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Selling songs and smiles : the sex trade in Heian and Kamakura Japan /

"Selling Songs and Smiles explores female sexual entertainment ("songs and smiles") during Japan's Heian and Kamakura periods, examining the gradual construction of a transgressive identity ("prostitute") for women engaged in the sex trade. Over some four hundred years,...

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Bibliographic Details
Call Number:Libro Electrónico
Main Author: Goodwin, Janet R., 1939-
Format: Electronic eBook
Language:Inglés
Published: Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press, ©2007.
Subjects:
Online Access:Texto completo
Description
Summary:"Selling Songs and Smiles explores female sexual entertainment ("songs and smiles") during Japan's Heian and Kamakura periods, examining the gradual construction of a transgressive identity ("prostitute") for women engaged in the sex trade. Over some four hundred years, the character and public image of sexual entertainment was shaped by growing restrictions on female sexual activity and increasingly negative views of the female body--themselves the result of socioeconomic change in society at large. Although it is possible to paint a picture of the general decline in the status of women in the sex trade, there were also ambiguities in how they were regarded by society in the very oldest extant references to them in historical sources. Using essays, diaries, legal documents, stories, and illustrated works, this original and distinctive study unravels social attitudes toward female sexual entertainers and examines changes in their trade and the treatment they received at the hands of the court, the bakufu, and religious institutions."--Book cover
Physical Description:1 online resource (viii, 208 pages) : illustrations, maps
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-201) and index.
ISBN:9781441659286
1441659285
9780824864255
0824864255