By William Johnston
In may perhaps 1936, Abe Sada dedicated the main infamous crime in twentieth-century Japan -- the homicide and emasculation of her lover. What made her do it? And why was once she discovered in charge of homicide but sentenced to just six years in legal? Why have this girl and her crime remained so well-known for therefore lengthy, and what does her reputation need to say approximately attitudes towards intercourse and sexuality in smooth Japan?Despite Abe Sada's notoriety and the depictions of her in movie and fiction (notably within the vintage within the Realm of the Senses), before, there were no books written in English that study her existence and the forces that driven her to devote the crime. in addition to a close account of Sada's own heritage, the occasions top as much as the homicide, and its aftermath, this e-book comprises transcripts of the police interrogations after her arrest -- one of many few current first-person documents of a girl who labored within the eastern intercourse in the course of the Twenties and Thirties -- in addition to a memoir by means of the pass judgement on and police documents. Geisha, Harlot, Strangler, megastar steps past the simplistic view of Abe Sada as a sexual deviate or hysterical girl to bare a survivor of rape, a occupation as a geisha and a prostitute, and a jail sentence for homicide. Sada persisted discrimination and hounding by means of paparazzi till her disappearance in 1970. Her tale illustrates a ancient collision of social and sexual values -- these of the samurai type and imported from Victorian Europe opposed to these of city and rural eastern peasants. (July 2006)
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Extra info for Geisha, Harlot, Strangler, Star: A Woman, Sex, and Morality in Modern Japan (Asia Perspectives: History, Society, and Culture)
Example text
Although she was hardly subject to the strict rules of deportment imposed upon a young woman of the upper classes, she constantly challenged even the more relaxed standards of an artisan’s household in the Low City. It is, of course, impossible to guess exactly what Abe felt and thought aside from what she later said or wrote herself. And it’s possible that she misremembered her emotions and thoughts during the weeks and months after she had lost her virginity, not to mention what she thought about it years later.
When I realized that I was no longer a virgin [shojo] I hated [that I had] to hide the fact so that I could get married. It was A C Q U A I N TA N C E R A P E ★ worse to think of discussing the facts concerning my virginity [with a prospective marriage partner] before I could get married. 2 Abe’s first sexual experience fits the definition of acquaintance rape, which is forced intercourse by somebody the victim knows. Neither violence nor the threat of violence is necessary, but intercourse without a person’s consent is.
However, the state made it illegal for married women to have sex outside marriage and promoted an abstinence-only policy for unmarried women. The only legally acceptable reason for becoming a prostitute was economic duress: a chaste young woman could do so to save a parent or sibling in need or otherwise help her family. For example, from a perspective informed by Confucian ethics, a woman could sell her body so that her parents could buy medicine without which they would die. 22 The state simply refused to perceive the diversity of reasons women entered the sex industry.