I had read somewhere that some of the western confusion on what a geisha is and isn’t comes from the occupation after WWII. Somehow the GIs had heard of geishas (not sure why not oiran) so ordinary prostitues would call themselves geisha to attract customers.

Finally, someone who knows what they’re talking about!

And lest there be any confusion, I’m talking about Marie, and not Anonymous.

OK:
Playing the piano at a bordello is a respectable profession.

I see little or no difference between that and playing piano at a cocktail lounge where people go to meet and mate.

Aw, thanks Ampontan!

Wake — I’ve read the same thing and suspect you have a point.

I also think that there are some men who want so much to see Asian women as highly sexualized that, naturally, all women are free game and look “sexy” no matter what they are doing. You know. The whole, “It’s not my fault your honor. She was being sexy” argument. Certainly there are some people out there who think that a trip to Asia would fulfill supressed sexual fantasies, as though the culture were no more than one big sexual opportunity.

I don’t think there are any high heel tabi. I assume you mean high heel geta or another kind of shoe. I haven’t seen the movie yet (sad, I know), so I can’t comment on the costume. But certainly from the stills I have seen, some of the dancing and costuming don’t look true to what a geiko actually wears. But, again, “Memoirs” is a movie and not a documentary. I wouldn’t necessarily use the movie as a reference for authenticity.

Certainly there are some people out there who think that a trip to Asia would fulfill supressed sexual fantasies, as though the culture were no more than one big sexual opportunity.

Thailand.

“I’m not trying to say geisha are prostitutes I’m just saying not everyone considers them prostitutes because they haven’t learned enough about them. ”

I just realized my wording grammer was off on this last statement and could have sounded like I was saying the opposite of what I meant. Here is a better way of putting it;

I’m not trying to say geisha are prostitutes, I’m just saying not everyone that considers them prostitutes does so because they haven’t learned enough about them.

But if a geisha sells her virginity for a price, isn’t that selling spring? Isn’t that being a woman who sells her body for sex? Please explain the difference.

I think the main problem is that Westerners see prostitution as “sinful” in the Judeo-Christian context, whereas Asians do not see it a sinful but as just another business transaction, nothing to write home about. Just part of the big picture of life. So there.

I’m not a fan of relativism in general, and I think it’s a very dangerous way to consider different cultures.

To say that Asian women wouldn’t find the selling off of their sexuality offensive, is, I think, pretty offensive for Asian women whose sexuality and virginity has been sold off against their will. It’s the kind of thinking that leads people to think that it’s “okay” to sexualize Asian women more than women in other cultures. It is worth remembering that we are all human, and that what hurts one person will very likely hurt another.

See the debunking of Margaret Mead’s theories on sexuality for reference.

As for selling off the virginity of geisha; this is what made Golden’s book so controversial. Try to google the whole concept; the only “scholarship” that exists on the subject so far is Golden’s book. As for how “real” the whole thing is, very few people seem to know. It certainly isn’t a custom that exists today.

I’m saying that classifying geisha as prostitutes simplifies their role. I think it’s unfortunate that when the subject of geisha come up in conversation, many people immediately leap to the “prostitute” aspect of the debate, rather than taking other facets of the role into consideration. As David said above:

to say geisha are simply prostitutes is too over simplify a very complex situation and plus it’s just plain false advertising. You’re going to have a lot of disappointed and enraged customers thinking after the shamisan and koto they’re going to get their shabu-shabu on.

This is what I mean.

Frankly, everything you’ve said on here screams “The lady doth protest too much”: you’ve so thoroughly absorbed modern-day Western attitudes towards the “morality” of trading sex that you’re determined to back-project it into a world in which said “morality” [sic] had next to no role to play, all in the name of protecting the image of an essentially dead culture which you happen to strongly identify with purely on the basis of your ancestry.

That is quite a projection on your part. See some of my other posts and comments — I don’t think you’ll find standard Western attitudes through all of them, and that I don’t tow the standard PC line. If you want to know my thoughts on the modern day sex trade, then ask and submit a question through Japundit.

As for “morality” on the subject of the sex trade which I admit I only very lightly touched on above (it was late, I was posting in a hurry), I don’t think either you or I know what women’s attitudes towards the sex trade in the 1930s or even the 19th century would have been. The fact that it existed doesn’t mean that the women who participated in it weren’t negatively affected.

I agree that it’s very convenient, on the one hand, to say “the women thought it was horrible” because a modern and ethical mind might find the concept repulsive — probably more so for women than men. With the distance of history, it’s also easy to say “things were different back then” and “it was no big deal.” It would require a true historian to unearth attitudes of the time.

As for Golden knowing “the truth,” I don’t doubt he read much more material than I did. However — and I may be wrong — but I believe he cites Mineko Iwasaki as his “source” for the auctioning off of virginity. She disagrees with his version of events. The Liza Dalby book doesn’t mention the selling off of virginity. So, I don’t know where else he got his information. If you have a definite source, I’d certainly be interested in hearing about it and would certainly be open to reading it. Until then, I’m sticking to everything else I have read, and everything else anyone has ever told me.

That’s a great post, Sandy.

After I wrote my last comment, I thought about an incident that happened a number of years ago. I think I was about 14 and had just seen my first geiko. After that, my mother and other family members and I all went to a hot spring town. I talked about the geiko I had just seen, and someone made a comment that we could “see” geisha (note the difference) in the hot spring town where we were staying.

Someone else immediately interjected that the geisha in the hot spring town were not at all the same thing as a geiko. The implication was clear; the geishas outside of Kyoto didn’t do “true” geiko work.

People in Kyoto become very upset if you use the term geisha over geiko, and the above story might well illustrate the difference, and may also shed some light on the confusion.

What is not known by either the reporter or this online publication is that there an additional arm of the post feminist revolution which is just coming about. Females all over the world are now worring about the loss of sensuality in males, and this is indeed grwoing within males – due to false accusations by female surrounding male agression. As a result, many women are not alarmed about prostitution occuring. It is already known that a growing pool of women are knowledgable about the new male weaknesses – loss of sensuality -in attracting women, and are taking an economic advantage of it – though it is now being called prostitution as of yet. Thus the point made about Geishas are not in sink with emerging realities. Moreover, and large due to the additional factor that only males who have a sensual qualities who are able to assist, or directly able in the rearing of healthy emotional children of both genders. What has happened with this growing additional consciousness of younger post-feminist women is that sharing and polygammy is more attractive once a male sensual specimen is found by two concern women who want children, and who do not want a contractual progenator to supply sperm ( who in most cases would be a homosexual, or in the genre term turker basters ). Thus I have already made a report on this and place it on line via The Sensual Revolution .

Lastly, I found your site and have linked it to my Tokyo Night Life ( NightLife ), RMC

Please advise through email if you wish to add any information on my Sensual Website.

kewlz:cool:

I absolutely agree.
though I liked the movie, I’ve also read that selling their virginity (like she did in the movie) wasn’t practised by the real geisha.

It seems quite a jump to assume that just because Japanese culture developed outside of Judeo-Christian norms that the Japanese have always been perfectly at ease with prostitution. It’s like reasoning that America has schools, India isn’t America, therefore India has no schools.

[...] And finally, the difference between an oiran and geisha is explained here. [...]