Shunga (meaning “pictures of spring”) are paintings and woodblock prints that circulated from the pleasure districts of Japanese cities mostly in the Edo period (1603-1868, colloquially called the “Ero-period”) but arose in the Heian era (794-1185). The pleasure districts, such as Yoshiwara in Edo (Tokyo), Shimbara in Kyoto and Shimmachi in Osaka, were not merely red-light districts. While they were home to prostitutes catering to rich, poor, straight and gay, they were also cultural centres with artists in residence. The combination of pleasure and art in one neighbourhood gave rise to the richly-illustrated and captioned shunga.

The sign says:
Yoshiwara in Edo is representative of many the licensed gay quarters in Japan, including Shimabara in Kyoto and Shinmachi in Osaka. The licensed gay quarters was a social place for upper class men of Edo and because of that, its ladies here were well educated, beautiful and admired by other Japanese women.

Subject matter
Shunga depicted a variety of sexual positions and fantasies (including bestiality; the most famous of which involves an octopus and a fisherman's wife). Characters from all walks of life; courtesans, samurai, merchants and peasants featured. Humour was peppered throughout some Shunga prints. One example is a picture of a man earnestly searching, candle in hand, for his lover's clitoris. Most pictures involved heterosexual couples. Samurai, however, visited the pleasure districts not for the women but for beautiful young men. Hence, the samurai Shunga were male-on-male scenes. Solo masturbation scenes are included among the paintings.

A woman is like a shamisen -
Practise to make her strings vibrate
Better a lonely hangata
Than the penis of an oaf!

A hangata is a dildo. The following poem extract may allude to the Ben Wa balls of the Edo:

The device of the two copper plums
With silver in them
Slowly and very slowly
Satisfies.
Just as all finishes
Dew falls on my clenched hand.

Features
A feature of erotic Shunga is that the subjects' genitalia are disproportionately large, almost head-sized. This may be for instructional purposes, the viewers' version of hard core, artistic licence or symbolism. Nudity was not a feature: characters were fully robed in order for the viewer to identify their class or occupation. If you think of how often Japanese see each other naked in osen (there were more unisex baths historically than today), it's likely they wouldn't have become overexcited by the exposure of mere skin. Genitalia, peeping out from under the robes, was the focus. Buzz-killing explanations are another feature: some Shunga were heavily captioned in dry, spartan language at odds with the voluptuous illustrations.

Two Lovers by Katsushika Hokusai, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

More Sex in History:

• Ancient Chinese Erotica
• Medieval Japan: Love-lives of the Japanese Nobility 1,000 Years Ago Part 1
• Medieval Japan: Love-lives of the Japanese Nobility 1,000 Years Ago Part 2