Have historians succeeded in challenging (questioning/disputing) the negative perceptions of prostitution?
Negative perceptions of prostitution have been successfully challenged by historians to an extent however the stigma surrounding prostitutes and the sex trade didn’t change throughout the Victorian era or even today. This essay will specifically focus on four main judgements of prostitution in Meiji Japan and evaluate the extent these judgments, of venereal disease and pollution, immorality, the agency of the prostitute and stereotyping Asia as the ‘Other’, have been successfully countered by historians. Prostitution is ill defined, yet always defined by the feminine and gendered with negative perceptions intimately linked to race, sex and class. For the purpose of this essay prostitution will be classified as the sex trade industry and those involved within it. Prostitutes in Japan will be defined as Geisha’s, who were mainly as entertainers or hostesses that sometimes performed sexual acts, and Yoro’s, the most common term for lower class prostitutes, with a focus surrounding the creation of the Enlightened Geisha (EG), an educated geisha in arts such a reading and sewing.
European perceptions of Japanese prostitutes were not as severe in comparison to other Asian prostitutes. This was as a result of Japan’s unique situation as a semi-colonised country but actively allowing itself to be largely influenced by Western Victorian ideals. There is a lack of literature surrounding prostitution in Japan during 1868-1912, mostly focusing on India and South East Asia. The sources I will discuss will cover prostitution in large urban cities such as Edo, later Tokyo, Kyoto, Yokosuka – a treaty port, and also a case study focusing on a small rural brothel on the island of Mitarai. Historians viewpoints differ on if and the amount of freedom prostitutes had – Hyam, Levine and Stanley all hold contrasting views over the victimisation of Asian prostitutes – however there’s a consensus that non-white women, and most significantly non-white prostitutes, lacked a voice during colonisation, of any degree, from white imperialism. In hindsight, perhaps the most significant and successful challenge, that links these four judgements together, was the engrained racialized social assumption that coloured women, therefore prostitutes, were intrinsically white European male’s sexual release and property.
By viewing prostitutes through the lens of the ‘The Other’ helps to explain them as a perceived threat, a misunderstood exotic enemy. White males decided views of colonial women and prostitutes as innately wrong and inferior. Hyam fails to oppose this, advocating prostitution allowed an “improve[ment in] race relations”, unlike Said and Dougherty who reject racist, sexist, gendered views or stereotypes of the Orient, not just prostitutes. Dougherty fundamentally points blame to stereotyping of the east, encompassing it as one label for the people, culture and its geographical location, with juxtaposing Western ideals that distinguish Asian woman to European women. This suggests why Japanese prostitutes were mainly portrayed as enemies, through this stereotyping, despite Enlightened Geisha’s (EG) being regarded positively particularly in comparison to the Yoro’s treatment. In 1875 the newspaper Nichinichi shinbun depicted three EG’s relentlessly reading the paper to learn about what the capiton describes as the “age of the civilization”. This perception was accurate of EG to a large degree however was not long term, ending by 1890, and moreover from the state’s desire to remove the association of geisha’s with yoro’s than to educate them to remove the ‘enemy’ label. Stanley strongly challenges the extent of even the Geisha’s agency, successfully understanding that these Geisha’s briefly had more opportunities than the Yoro’s but both were still viewed vulgarly within Japan. Stoler conveys her dismay but not shock over Europeans using sexuality, through prostitution, to categorize anyone different from themselves. The ‘Other’ is vital in challenging and understanding Asian prostitutes situation, however all three views encompass the interconnectedness of imperialism for stereotyping and labelling that can be applied to counter negative views of prostitution, and specifically to Geisha’s and Yoros.
This section will argue that in hindsight the most negative and viciously disputed perception was that of pollution and disease, specifically venereal diseases (VD) such as syphilis and gonorrhoea, despite some leniency in Meiji Japan towards ‘enlightened’ Geisha’s. It links British/Western Victorian fears of hygiene and sanitation to white imperialism towards the colonised and semi colonised due to the rise of racial mixing and eugenics. The passing of the Contagious Diseases Act 1864 in London allowed officials to subject prostitutes to medical examinations and lock up hospitals for up to 3 months. This later influenced Japan’s governing policies towards prostitution and underpins the extremity of the belief that only prostitutes carried STI’s and suggests regulation was for their own safety.
However Bullough robustly challenges this assumption, perceptively highlighting that the act was “not to protect the prostitute but her customers” therefore why these invasive and humiliating measures were condoned. Patriarchal preconceptions rendered colonial prostitutes and VD inseparable; conveying the unwavering acceptance of racial and sexual hierarches despite no measures controlling males who carried VD. Table 1 serves as convincing evidence of his argument, highlighting the number of VD hospitals from 1875-1882 in Meiji Japan grew from by 127 in a 7 year period, illuminating the rapid increase of measures undertaken to regulate dirty and polluting prostitutes. Both Geisha’s and Yoro’s were subjected to testing but it’s worthwhile noting that distinguishing between the exact figures is difficult due to distortions of numbers from non-co-operation of Asian prostitutes. Yet Bullough fails to critique the “squeamishness” of academics regarding VD, which suggests Victorians and even historians were easily sickened by perceiving prostitution as disease, reinforcing the extreme extent of disgust. However Levine and Bryder reveal the purposeful avoidance of literature surrounding feminine hygiene, bodies and STI’s within prostitution despite it being a prominent change.
Alternatively, Japanese prostitutes, both Geisha and Yoro, could be seen as marginally superior to other Asian prostitutes. Memoirs of R.C.H Mckie convey how they “do not spread disease…..in the same way Burmese women do” emphasising a preference perhaps due to the lighter skin tones. However this is not a more moderate or less negative perception. Mckie’s memoirs only reinforces the extent prostitution was legitimised along hierarchies of sex and race for male pleasure and approval. Stanley’s argument holds some weight in challenging this perception. Interestingly his category of ‘folk devils’ can be applied to Geisha’s and Yoros to explain how they were seen as threatening to Victorian society, therefore “a decay image…[created, marking them as]…moral and physical pollution”. Re-examining this perception it is incontestable that historians have rigorously challenged the disease narrative, to understand Geisha’s and Yoro’s became racially associated with pollution from societal and scientific fears of infection.
Traditionally, prostitution was negatively seen to be a chosen lifestyle but this view has been widely and accurately challenged by historians emphasising prostitutes as “victims of circumstance beyond their own control.” Retrospectively Geisha’s and Yoro’s held very little freedom, despite striving to utilise opportunities presented to them, such as the Gion school educating Geisha’s, they were left increasingly restricted. Bryder forcefully critiques Hyam, for placing more agency on choosing to become a prostitute than what occurred in reality. Perhaps, inadvertently, Hyam was influenced by the growing feminist movement of the 1970s and 80’s whilst writing his work yet his views still remained largely male dominated.
Instead, Doughterty champions some investigation of the men buying prostitutes to understand “the demand side of the industry” and how that affected prostitute’s agency. He partially rejects Bryder’s focus of the victim narrative to focus why low class prostitutes were so ruthlessly exploited. However, her viewpoint can be correctly applied to the Yoro’s, who had the least freedom out of Japanese prostitutes. The microhistory case study of Tora, a young rural Japanese girl who was indentured by her parents in 1862 to Tomitaya brothel as a maid, where Sadaemon, the owner, shockingly forces her against her parent’s wishes into sexual activity aged thirteen. Despite being two years before the Meiji period, Tora’s story shows the continuation of negative assumptions surrounding Asian women as property and the extent to which their agency was limited by economic factors. Tora spoke of wanting to rather die than stay in Mitarai, therefore emphasising the disturbing extent of the Yoro’s feelings of helplessness and a situation they felt trapped in. This sharply contrasts to the Enlightened Geisha’s who temporarily received an education and marginal respect during 1870s. However, Stanley strongly challenges the extent of even the Geisha’s agency, successfully understanding that these Geisha’s had more opportunities than the Yoro’s however they weren’t at all their own free agents.. Indeed, Doughtery’s argument is more successful than Bryder’s and Stanley’s regarding the understanding of male motivations, however, they all successfully challenge three main views: firstly that prostitution was a choice, by viewing the complexity and difficulty of separating race and gender from perceptions of prostitution, secondly the double standard applied especially to Asian prostitutes and lastly that economic hardship didn’t affect rural peasants decision to indenture their daughters. Japanese prostitutes were not as badly racialized as other Asian prostitutes; hence the short lived Enlightened Geisha’s can be considered to exercise the most freedom as a non-white woman in the sex trade but nevertheless were far from being free.
The last section deals with morality and the view that prostitutes were immoral, uncovering the projection of fear and anxiety onto the sex trade. In Victorian Britain women were defined through their sexuality, prostitutes therefore challenged this through selling sex. The body plays an important role in the negative perception of immoral Geisha’s and Yoro’s. Japan also adopted these ideals, licentiousness became associated with ideas of uncontrollability. Levine accurately challenges the negative assumptions that these women lacked shame because of their chosen profession, probing how the rapid urbanisation of towns, particularly in Japan Edo the capital, allowed prostitution to flourish and unleashed these fears over immorality. Again the EG can be an exception to the rule, seen as mastering and studying the arts, but Stanley rightly exemplifies it was “a short lived phenomenon” that by the twentieth century had died out and left behind a belief to correct prostitutes as the immoral pollution to society.
Immorality rested on Victorian ideals of the ‘private’ sphere, the home where the respectable wife and mother stayed, and ‘public’ sphere, male dominated business and society. As VD awareness increased so did the intrinsic view that prostitutes had a “deep and unbreakable association with morality”. From the beginning Levine advocates how strong the association between these spheres and morality was, distinctly challenges how revoltingly prostitutes were viewed by using race to explain why Japanese prostitutes were viewed through primitive ways. Contrastingly Lindsey downplays the Victorian spheres but it is evident the similarities of Japanese femininity towards woman’s sexuality was to the West, pleasure and reproduction were separate during and before the Meiji period. Stoler builds upon Levine’s point, taking it a step further to tie together fears of racial mixing, reproduction and motherhood of immoral bastard children. In Japan, Geisha’s and Yoro’s could be seen as equally uncivilised as both practised promiscuity in varying degrees, this illustration published in 1874 exemplifies this point by a physically dirty coal seller calling a glamorously dressed Geisha “disgusting”. Stanley suggests the remark may reference VD however it seems a more veiled comment to deep seated view of immorality and repulsion to selling one’s body generally from Warren, unlike Stanley, directly credits a potent inflicting of British moral and political ideals and assumptions onto Singapore prostitutes, but this can be directly applied to Yoro’s many of which were also indentured in Singapore. Immorality has therefore been questioned as it covers the colonised and semi colonised through gender, class and sexual categories based on .