LEARNING ABOUT JAPANESE SHUNGA
AT a BRITISH MUSEUM
September 5, 2017
Today, I took a national express bus at 5:15 am from Bath to London in order to apply for a new passport (I lost it last Sunday at the airport lol). I was so sleepy all the way because I had a hard time falling asleep last night with too many theories—-ecological holism, eco material feminism etc.—-that are waiting for me to digest. Anyways, I made it on time to catch the bus and made it on time to apply for a new passport at the High Malaysian Commission, which located near the British Museum. After I finished the application I still had no idea what should I do until 3 p.m, in which I have to come back to collect my passport. I walked pass the hallway towards to exit and I saw a lady who was selling Nasi Lemak. I asked her how much for one, she said, 5 pounds. I said I need to think because I had lost my passport and money last weekend. Then a lady who was eating on a seat told her, “I will pay for her. Give her one.” I looked at her and I felt both sorry and grateful. After a few seconds, I decided to accept her invitation. I sit down with her and we talked while eating. She was getting the recipe about how to make delicious Nasi from the other lady and I helped her to note down the recipe and then I sent it to her via email. Before leaving, she wanted me to say goodbye to her in Japanese and I said: “mata oai shimasyo,” means let’s meet again someday. She smiled and left. I then walked towards the British Museum just to take a look.
What I found fascinating inside the museum was not about the classical English breakfast or Fish and Chips but Japanese Shunga. I looked at a book: Ofer Shagan's Japanese Erotic Art: The Hidden Worlds of Shunga, published by Thames and Hudson in 2013. I took some notes on my phone and now I would like to share what I learned!
In the book, there are many chapters, which include: Women in Shunga; Men in Shunga; Nudity and Clothing; A Question of Size; Orgasms; Voyeurism; Self-Satisfaction and Sex Toys; Adultery and Jealousy; Gods, Monsters and Animals; Religion and Parody; Homosexuality; Heroes in Times of War; Foreigners; Children, Old people and Ugly people; Locations; Sexual Fantasies; Trick Prints; Contemporary Erotic Arts; The Shunga Paradox in Japan. I picked up some that I am particularly interested. Here we go!
Page 176: Voyeurism
Japanese like to use mirror in Shunga to heighten erotism. Sometimes the sexual acts were hitten from the direct gaze of the viewer but were visible by its reflection in a mirror. On other occasions, the lovers’ backs are presented to us and their faces can only be seen in the mirror. There are also pictures of young girls learning about their bodies using a mirror and of women using a mirror to watch a man performing cunnilingus.
The same role can be performed by water, reflecting parts of the body that are not visible. For example, when fully dressed women are working in a rice field, their genitalia are reflected in the water; or a glimpse of the sex organs may be reflected in water during intercourse; women might also study their own bodies through such a reflection.
The use of Mirror: page 180. The use of Water: page 181
Page 203: Self-Satisfaction and Sex Toys
Masturbation is mostly performed by hands and sex toys. Most dildos were for used by hand. Sometimes we see dildos supported by a rope tied to a woman’s leg and neck, used either in lesbian relationships or for solo masturbation. Many prints show a woman using a dildo with accompanying text along the lines of “I am happy with my position in life, even though this part is a little inconvenient.”
page 214: you can see that a dildo is tied to her feet
Last Chapter: The Shunga Paradox in Japan
For many centuries, erotic art / Shunga was created freely and publicly in Japan, where religions and society had no sense of shame on it. This changed with the arrival in the Meiji period of Christian missionaries (especially from America). In the 1850s, after 250 years of strictly excluding foreigners entering the island, Japan opened its doors and allowed them to enter the country. The profound changes and innovations that came with them, including artistic styles, clothes, machines, vehicles and trains, weapons, electricity, legal system and so forth (435). In the era’s “new prints,” or shin-hanga, including shunga, the most obvious examples are the influence of Western artistic style: the use of imported bright chemical colours replaced the soft, natural colours of the Edo period (435). The men in the drawing are no longer samurai or Kabuki actors, but army officers or doctors; the courtesans are often replaced by hospital nurses, educated women from good, well-off homes. This is revealing both of a significant change in male/female taste in selecting a partner, and of women’s status in society (436).
Because adopting Western art and culture was fashionable, the Meiji emperor introduced a law to prohibit the creation and exhibition of shunga. Under this law, especially after the World War Two, a lot of Shunga collections were burned and destroyed. Many artistsin Meiji- and Taisho-era tend to express this repression toward sexual liberty through the use of rape, murders, and violence in the creation of Shunga. It is also from this time that we find sadomasochism in Japanese art for the first time (436).
Little by little, Japanese have started to forget and even ashamed by their traditional culture. Today, not many Japanese people have ever seen Kabuki, Noh or nihon buyo, or listen to traditional music. Most young people prefer Western cultures. So, if the West took the lead in showing and appreciating Shunga, Japan’s pride and interest in these works would be restored.
Sunga is important because it embodies a unique artistic heritage of the Japanese people and can show the Japanese to be perhaps the world’s most open-minded people about erotic art. when Westerners arrived in Japan, they simply did not know the cultural context of Sunga, which was why they regarded it as pornography. Despite its tradition of sexual liberty, today Japan has become one of the most repressive industrialized countries.