Yoshiwara was a district in Tokyo famous for adult entertainment options. Formalized in the 17^th century, it thrived as a sex center until 1958, when prostitution was officially banned in Tokyo. Published in 1970, Stephen and Ethel Longstreet’s Yoshiwara: City of the Senses (no ISBN) is a history of the district, its culture, practices, and people. 

The Longsteets do a fairly good job on the historical side, explaining the reasons for the formation of the district (it was set up to move adult services to a confined geographical area within Edo, as Tokyo was called then). They cover disparate personae such as geishas both male and female, courtesans, mama-sans, sumo wrestlers, and samurai. Shintoism figured prominently in the belief system driving the district, and that is woven into the story, as are interesting minutiae involving kimono, hairstyles, and shoes. 

Some of the earliest “fishbowls’ in Asia must have been the showrooms of 17^th century Yoshiwara, where a customer would select his favorite from among the women on display. As the book points out, not all courtesans were lower or middle class. After a “fall from virtue,” even Samurai families sent their women, known as yakho, to work in brothels for a period of 3-5 years. 

If this book has a flaw, it’s in the treatment of homosexuality. In discussing male geishas, the Longstreet’s opine “Most were degenerates, often homosexual,” one of several digs on the gay lifestyle. They also chide Westerners “who find excitement in large protruding breasts.” The authors, however, are not doctrinaire puritans, including a quote from Arthur Koestler on the invasion of Western puritanism into the Japan of the late 1050s. The faults we at WoWasis found in the book may be more a result of the time in which it was written. A better understanding of gay culture and personal preferences would come to many writers soon, and this may have happened to the Longstreets as well: this book was republished in 2009 as Yoshiwara: Geishas, Courtesans, and the Pleasure Quarters of Old Tokyo (ISBN 9784805310274).