Lewd Lives of the Chigo: Young Assistants to Japanese Monks

Medieval Japanese temples had these child assistants called chigo 稚児, or acolyte. They
were like altar boys. Influential families often sent their sons to Buddhist monasteries to
study. Chigo families were pretty well off. They included mid to upper tier families, families
of temple administrators, and families of workers for important government figures.
Temples had a whole hierarchy of acolytes. Chigo were pretty high up there, second from
the top, right beneath the sons of elite aristocratic families.
Becoming a chigo automatically gave you high status, sometimes even higher than the
family you came from.
The monastery gave these boys a top-tier education. They were taught the arts like
singing, dancing, playing instruments, literature, and poetry.
Everything they needed to be classy aristocrats that normal people looked up to and
wished to rob They also made political connections and mined karma coins that they could
cash out after death.
They actually gained plenty of benefits, and all they had to give up in return were their
bodies,
These boys were usually 12 to 19 years old.
The chigo stage of monastery life only lasted 4 to 5 years, after which they either left to
start a family, or became adult monks and maybe acquired a chigo of their own.
a chigo-master relationship brought a family and a temple together.
This was a win-win-win. The chigo got an elite education and political connections,
the family gained favor with the temple, and the temple obtained some prestige plus a new
servant.
And so powerful parents from across the land told their sons,
Acolytes had 2 main duties:
to dance and perform in religious ceremonies, and to serve their masters in every way,
including sexually.
Chigo had this androgynous beauty, a little feminine, a little masculine.
For some reason, Japan has a history of liking this kind of bi-gender beauty.
For example, shirabyōshi dancers were popular female performers in medieval Japan who
dressed like men.
The first thing you’ll notice about a chigo is his long, voluptuous ponytail.
Children also wore their hair long, sometimes in loops.
When children became adults, they cut their hair into that symbol of adulthood called the
topknot.
For chigo, keeping their long hair meant extending their childhood, or delaying their
adulthood.
Acolytes also wore white makeup and fancy clothes.
The relationship between a chigo and his master was often arranged by the chigo’s family
and the temple.
The chigo’s job was to learn from his master, but also to serve his master.
He was expected to be obedient, even in the bedroom.
The samurai actually liked this chigo system so much that they kind of copied it to create
the shudō tradition, where samurai had sex with their young male underlings.
In the monastery world, chigo-master relationships were seen as normal and mutually
beneficial, totally not abusive.
Now these boys did come from influential families, so monks would have thought twice
before forcing their acolytes into sex.
But sometimes thinking twice only makes you doubly wrong.
Abuse must have happened once in a while, though we don’t have much direct evidence
of it.
There’s no diary entry where a monk holds down his chigo and forces
him to do something monstrous
We can only guess that abuse did happen sometimes because there are a million fictional
stories about chigo abuse and suicide.
But in general, the chigo and his master seemed like normal lovers, except the master was
much older and had huge power over his partner.
Medieval Japan was all about that power imbalance in relationships.
Male-male sex was okay if there was a big difference in age or power.
It was frowned upon when the relationship was between 2 equals.
Male nobles of equal rank had to keep their affairs secret.
This was why when the chigo became an adult, older priests were no longer interested.
Sometimes this ended in tragedy. In one case, a chigo grew up, but continued serving his
master as an adult.
Sadly, his master was no longer attracted to such an old young man, leading the young
man to kill himself from grief.
These relationships were supposed to be monogamous, but monogamy breaks under the
unstoppable force of a tight rear end. Cheating was rampant. Whenever you have priests
and boys in such close proximity, some snakes are bound to crawl into the wrong hole.
Sometimes, couples took vows to strengthen their relationships, making it worse when the
vows were broken. Masters were more likely than their acolytes to seek other temporary
partners. Monks were party animals. They went to festivals and religious ceremonies,
great places to meet new boys, because acolytes performed at these events.
They would send endless poems to their love interests.
Sappy love poems were the most common way to attract a chigo.
When a chigo became old enough, his master could choose to keep him or let him go,
When the boy could leave was up to his master.
Sometimes the boy did want to stay longer, but of course this whole thing was ripe for
abuse.
His master could choose to keep him in chigo status forever.
In practice though, his family would not appreciate a temple keeping their son prisoner
forever. Most chigo became adults after 4 or 5 years of service.
Rampant kinky sex is not the first thing you picture when you think about Buddhist monks.
Temple writings were surprisingly explicit, and used creative euphemisms.
Like the Flower of Dharma Nature meant the butthole, and the Fire of Ignorance meant the
penis. There were instructions to train acolytes on how to perform and behave in bed.
Monks were supposed to make acolytes understand the importance of regular sex.
The fact that they had to remind chigo this is some evidence that not all chigo were willing
partners.
In extreme cases, low class chigo were passed around to other monks and regular people,
but that wasn’t the norm. The norm was that chigo were willing to do their duties and didn’t
feel particularly abused. They had more sexual power over their elders, and they enjoyed
their high status in the temple.
Shudo: The Way of Youths (Male-Male Love in Japan)
The old Japanese tradition of shudō 衆道, the Way of Youths. It was the art of loving
young men, very young men. Male-male relationships in Japan before the modern era
were mostly between men and much younger boys.
Sex between males was called nanshoku 男色.
The Japanese believed that the monk Kūkai 空海, the founder of Shingon Buddhism in
Japan, brought over nanshoku from China in the year 806.
In the minds of people, Buddhism and nanshoku were attached at the hip.
Monks lived in their temples under vows of celibacy. Buddhism, a well-known hater of fun,
forbade its monks from sleeping with women or men. But those two things were not equal.
Sleeping with women was scary and dangerous. Monks who strayed suffered harsh
punishments. Some regions even had laws executing monks for it. But there was barely
any punishment for sleeping with other men. It was a lesser evil, and so they chose the
lesser evil.
Medieval George Carlin is saying that a Buddhist monk visiting male prostitutes was so
common they didn’t even have to wear a disguise, unlike if he were visiting female ones.
Even yamabushi, who were mountain priests that did not live in temples, gained a
reputation for being boy lovers. There was a saying about them: “Acolytes first, the
mountain god second.”
Nanshoku spread from the monastery to the battlefield, the realm of the samurai, likely
because samurai families sent their sons to monasteries to study, where they learned
about nanshoku the hard way. And so the tradition of shudō 衆道 arose among the
samurai, The Way of Youths.
“Way” meaning like a philosophy or an art, like the art of sword fighting, which it kinda is.
Leave it to the Japanese to turn sex into an art form to perfect.
In shudō, an adult man formed a romantic relationship with a youth. A youth was called a
wakashu 若衆. Wakashu were generally around 11 years old to about mid-20s. Ages
varied, but they were not considered boys. It was a stage after childhood.
In a shudō relationship, the man was a mentor. He taught the wakashu how to grow up to
be a samurai and occasionally how to grow his little samurai.
It was in the Edo Period that the popularity of shudō climaxed. It spread to commoners in
the cities. People started writing about it in flowery language.
Writers wrote about shudō ideals and proper behaviors and what to do in the bedroom,
even fun positions.
They put a fancy kimono on what was basically men sleeping with boys.
Shudō relationships were one-sided.
The man was supposed to thirst after the wakashu, and not the other way around.
But it’s not clear how much people followed this. There were examples of wakashu
yearning for a man or giving hints to men they liked.
Writers worshipped the forelock, that unique hair that all wakashu wore, an it became an
erotic symbol. They also oiled their spears over the furisode, a type of kimono that
wakashu wore. 15 to 17 was considered the age where a wakashu was most beautiful,
known as the “springtime of youth.”
After springtime, wakashu were called “falling flowers,” a poetic way of saying they got
more hideous by the day.
Shudō couples had fun ways of expressing their love. Some exchanged vows and sewed
them onto their clothing, so the vow was always next to their skin. More serious public
displays of affection involved tattoos, cutting off hair, cutting the skin to make a scar,
pulling fingernails, and the ultimate expression of love, the one for real genuine couples
who were not compensating at all: cutting off a finger.
Both sides seemed genuine. That’s why there existed the curious cases of love suicides.
These were Romeo and Romeo cases where both the man and wakashu killed
themselves due to love. Kissing was actually considered very intimate. People didn’t
usually kiss during foreplay, they did it while in the peak of sweaty passion.
Shudō porn exploded all over the capital, spattering pictures of male-on-male action
everywhere. Now with all the art and the writings about proper shudō ideals, we gotta keep
in mind that these were mostly made for men, a lot of them were male fantasies, especially
the art.
It’s hard for historians to tell how much they followed these ideals in practice.
Unfortunately, when you try to ram that model into Japan in the Edo Period, it doesn’t fit.
They didn’t think there were two types of sexual partners, male and female.
They thought in terms of 3. Male, female, and wakashu. Each point of the sex triangle had
a different role in the bedroom and in society. That’s why some historians call wakashu a
third gender.
And just to be clear, men did not see wakashu as substitutes for women.
Wakashu had a more masculine or androgynous beauty, different from the feminine
beauty of women.
Adult men started off their adulthood being attracted to wakashu, but as they got older they
slowly shifted their preference to women.
After men got married, they preferred mostly women. Men older than 30 who still chased
wakashu tail were frowned upon. Shudō was seen as something you did as a young adult,
but grew out of.
You could still do it as an old man, no one would stop you, you just wouldn’t be acting your
age.
To use modern words, it was like a man started out gay, became bi, then became straight.
Nowadays, we tend to think of sexuality as identity, as something that’s fixed, but that’s
why our modern ideas of sexuality don’t fit.
The Japanese didn’t have these concepts. They didn’t self identify by who they had sex
with. Sex was something they did, not who they were.
In the latter half of the Edo Period, shudō popularity deflated. Some even called it a “vulgar
practice” from an earlier age. It got less and less popular until it died in the Meiji Period.
The government adopted Western hairstyles and clothing, which eliminated the wakashu’s
famous forelock and clothing. Western dress and hairstyles reinforced the male-female
dichotomy.
In some cases, the authorities aggressively suggested people wear Western hairstyles by
cutting off people’s topknots. Under the Meiji government, only seks between married men
and women was acceptable, and male-male or female-female seks became obscene,
enforced by law.
Life of Naughty Male Adult Entertainers in Edo Japan
(Teahouse Boys)
Japan’s female erotic entertainment industrial complex was absolutely banging in the Edo
Period.
Everyone’s heard of geishas and brothels and red light districts,
but people don’t talk enough about the male entertainers.
Male prostitution was a pretty big market.
Not nearly as big as its more feminine counterpart, but still of decent girth.
Unlike the female version, the male version was not quite legal, but the authorities mostly
tolerated it.
One of the most popular establishments was teahouses. The other was kabuki theaters
Teahouses: These brothels were often mixed, with both male and female entertainers, but
there were plenty of teahouses that only had male meat on the menu.
The lives of these entertainers were usually harsh.
The nice makeup and glamorous clothing they wore for their customers hid a world of
misery.
Most entered the profession out of desperation.
That great recruitment tool called poverty made parents sell their sons and daughters
into so-called apprenticeships at teahouses.
Some were as young as 7 years old, although that was rare.
These apprenticeship contracts usually lasted 10 years.
The children were indentured servants, paying off their parents’ debts.
They couldn’t even run away, because their penniless parents and siblings would get a
knock at the door from collectors wanting their money back.
These contracts were pretty common even outside the sex trade.
Merchants who needed workers would pay parents to hand over their kids for 10 years or
so, training them as apprentices.
Once the boys came to the teahouse, they were fed and schooled in the art of
entertainment.
Education included all kinds of useful skills of seduction such as singing and dancing.
Over time, naturally, some boys would excel at certain skills. Some became expert
shamisen players.
The shamisen held a special place in people’s crotches back in those days.
It was an erotic instrument.
Some boys were good at juggling, some could drink the whole night, some could make
shadow puppets.
One writer talked about a boy who could write words on the wall by spitting water from his
mouth.
Teahouses happily put up posters about each boy and his specialties to entice customers.
They also advertised what role each boy played as: men, women, or youth.
That’s right, entertainers could present themselves as men, women, or youths. In Japan’s
world of pleasure, appearance was everything. Dressing and acting like men was pretty
easy.
You just put on a shaved head hairstyle and an air of superiority over women.
Some boys specialized in being women. They were extreme method actors.
From a young age, they lived as women. They lived with girls, separate from the boys.
They slept in the women’s rooms. They bathed with women. They spoke and acted like
women.
Many of these boys likely grew up identifying as women.
And some boys specialized in being male youths. This was pretty easy since they were
mostly youths themselves.
The word for youth is wakashu 若衆, and it means a boy around 11 years old to mid-20s.
The sexiest thing about youths to the Japanese public were their forelocks, that patch of
hair on their foreheads.
The ideal male entertainer was 15 to 18 years old. Over that age, people said their beauty
started to fade.
Both men and women spent their money at male teahouses, although most customers
were men.
The man-dressed entertainers were usually of older age,
because they looked more like adults or they were adults. They catered to female
customers.
The woman-dressed entertainers catered to men,
but once in a while a woman may have slipped beneath their kimonos.
The youth-dressed entertainers attracted men and women, but the majority of their
customers were men.
Teahouses started exposing their apprentices to customers at a very young age, usually
before 15.
They bought all kinds of things to support their craft, like lubricants, makeup, and seks
toys. Sellers erected a whole market around the adult entertainment industry.
So what services did these entertainers offer to teahouse visitors?
Well, a tea enthusiast could expect a fun night of music, song, or dance.
The shamisen was always a popular instrument. Conversation was important.
Normally, in the real world, when a youth became an adult, he shaved his forelock.
A shaved crown was the sign of an adult man.
But in the teahouse world, older entertainers would keep their forelocks for much longer, to
look younger and more beautiful. Samurai and Buddhist monks were frequent consumers
of youthful flesh. Whenever a large number of monks came to the city for a conference,
male prostitution prices skyrocketed like Uber rates during natural disasters.
All payments went to the teahouse.
Entertainers under contract usually didn’t see the money they made, or they saw little of it.
Things were not all bad. Some entertainers did it willingly for profit and pleasure, mostly
independent ones not under forced contract.
As a male entertainer, your best chance of leaving the teahouse at a young age was for a
wealthy patron to buy out your contract, because patrons sometimes sponsored
entertainers to become independent kabuki actors slash prostitutes.
Many a successful acting career started this way.
Teahouses supplied apprentice actors to kabuki theaters, and provided rooms for actors
to meet with their fans.
Teahouse youths worked hard on their acting skills, but almost none of them would rise up
enough to be on a theater stage.
Most of them stayed in teahouses for their entire careers.
Taiko: The Art of Japanese Drumming
Taiko literally means "big drum” in Japanese. However in modern Japanese, Taiko also
refers to the art of drumming. Though the exact history of taiko is unclear, some say taiko-
style drums may have been used as early as the Jomon Period. It isn’t impossible that the
Japanese created drums themselves, but you can see a lot of cultural influence from the
silk road as well as similarities in instruments from China, Korea, and India.
Taiko has been a part of Japanese military and religious culture for generations.
Drums are a regular part of festivals and theatre performances.
Drumming was also used to notify neighboring villages of bad weather
or of someone important coming
Let’s start with military usage. Like many armies around the world,
drum rhythms were used to inspire and coordinate troops,
and also set a pace for marching.
We know a little bit more about some of the beats and rhythms that were used during the
16th century. thanks to a war chronicle called The Gunji Yoshu.
Taiko drums were sometimes used to mark town borders.
When you could no longer hear the drum, that was where the town ended.
Let’s look at some of the types of taiko.
This first one here is the Nagadō Daiko 長胴太鼓. This is the most common taiko.
A Japanese translation of nagadō would be “long trunk.”
Miya Daiko 宮太鼓. Miya means temple or shrine. The miya daiko are the exact same
drums as the nagadō, with the only distinction being the fancy stands to hold the drums.
Next, Hiratsuri Daiko 平釣太鼓. This drum is close to the nagadō but it has a shallow shell,
which makes for a higher pitch.
In Kabuki theater this drum is called gaku daiko.
It’s supposed to sound like the dadaiko and with that sound it often depicts war scenes in
Kabuki Theatre.
Next is the Shime Daiko 締太鼓. Often used in Minyō 民謡, this drum is also called the
minyō shime daiko.
“Minyō” translates to “folk song,” so the name becomes the folk song drum.
This is the highest pitch and most piercing drum in the taiko family.
Tsuri Daiko 釣太鼓. The tsuri daiko accompanies a dance known as bugaku.
The performer stands in front of the drum to keep time for the ensemble.
This drum is used a lot in festivals and parades.
Kotsuzumi 小鼓. An hourglass-shaped drum with two drum heads.
It contains two sets of ropes to hold the head in place.
The set of ropes can be tightened with the players hands to change the pitch of the drum
when being striked.
The ko-tsuzumi is the smallest of three drums used in Noh and Kabuki theater.
Next, the Otsuzumi 大鼓. This is the large version of the tsuzumi-style drum.
It is used in Noh theater ensemble along with the kotsuzumi.
Lastly, the DADAIKO 鼉太鼓. This is the largest drum found within the Gagaku Imperial
Court music.
These drums are played during bugaku dance to accentuate the movement of the dance.
Religious usage. Taiko is also a religious and sacred instrument, used in Buddhism and
Shinto.
In the shinto world, the taiko is multifaceted but it’s most commonly used in gagaku
performances, ceremonies, and festivals.
The central drum mentioned before, the dadaiko, is one of the most recognizable images
of Gagaku.
Gagaku, the Beautiful Music You Were Not Allowed to
Hear
Gagaku dates back over 1200 years and is Japanese court music that is usually
associated with the Heian Period.
The name Gagaku means “elegant music” and it is a large ensemble with 20 or so wind,
string, and percussion instruments.
Like many things in Japan, it has its origins in 2000 year old music from china and korea.
In ancient times, court musicians were expected to be accomplished gagaku performers
which, means being able to dance, sing, and perform all of the instruments.
Nobles were expected to be familiar with an instrument, if they wanted any hope of seeing
a woman’s inner sleeves.
Gagaku is divided into 4 types.
Kangen (管弦): instrumental
Bugaku (舞楽): music and dance
Kayo (歌謡): songs and chanted poetry
and Kagura (神楽) ceremonial music
Though it seems to be more of a Western-style orchestra seeing that it has a string, wind
and rhythm sections, gagaku music places its emphasis on the winds.
In addition, every note in gagaku is significant.
A single tone can present a color, season or a smell or a deeply complex aesthetic
characteristic.
Why Did Blind Monks Use This? (Biwa)
The Biwa is a Japanese high fretted lute.
It has a large base and these high raised frets called chu which allow for the strings to be
bent down and manipulated to change the pitch.
The overall length of the instrument is about 60 cm but can be as long as 106 cm.
The body of the instrument is shaped somewhat like a water drop.
On a typical biwa, you will have four strings.
It’s played with a large plectrum called bachi (撥).
The biwa found its way into Japan around the 7th century and was most likely the son of
the Chinese pipa.
The first version that made its way over was known as Gagaku Biwa.
We aren’t entirely sure on how the biwa spread, but what we do know is that it was used
commonly for ceremonies at religious sites.
To make a long long story short, there was a big reconstruction of the Japanese
government and many musicians and people suffered from it.
Musicians were forced to basically rebuild their lives.
One such way was to seek refuge in Buddhist temples.
Many of these musicians would end up becoming monks and encountering the moso-biwa,
a much smaller and lighter version of the gagaku biwa.
Moso means blind priest.
To make an even longer story short, they mixed the gagaku-biwa and the moso-biwa and
created
a new instrument called the heike-biwa.
Now this isn’t to say there weren’t other attempts in creating different types of biwa.
There were many other musical styles and instruments developed but it seems that by the
end of the Kamakura
Period (1185 to 1333) heike-biwa had become one of the most popular versions.
Not much was written from here until the middle of the 1800’s but here is what we do
know.
The blind monks I was talking about were called biwa hōshi (琵琶法師), or "lute priests."
They were the travelling performers in the era of Japanese history preceding the Meiji
period.
Many earned their ryo by singing and playing biwa.
They also adopted the bozu look and wore robes common to Buddhist monks.
Oh, why were they blind?
it was because music and performance were popular career paths for
the blind.
They couldn’t pursue many of the other typical professions like farming.
Also, the public associated blind people with magic and mystical powers.
They saw a different world from sighted people.
They were almost separate from the mundane physical world.
The blind often performed magic rituals to heal people or shoo away evil spirits.
Music also had ritual meaning, so it was natural for the blind to pick up a biwa and play.
There were even guilds of musical and theatre performers that only accepted the blind.
So Biwa hōshi (琵琶法師), the lute priest.
Hōshi (法師) means the one who teaches buddhist doctrine.
Koto (this Instrument Can Have 80 Strings??)
The koto is a Japanese zither/harp. The original koto is a large rectangular block that has
13 silk strings over these ivory bridges called “ji” which is used for tuning the instrument.
These ji can be moved around the instrument and come in a variety of heights to make it
possible for virtually any tuning on the koto.
Koto players wear three ivory picks (called Tsume) on their right hand (thumb, fore finger,
and middle) to pluck the strings.
Koto players also use their bare left-hand to pluck, creating two distinctive timbres.
The left hand also vibrates the string and bends pitches on the opposite side of the
bridge.
Players typically will kneel on the floor in front of the koto on the right side, also
called “at the head of the dragon” but it is common to sit in have a chair and have
the koto raised on a stand.
This actually helps the koto project its sound because there are two holes on the bottom
of the koto where most of the sound comes from.
The koto made its way into Japan from China during the Nara Period.
The first version of koto which we mentioned before in the gagaku video, is called so no
koto. Koto was not exclusively used in Gagaku but it appears that it was used as a solo
instrument in the Heian period.
Take a look at this short excerpt from the Genji Monogatari by Murasaki Shikibu.
“Kokiden spends the next several months mocking the Emperor's grief, which colors
everything he does.
Even when he's with Suzaku, he dwells on Genji.
He sends the best nurses and serving women to Genji and one chilly autumn evening, he
remembers how he and his love had played the Koto for each other.”
After the Heian Period, koto made its way into temples a served as accompanying
instrument to meditations.
This form of music was called tsukushi. The koto actually had restrictions on it. For one,
women were not allowed to play the koto.
Another interesting restriction was that the blind were forbidden to play it…
until Yatsuhashi Kengyo that is.
Yatsuhashi Kengyo is recognized today as one of the great reformers of koto.
He is also known as a great composer and a shamisen player
He also has the nickname “father of the modern koto.”
So what did he do that was so important?
Firstly, he was a blind musician himself and learned the koto.
He was the main person to encourage both the blind and women to learn koto.
In addition to that, he has also reconstructed old music and composed new music to make
the
koto more accessible for the common person.
One of his greatest achievements was the new tuning system called hira joshi, or plain
tuning.
This tuning allowed for the koto to play tunes well known by the layperson.
One of his most famous compositions which there is also a version for shakuhachi and
koto is called Rokudan no Shirabe or simply, Rokudan Shirabe, melody in six parts.
Shamisen, a Geisha's Musical Weapon
The shamisen was the musical instrument of choice for geisha.
Now one thing to know is that the name Geisha means performing artist.
The first geisha were men and geisha were not oiran, or prostitutes,
though they had similar attire.
The confusion most likely happened because of the pleasure quarters in the 1700s and
also the Allied occupation of Japan in 1945.
Many prostitutes were dressed similar to geisha, but foreigners did not know the
difference.
The geisha would entertain clients through, dance, song, and calligraphy.
After being entertained was when the clients would go to see the oiran.
Women came into the scene as dancers.
After becoming too old to dance as young girls, they became geisha.
Geisha played the shamisen and sang short songs called Kouta.
Ko means little and uta means song.
Kouta began to become popular from the middle of the Meiji era and is one of the most
popular genres of traditional Japanese music today.
Like other genres in the Shamisen universe, kouta can be played solo, duo, or trio.
Kouta, remember meaning little are very short.
So short that many of the songs are just around 40 seconds long.
So, what do you get from 40 seconds of music?
The idea is that every Kouta generates a new atmosphere and gives you the feels.
Think haiku.
Few words, but profound meaning.
Everything from corny jokes to deep aesthetic sentiments can be found in the kouta genre.
That also holds true for Linfamy’s videos.
There are many other genres of shamisen music.
Nagauta means long song and plays a big part in the history of the shamisen.
This genre started as a simple lyrical style but later developed into complex story telling
similar to the biwa storytelling culture.
Joruri is used in Bunraku, or puppet theatre.
Kake ai is used in Kabuki theatre.
Japanese Flutes
the Ryuteki and the Shinobue!
Okay, so why this time are we doing two flutes instead of one?
Well the answer is simple, the Shinobue comes from the Ryuteki.
Which is to say, Shinobue may be our first instrument that was designed and made
originally in Japan!
Let’s start with the Ryuteki.
Not going to lie, the Ryuteki has a pretty awesome name.
Dragon Flute.
The dragon flute like most instruments in Japan is made from Bamboo
but bound with cherry bark.
It is used in Gagaku, Japanese Court Music.
The sound of the ryuteki is said to represent the dragons which take flight in the skies
between the heavenly beams of grace and also between us mere mortals.
The ryuteki is a transverse flute, it has seven holes, and is about 1ft 4 inches long.
This is an open holed flute with sizable holes which allows for EXTREME pitch bending.
An interesting fact about the ryuteki, is there is a weight put near the mouthpiece,
that helps balance the sound of the instrument.
The Ryuteki’s main job is to play the melodies in Gagaku.
Shinobue is also Japanese woodwind instrument.
Unlike the Ryuteki, which was mainly for the upper-class aristocrats and samurai, the
shinobue has very little decoration and art.
This is most like because it’s a plebian instrument.
Since Shinobue is a common musical instrument, the appearance, tuning, and variation
are abundant throughout Japan.
It is also made from Madake bamboo but lacks the cherry bark rings like the Ryuteki.
The "Shinobue" is thought to be the offspring of the "Ryuteki ", which was introduced from
the Chinese mainland as a horizontal flute for Gagaku, then it spread to the common
people and was simplified.
There are two types of finger holes in Shinobue, which are currently used most often:
"Six holes" and "Seven holes".
So, what type of music does shinobue play?
First is Festival music.
Shinobue is one of the most common flutes for festival music.
Most of the time Shinobue is paired with percussion, called taiko.
The shinobue’s job is to perform the main melody of these following works, Matsuri
Hayashi, Kagura, and Shishimai, which means lion dance.
Life of Medieval Japanese Adult Stars
Early on, there was a type of adult entertainer who specialized in singing,
called asobi 遊女.
Some you can find on busy roads, but most lived near ports.
They were most famous for riding out on little boats and serenading the fishermen and
travelers out in the waters.
Men would get lost in their voices, then hop on over to get lost in their chambers.
Sometimes women would as well, they didn’t discriminate.
They welcomed breast connoisseurs of all types, from commoners to elite men, even
emperors.
Now the Japanese back then saw prostitution differently from today.
Sex and entertainment were linked.
The singing, the conversation, and the sex was part of a package deal.
There were different types of entertainers.
You had the biggest group, the singers on boats called asobi 遊女,
but you also had puppeteers called kugutsu 傀儡, and dancers called shirabyōshi 白拍子.
We would call all these people prostitutes, at first they didn’t have a concept of prostitutes?
They may not even have had a general name for people who sold sex.
Japan had different types of entertainers who offered sex on the menu, but
they didn’t categorize them as prostitutes. They didn’t invent a name for them like
sexertainers or something. They called them by their specific jobs: asobi, kugutsu, or
shirabyōshi.
Later on, this would change. After the Heian Period, sexworkers would be a recognized
group.
Poets and writers wrote glowing reviews about their heavenly voices and their other
heavenly qualities.
“A tryst in a boat on the waves equals a life-time of delightful encounters.”
And I love this next one. You will too once I explain it.
“Her knowledge of all the sexual positions, the merits of her lute strings and buds of
wheat, and her mastery of the dragon’s flutter and tiger’s tread techniques — all are
beyond compare.”
So lute strings here means a particular lady part,
and so does buds of wheat. Can you guess which parts they are in the comments?
The dragon’s flutter and tiger’s tread are two different sex positions. Let me know what you
think these are too. Use your imagination.
The boats of these ladies were many, and the night carried their voices across the waters.
Boats of thirsty fishermen and travelers lined up on the river to listen. Merchants sold their
wares.
Once in a while, a man would hop onto the boat of a singer and into her chambers. Even
women were known to join the fun.
Some asobi became famous adult stars, and high ranking people in the government would
travel far to see. The asobi sang imayō 今様, a genre of singing that was trending in the
Heian court, and it attracted many of the elites.
Sometimes these noblemen got caught in the love trap and married the ladies, or made
them concubines. Even emperors did this.
A female entertainer could be independent or part of an organization. If part of an
organization,
the ladies had to divide their earnings. They would cut fabric into smaller pieces, or split
rice into smaller containers.
One source says that the women often fought with each other over how to divide the loot
Many of the women had husbands and families, who were generally fine with it.
One source said that the only time a husband would yell at his wife was if she had too
few customers, and that fathers were proud if their daughters had many customers.
Somehow, this sounds like an exaggeration, but it does suggest that their families did not
have problems with them being in the sex business.
Asobi organizations were formed by the ladies themselves, with the heads of these groups
coming from among their ranks.
There’s not much info on how these worked and how much control they had over their
members though.
Now, the sources that we have about these women were written mostly by educated men
in the aristocracy.
They may have painted a rosy picture, like an idealized version of adult stars,
making them more glamorous than they were.
These women mingled with the elites, but they were rarely part of the elites.
Were there women who sold their bodies without entertainment?
There must have been, especially among women whose customers were commoners,
but we can’t be sure how many there were compared to the singers and dancers.
We do know of cases where elite men slept with prostitutes without any mention of
entertainment.
In the Kamakura Period, the meaning of asobi also broadened.
Instead of a specific sex worker that sang certain types of songs, asobi came to mean any
kind of sex worker, even those who just sold sex, without singing or dancing. So asobi
came to mean basically “prostitute.”
4 Types of Naughty Adult Entertainers in Early Medieval
Japan
First off… shirabyōshi 白拍子. This new type of adult entertainer took Japan by storm.
It became more popular than other forms of entertainment such as songs, reading poetry,
and cutting off your enemy’s head and watching it roll down a hill.
Previous seks entertainers would sing for their guests, maybe songs with some type of
story, before slipping in between the sheets. Like porn with a good plot before the action.
The shirabyōshi added a new, revolutionary ingredient to the whole thing: dancing.
They danced to the beat of a drum, and maybe a gong. They also sang.
The hyōshi 拍子 part means “rhythm.”
Shira 白 could’ve meant “white,” which would’ve made it an oxymoron.
Or it could have meant “plain,” for “plain rhythm” because they danced to music that was
really simple: just an easy drum beat.
These women danced wearing men’s clothing, a hat, a sword, and a fan, all things worn by
men.
They later ditched the hat and sword.
Dressing as men may have been the sexiest thing about them to their audience.
It’s also possible that the dressing-as-men thing was only how writers liked to portray
them, and they actually wore both men’s and women’s clothing at different times.
We do see art of shirabyōshi that show them wearing women’s clothing, but those were
created in later periods when shirabyōshi were no longer a thing.
These women danced for powerful men, so many had powerful friends.
Shirabyōshi received court titles. Also, when you sleep with someone, you’re always in
danger of catching feelings.
You gotta be careful. Sometimes these men slipped and made shirabyōshi their
concubines or wives.
These ladies had children from elite men, and some really influential people were sons of
shirabyōshi.
The art of shirabyōshi died at around the end of the Kamakura Period.
kugutsu 傀儡. These ladies were puppeteer adult entertainers.
They would sleep with you while doing a whole puppet show on your naked body. They
were very talented.
No, just kidding. They didn’t do that.
Kugutsu were these nomadic groups of both men and women that hunted for food instead
of farmed.
They were expert mounted archers.
They seemed like gypsies or traveling circuses because they did tricks like juggling 7
balls, twirling swords, magic, and puppetry.
They were famous for their puppet shows.
Besides that, the women in these groups also offered seks to their customers.
So they were indeed expert ball jugglers.
Women from these kugutsu groups were also called kugutsu.
Unlike other sexertainers, who used song and dance to seduce their clients, kugutsu got
straight to the point.
They used innovative techniques like makeup and their bodies to lure men.
Writers had some colorful words about kugutsu.
“The women paint narrow curved eyebrows on their faces, use powder to make false
teardrops on their cheeks, saunter in a flirtatious manner.”
Kugutsu groups lived free lives. Landowners paid taxes, but since kugutsu usually didn’t
own land, they didn’t pay taxes either.
They had a reputation for being outlaws. People called them wanderers.
They wandered the countryside, but also wandered from relationship to relationship,
opting for the shorter, more physical connections.
By the end of the Heian, kugutsu groups started settling down. There were cases of them
owning land.
Kugutsu women stayed at ports and inns to entertain customers, but from time to time they
did get together
into troupes of men and women, and traveled around to perform like they used to.
Now let’s talk about a group of seks workers we’re all familiar with.
The straight up prostitute.
Someone who just had seks for money. None of that nonsense singing or dancing or
playing with puppets, just seks.
They had a few names for these women.
It was still a time when the concept of a seks worker only dealing in seks and not in other
forms of entertainment was new.
People used the word asobi for them, they also used this fun word keisei 傾城.
Keisei means literally “castle-toppler.” Like a woman who distracted men from
important duties such as protecting your castle from enemies, resulting in your castle
toppling.
It wasn’t a nice word. Not something your mom would approve of. But appropriate for the
time.
The negativity against female entertainers was starting.
At the same time, the seks business grew bigger.
Individual women entered the industry. They weren’t professionals, so they didn’t do much
of the singing and dancing, they just provided the seks.
This was when matchmakers slid into the scene.
Traditionally, matchmakers were people who matched couples with each other.
You have a daughter? Call a matchmaker to find her a dream husband who ignores her
but increases the family’s status.
In the mid-Kamakura Period, some matchmakers did more than that.
Instead of matching men with potential wives,
they matched men with hookers. Amateur seks workers used these matchmakers to find
clients.
They helped professionals find clients too, but it was their work with amateurs that irritated
the people in power.
You see, a lot of these non-professional ladies came from high-status, elite families,
and they were servicing men of lower status or commoners.
And there were a number of smaller regulations against ladies of the night.
The spread of Buddhism in the Kamakura Period may have boosted these negative
attitudes.
Buddhist temples blamed seks workers for distracting men and their own monks from
the righteous path.
Sexual desire, like all desires, blocked your path to Buddhahood.
Life of the Kagema: Kabuki Actors and Spicy Adult Stars
in Edo Japan
Kabuki theatre started in 1603, and is still popular in Japan today among total snobs.
What you may not know about is its history of prostitution.
Kabuki and paid seks went together like balls and milk tea.
Kabuki actors were the celebrities of their time and people squandered their life savings to
share a bed with them.
The art form was created by women at the very beginning of the Edo Period.
Theatre at the time catered to the upper class, and left commoners with an aching need.
Luckily, kabuki filled that hole.
Women got together into troupes and started performing in front of ordinary townspeople.
It became a hit, and kabuki theatres spread across Japan’s entertainment districts faster
than syphilis.
Performances were done mostly by all-women groups who played both men and women
roles, and they made sure to thrust as much lewd and seksually suggestive content into
their performances.
Adult actresses who could act.
The kabuki business always had issues with the law.
These actresses became super famous, but with great fame comes great simpering fans.
Fans obsessed over their goddesses and happily engaged in violent arguments with other
fans.
It got so bad that in 1629, the law stepped in and just banned female performers.
Sucks for them, but it allowed men to shine bright like a diamond.
And thank the gods, I was beginning to worry that there was a place in Edo society not
entirely dominated by men.
The law failed. Simps are relentless.
Instead of dampening their kimonos over female actors, they dampened them over male
actors
who played female roles, especially young actors.
Male youths who were usually around 15 to 18 years old had more feminine features, so
they were better for female roles.
the important thing is that they had this forelock of hair in front of their heads,
which differentiated them from adult men, who didn’t have the forelock.
People found these forelocks super seksy, like a man with rock hard abs or a woman with
two large overflowing bank accounts.
Lawmakers saw that the same problem was happening with these youth actors who
played female roles
Kabuki theatre became dominated by youth actors playing only male roles.
They still made plays with seks themes, but now it was male-male seks themes,
and that got out of control.
And so the ban hammer fell again on youth actors, since it was mostly the youth actors
that people soaked their pants over.
Now only adult men could be actors.
The government rejoiced at their success, but it was a premature celebration.
In 1644, either because of public outrage or because there was an epidemic of balls
turning blue and exploding in Japan, historians are still debating this,
the government ended the ban on female roles, meaning adult men could play female
roles again.
In 1652, they loosened the condom further and allowed youth actors to return to the stage,
on one condition.
That forelock that all youths had, that sultry symbol of seks, had to go.
Male youth actors were forced to shave them off to limit their beauty.
The forelock was the hairstyle of youths, shaving it made them adult men.
I guess the reasoning was that no one would be attracted to men, which is generally true.
Actors regularly presented the tops of their heads to inspectors, who made sure the hair
up there stayed less than half an inch long.
This worked for a little while, actors did look uglier without their foxy forelocks,
but seks finds a way.
After shaving their forelocks, kabuki actors wore these purple scarves on the top of their
heads.
Fans started finding these scarves seksy, just like the forelocks they replaced,
and the simping resumed in earnest.
The bans not only backfired, they may have even made things worse for the government
by increasing male prostitution.
How?
Remember that many of these youth actors were prostitutes, called kagema 陰間.
Their forelocks lured in customers like an anglerfish lures in BuzzFeed article writers.
Adult men weren’t popular in the naughty entertainment business, it was mostly youths,
who were not yet considered adults.
However, the forelock ban blurred the line between youth and adulthood.
Actors did look older without their forelock,
but they still played the more beautiful younger roles and female roles.
It changed the public’s seksual tastes.
People started seeing adult men as younger and hotter.
This was good news for male prostitution.
Kagema over 20 years old used to have a hard time attracting customers.
They just looked older and uglier.
Older kagema often saw their client base shift from mostly men to mostly women, because
men were not attracted to other men.
The new beauty standards embraced older entertainers and they saw their most lucrative
years extend into their 30s.
Now unlike me, most people are not born with natural artistic talent.
Likewise, most people were not born kabuki actors.
Usually they started as kagema in these brothels called teahouses.
Teahouses that specialized in serving up kagema were called kagemajaya 陰間茶屋, or
kagema teahouse.
Teahouses were everywhere, especially near kabuki theaters, and they were very popular,
especially among samurai and Buddhist monks.
A common saying went,
“The only thing that all Buddhist sects agree on is the fun to be had at male teahouses.”
They weren’t talking about tea.
Teahouses had an intimate relationship with kabuki theaters.
They supplied kagema to theater patrons, and acted as love hotels for kabuki actors and
their paying fans.
All this male prostitution was technically illegal by the way, the government never licensed
these places.
Just to keep up appearances, kabuki theaters didn’t flaunt the fact that you could sleep
with their actors, and teahouses had signs saying they sold kabuki costumes or trained
kabuki apprentices.
At teahouses, some kagema were trained in kabuki.
Life at the teahouse was generally miserable.
The lucky ones got to apprentice at kabuki theaters.
Luckier ones became real kabuki actors after their contracts ended.
And even luckier ones had their contracts bought out by a sponsor so they could pursue
an acting slash sex work career.
For those teahouse kagema who finally became real licensed kabuki actors, life was
better.
They usually still did sex work, kabuki actors were assumed to be kagema.
They were huge celebrities.
Think of a hot celebrity, then think of sharing the bed with them.
You can see how fans back then jumped at the opportunity, up and down, again and
again.
Youth actors captured the hearts of millions, along with their other body parts.
There were fan clubs devoted to their favorite actors, and members would gather and
attend plays together, Then they paid to sleep with the actors.
Youth actors made way more money than their older peers.
Many enjoyed the fame.
Young actors walking the town received enough thirsty stares and declarations of love to
adequately fill the empty hole in their hearts that their absent parents created.
Popular actors bedded any man or woman they wanted.
It was raining bishes and they didn’t have an umbrella.
They spent their days drowning in love letters.
Nothing made an actor happier than that wonderful feeling of reading a heartfelt love letter
and throwing it in the trash.
People would spend their life savings buying gifts for actors and buying time with them.
A man’s relationship with a kagema was seen as more pure and affectionate than his
relationship with his wife, or even his relationship with a youth who’s not a prostitute.
Sex with a kagema was supposed to be better than seks with your other loved ones,
like your wife or a youth.
Those people got too emotional, ruining the sex.
Kagema, however, were more professional and focused on giving you pleasure.
Male sex workers were not as common as female ones, but they often charged more than
their female peers.
Like how we have movie critics today, there were kabuki theatre critics, and they were just
as unbearable.
Critics wrote reviews not only of an actor’s performance on stage, but also his
performance in the bedchamber.
The top kabuki actors lived pretty great lives.
If you wanted their intimate services, you had to reserve days in advance.
Leaders of kabuki troupes, who might have been too old themselves, frequently offered
the bodies of the younger actors under them for prostitution.
It was undignified for samurai to attend kabuki plays because those miserable places were
supposed to be for commoners.
Samurai were only supposed to enjoy Nō theatre.
But the pull of kabuki on their pp was too strong.
Kabuki plays were all about naughty stuff, all about fun.
Samurai became one of the main consumers of kabuki plays and kagema flesh.