriously, the theory went, the nation as a whole would surely improve. Unfortunately, according to many influential commentators, various pathologies present in the national body threatened to spin out of control, with potentially disastrous consequences. It was therefore the duty of the government and knowledgeable experts to devise methods of controlling or eradicating these pathologies. Sexual matters loomed large in this line of thought, and none more seriously than the horrible scourge of masturbation—seriously(!). Before we move on to some of the details of this obsession with masturbation, notice that in this cases, the metaphor of the state and/or nation as an organic body has in some sense lost its metaphoric quality and become literal, at least in the realm of state regulation of public health and sexual behavior.

At this point, it is advisable to pause in this account of sex and bodies in modern Japan and take a brief detour. Although doing so is not required, reading #this supplement# about the anti-masturbation craze in Europe and some of the issues connected with it will enhance your understanding of how these same issues played out in Japan.

#Ōkuma Shigenobu# (1838-1922) was a giant in the world of both politics and higher education. Soon before his death, he gave a speech at a conference on mental illness in which he argued on behalf of a law to regulate the lives of mentally ill persons. Part of his speech reads:

Insanity becomes infectious. This infection can be terrible, spreading ceaselessly among the people. A society, or even a state, can eventually become morbid. I suppose that a nation like Russia might be affected by insanity. In the beginning, it was *neurasthenia,* then it became psychosis, and finally it turned into a pathological attack which would lead the nation to end in a complete failure—a revolution. Being insane produces a peculiar effect. Because, once effected by insanity, even the Japanese, who have been known for a unique loyalty to their Emperor, may exhibit a disloyalty. . . . Insane persons should be taken care of by the state. Why? If they are neglected, the infection will make the nation more and more morbid, and the whole society will become confused and out of control.ii

Notice that Ōkuma's concern is with the health of the national body, specifically, with avoiding the "pathology" of revolution. Most likely he is referring specifically to the revolutionary potential of Marxism, but regardless of the specific pathogen at hand, the preservation of law, order, and stability is Ōkuma's overall goal.

Notice his rhetorical strategy for emphasizing the power of insanity. First, he points out that Japanese are unique among the world's peoples in their great loyalty to the throne, which was a commonplace and frequently repeated self-congratulatory assertion (often expressed in the stock phrase "loyalty and filial piety"). But the power of insanity is such that it can destroy even this loyalty—which many Japanese at this time would have regarded as an "innate" national characteristic. Most important, notice the smooth transition from illnesses of individuals to an illness of society via the characteristic of being "infectious." Although today the characterization of insanity as infectious would seem odd, early in the twentieth century it was not uncommon, in Japan or elsewhere, to regard non-microbial pathologies as being communicable in the manner of a cold or flu. And in this case, Ōkuma is really talking about the potential popularity of certain forbidden political views and cultural forms. What better way to control political/cultural deviants than to "take care of them" as victims of insanity on the grounds of public health?

In the passage above, Ōkuma begins his causal chain of events with neurasthenia, a vaguely-defined condition of psychological unease or exhaustion. Although neurasthenia is rarely used today's medical talk as a diagnostic category, it was a popular catch-all diagnosis in the early twentieth century. Furthermore, the notion that neurasthenia, if not corrected, will often lead to insanity (via a series of intermediary diseases such as tuberculosis, for example) was not unique to Ōkuma. It was widely-accepted medical "common sense" in his day. So destruction of the national body starts with neurasthenia. But what causes neurasthenia? I suspect most of you can guess! Sexual immorality was the most common cause of neurasthenia, and its most common form was masturbation. Sabine Frühstück summarizes these connections as follows:

Neurasthenia was the preliminary stage of psychosis which would bring about pathological consequences and eventually culminate in moral degradation, social chaos, and even revolution. Hence, in [the] view [of public health experts], masturbation was but one expression of insanity. Japan's bureaucracy responded to this reasoning by taking several measures to exert control over the sex lives of the Japanese population in general, and venereal disease and masturbation in particular. New regulations tightened the control over prostitution and prostitutes; others focused exclusively on recruits. . . . Most important and far-reaching, however, were regulations designed to better instruct, control, and discipline children who were referred to as the core focus of the program for the "improvement of the race" (jinshu no kairyō) and the "improvement of society" (shakai kairyō)."iii

For those who read the supplement on masturbation in Europe, this focus on children as the means of improving the nation should sound familiar. In principle, few Japanese had any argument with this logic. There was, however, considerable disagreement regarding who should enact or supervise the controlling and what kind(s) of control should be applied. Furthermore, different intellectual disciplines tended to take different approaches to sexual issues. Therefore, pediatricians, educators, sexologists (as they were known in Japan), psychologists, public health officials, and politicians did not always agree on the best methods for preventing sexual deviance in children, even though they usually did agree on the questions of what was deviant and why such deviance was harmful. Much of the disagreement about methods centered around the issue of sex education in schools and in popular media.

Improving The National Body Through Sex Education

The debate over the proper extent and forms of sex education for children took place in the pages of both popular media and academic journals. German influence was especially strong in Japanese medicine, and in 1905, the physician Fujikawa Yū established the journal *Human Sexuality,* which sought to combine the best of sexual knowledge from Germany and Japan and to establish sexology as a legitimate academic discipline. The contributors to Human Sexuality generally advocated that Japanese schools adopt a program of sexual pedagogy (sexualpädagogik) modeled on German practices. Fujikawa was successful in establishing a lecture series on sexuality in the context of a hygiene course to middle school (= today's high school) audiences. He also made himself available for public speeches to non-specialist audiences, as did other aspiring sexologists. By 1910, several other sexological journals had come into existence, which sometimes featured articles comprehensible to general readers.

In 1908, the daily newspaper Yomiuri shinbun ran a six-week series of articles by leading medical doctors and pedagogues on "the sexual question." A theme running through most of the articles was that the dissemination of correct knowledge about sex would improve Japan's population. Frühstück summarizes the article series ("the controversy" in her terminology) as follows:

The controversy in the Yomiuri shinbun represents an entire repertoire of new ideas characterized by three main features: the ideas always appeared together; they were tightly intertwined and mutually supportive of each other; and at their core they carried the necessity of the creation and popularization of correct knowledge in order to improve the Japanese populace. "Scientific method" required that confessions of children, diagnoses of school doctors, and empirical data on the sexual behavior of students fulfill certain criteria. Scientific knowledge had to be clearly cut off from religious customs and social traditions. Moreover, the conclusions had to be prophylactic in nature, aimed at preventing dubious sexual practices (e.g., masturbation or prostitution) and their "consequences" (e.g., neurasthenia, venereal diseases, or unwanted pregnancies). Debate over "sexual questions" included discussions of the problem of sex education . . . . Some authors asked further questions: What exactly does sex education mean? Why should it be carried out? Who is to be enlightened on sexual matters? What is the goal? What can be said? Who has the authority to speak? The controversy indicated the broad ramifications of the new scientific and pedagogical interest in sex. Intrinsic to the debate were concepts of individual and social responsibility, self-restraint and happiness, and disease and concern for the nation's health. . . . iv

One tension inherent in these discussions was disagreement about where primary responsibility for sex education lies: with parents or with "experts" (school officials, for example). Some argued that parents were in the best position to influence their children, but others questioned the qualifications of most parents, arguing, for example, that parents rarely had the requisite knowledge. Despite such disagreements about implementation, they all tended to agree on the desired goals of sex education. According to Frühstück:

Most pedagogues who contributed to the debate in the Yomiuri shinbun agreed that sex education was necessary primarily "to avoid the horrible consequences of masturbation." . . . Yubara Motoichi, the head of Tōkyō Ongaku Gakkō [Tokyo school of music], suggested discussing sexual instinct in a way that would not embarrass young boys and girls. He also thought it essential to separate boys and girls during sex education. Masturbation, he argued, was to be mentioned rarely and only if absolutely necessary, and before doing so a doctor was to be consulted. . . . For Washiyama Yayoi . . . founder and director of Japan's first medical school for women . . . masturbation was "the most terrible ailment related to the sexual instinct." Regarding sex education, she asserted: "The only purpose of the sexual instinct is reproduction, and any abuse has fatal consequences." Washiyama believed that ignorance led students between the age of fifteen and seventeen to masturbation. Since masturbation did not lead to satisfaction, they masturbated frequently and had to bear unimaginable consequences.v

An area of disagreement concerned whether boys, girls, or both should receive sex education and whether there should be different approaches for each. Several experts argued that both masturbation and lesbianism was rampant in schools for girls and factory dormitories (factories often preferred to employ young women, who typically worked for a few years before leaving to marry). Others, however, argued that school authorities were too nervous about sexual issues and often mistook platonic friendships between girls for sexual relationships. Some of the literature on this topic went into lurid detail about alleged practices and abuses (sorry—no example!).

This early twentieth-century discourse on sex, sexual deviancy, and sex education was ultimately concerned with the health of the nation. It tended to be alarmist about the current situation and to call for various combinations of education and coercion. (Incidentally, one could make an argument that government-mandated education is itself a form of coercion, but our emotional aversion to the idea that states coerce, as well as a strong tendency to overlook the coercive aspects of education, would likely cause the maker of such an argument to be regarded as insane—in Ōkuma's sense!) Frühstruck explains the connections between sex education, the national body, and the state as follows:

The concept of "the nation's health" legitimated a fine network of investigation, control, and observation by schools, parents, teachers, and physicians, as well as prohibitions. Contributors to the Yomiuri series, and other authors later, feared that certain newspapers and magazines of an already depraved society would cause children's impressions of their parent's morals to deteriorate further. They argued that even children "who came from a good home and received a good education" were in danger. What could possibly be done? Although the ethical basis was to be found at home and at school, an equal portion of responsibility for the education of "a morally strong people" was ascribed to the state. Discipline once instilled by the "ethics of the warriors" (bushi no dōtoku) was, in Mukō's view, now to be carried out by an apparatus of "social punishment" (shakaiteki seisai) formed by three major authorities: the home, the school, and other governmental institutions.vi

It seems that in every age, social commentators tend to decry the present as a time characterized by weakness and decline. Likewise, they tend to idealize the past. In the case of Japan, particularly after its military victory over Russia in 1905, it was common to hear references to "warrior" traditions and influences of the past. In this case, it appears, the noble warriors of the past never masturbated or fornicated—yea right!

Confessions of the Masses

This discourse on sex, sexual pathologies, and sex education eventually spilled over into the general social discourse. During the 1920s and 30s, all manner of periodicals began to dispense sexual advice for ordinary adult citizens. The most common format was question and answer in which an expert would answer readers' questions in return for publicity for his(/her—but nearly always his) medical practice or other services. Perhaps the most common form of readers' questions was to start with a confession of masturbation and then to ask the specific question, even if it was not about masturbation. For example:

When I was a fifteen or sixteen year old boy, I used to hang out with bad friends and began to masturbate. I continued this practice for several years and don't remember the slightest joy when having intercourse with women . . .

I remember that I have enjoyed masturbation since the age of thirteen. As a consequence, I started to become very forgetful this year . . .

It makes me feel very uncomfortable to tell you this but I started a bad habit a couple of years ago. Since I learned from your journal how disastrous it is I stopped completely. Since June of this year I get a headache as soon as I begin studying. I went to an optician but . . .

I am very embarrassed about having adopted a bad habit from a friend which I have intensively indulged in for several months but have stopped completely. Now, I am suffering from nocturnal pollution.vii

Of course, there is no way to know in any particular case whether such letters actually came from the general public or from the pens of magazine staff. Regardless, however, it is probably safe to say that by about 1930, the alleged dangers of masturbation and other aspects of sexual "truth" advocated by Japan's experts had permeated popular consciousness.

It would have been interesting to see how this emerging discourse on sex would have influenced social institutions, law, personal behavior, et cetera through time, but by the late 1930s, Japan was embroiled in full-scale war in China. This war in China eventually led to a collision course between Japan and the United States. In such an atmosphere, sexual issues were crowded out by more urgent concerns, and, one by one, the sexological journals and popular sex periodicals went out of business. By the time the war ended and some measure of recovery was underway, sexual issues looked quite different from what they had been a generation earlier. Gone, for example, was the problematizing of masturbation.

Conclusions

As we saw in Chapters Three and Four, different forms Western culture had a major impact on modern Japan. Sorting out the nature of this impact, however, is a complex undertaking. For one thing, there were different forms of "Western" culture, and there were different groups of Japanese with different interests and viewpoints. At different times, Japan's central government encouraged the adoption of certain forms of western culture, and at different times it rejected certain forms of western culture—and the same can be said for various other social entities within Japan.

The realm of sex, however, is relatively easy to generalize about in this regard: modern Japanese sexuality moved rapidly in the direction of "Western" norms. It did so with state encouragement and with little in the way of popular resistance. Let us consider some of the items listed at the start of this chapter. Erotic symbolism and representation, for example, very quickly adopted western-style techniques. Specifically, skin and secondary sexual characteristics became the markers of eroticism in visual imagery. (Say what? You want to see some examples? Such academic curiosity! Well, OK, I happen to have an academic book from Japan called Meiji-ki no porunogurafii, or, in English, Pornography in the Meiji Era. #Here are a few typical examples from photography#—sorry, the book contains no eroticized images of men. And from other sources, #here are a few examples from highbrow and popular art/painting.#)

Literary representations of the erotic were more complex and tended to retain more older conventions, but they too steadily moved toward employing more western-style conventions. The move toward western-style erotic imagery went hand-in-hand with a stronger consciousness of basic physical differences between men and women. This stronger consciousness of physical differences helped reinforce relatively rigid gender roles throughout society—a topic we examine in a later chapter.

Along with the stronger consciousness of inherent differences between the sexes came the tendency to regard homo- and hetero-sexuality as two distinctly different things. In most parts of Europe in the late nineteenth century, the formal face of society tended strongly to regard homosexuality as a sin, a crime, and a disease—all at the same time. Likewise in modern Japan, homosexuality came to be regarded in various combinations of these terms, although legal sanctions against it, and popular fear of it, never attained to anything approaching the severity of the western world's anti-homosexuality.

Germany was by far the greatest influencer of Japan in the realm of medicine. Indeed, until roughly the 1970s, it was customary for Japanese physicians to fill out hospital charts and certain other medical records in German. Along with the corpus of late nineteenth-century German medicine came the notion that masturbation ranked high among the most serious risks to health. Remember, this idea was part of the "advanced," "modern" knowledge of the western world, and Japanese physicians seem to have had no cause to doubt it.

Added onto the view of masturbation as a harm to the health of an individual's body came the idea that it was also, therefore, a harm to the nation. It was, in other words, harmful to what I and others sometimes call "the national body" (a literal translation of kokutai) in the context of modern Japanese history. This broader view of the dangers of masturbation was also part of Western thinking. Insofar as it became common sense throughout much of Japanese society by the 1920s and 30s, it serves as one of several rough markers of the extent to which Japan had become a nation, that is, a self-conscious imagined community.

Not only through the lens of sex, but when viewed from many other angles as well, it is probably safe to say that the task of making Japanese was largely complete by the 1920s. Of course, owing to the peculiar qualities of nations, the task of maintaining or re-making them is never complete in the sense that it stops. But by 1925, and possibly a decade or two earlier, the self-conscious sense of being distinctly Japanese had thoroughly soaked into every corner of society. That said, however, it is important to bear in mind that there was never complete agreement about precisely what it meant to be Japanese. Nations never arrive at closure on this matter. In the case of modern Japan, different visions of the nation and its people were always in some degree of conflict, again, as was/is the case with all modern nations.

One important theme of this book is the great extent to which the modern state insinuated itself into the lives of ordinary Japanese (although at the same time, we should note that there was always some degree of resistance against the state as well). Although this process of state insinuation into people's lives may conjure up images of laws and police, there was an even more important and influential mechanism: public education, a topic to which we now turn.

For a look at the changes in gender roles during the period of approximately 1850-1950, #click here.#

Notes

i Quoted in Ekiken Kaibara, Yōjōkun: Japanese Secret of Good Health (Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten Publishing Co., 1974): 31, 47.

ii Quoted in Sabine Frühstück, "Managing the Truth of Sex in Imperial Japan" (The Journal of Asian Studies, 59.2 [May, 2000]): 335.

iii Ibid., pp. 335-336.

iv Ibid., pp. 339-340.

v Ibid., p. 342.

vi Ibid., p. 343.

vii Quoted in Ibid., pp. 349-350.