mizuage
{{short description|Ceremony undergone by apprentice courtesans and some apprentice geisha (pre-1956)}}
{{italic title}}
{{nihongo3|{{lit|hoisting from water}}|水揚げ|Mizuage}} was a ceremony undergone by apprentice {{transliteration|ja|oiran}} ({{transliteration|ja|kamuro}}) and some {{transliteration|ja|maiko}} (apprentice geisha) as part of their coming of age ceremony and graduation.
For {{transliteration|ja|kamuro}}, who had often already lost their virginity, a patron would pay for the exclusive privilege of being a new {{transliteration|ja|oiran}}'s first customer;{{cite book |last1=Seigle |first1=Cecilia Segawa |title=Yoshiwara: the glittering world of the Japanese courtesan |date=1993 |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |location=Honolulu |isbn=0-8248-1488-6 |page=179 |url=https://archive.org/details/yoshiawaglitter0000seig/page/179 |access-date=12 March 2020}} for {{transliteration|ja|maiko}} who underwent {{transliteration|ja|mizuage}}, it formed part of a number of ceremonies and occasions used to mark graduation into geishahood, including symbolic changes in hairstyle and official visits to benefactors. Before the outlawing of prostitution in Japan, {{transliteration|ja|maiko}} who underwent {{transliteration|ja|mizuage}} would see patrons and benefactors bid large sums of money for the privilege of taking their virginity, a sum of money the {{transliteration|ja|okiya}} (the geisha house an apprentice was affiliated to) would take entirely.
In the present day, a {{transliteration|ja|maiko}}'s graduation is known as {{nihongo3|'turning the collar [of a kimono]'|襟替え|erikae}}, and is entirely non-sexual, though some older sources – such as the autobiography of Mineko Iwasaki, the geisha that inspired the character Sayuri in the novel Memoirs of a Geisha by
author Arthur Golden refer to the non-sexual graduation of {{transliteration|ja|maiko}} to geishahood as {{transliteration|ja|mizuage}}.{{Cite book|title=Geisha: A Life|last=Iwasaki|first=Mineko|date=2003|publisher=Washington Square Press|isbn=0743444299|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/geisha00mine/page/205 205]|url=https://archive.org/details/geisha00mine/page/205}} {{transliteration|ja|Kamuro}}, and courtesans as an extension, exist in a wholly non-sexual capacity in modern-day Japan; {{transliteration|ja|oiran}} re-enactment parades are performed by actors, and {{transliteration|ja|tayū}} perform their profession's traditional arts without the inclusion of sex work. In both capacities, the {{transliteration|ja|kamuro}} of both {{transliteration|ja|oiran}} (who are merely actors in a parade) and {{transliteration|ja|tayū}} (for whom the role is a profession) do not engage in sex work as part of a 'graduation' out of apprenticeship.
History
{{transliteration|ja|Mizuage}} has been long connected with the loss of virginity of a {{transliteration|ja|maiko}},{{cite book |last1=Ditmore |first1=Melissa Hope |title=Encyclopedia of prostitution and sex work |date=2006 |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Connecticut |isbn=0-8248-1488-6 |page=184 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SKBvqXL0jTQC&q=erikae+maiko+geiko&pg=PA184 |access-date=12 March 2020}} because some {{transliteration|ja|maiko}} did undergo ceremonies to lose their virginity.{{cite book |last1=Dalby |first1=Liza |title=Geisha |date=2000 |publisher=Vintage Random House |location=London |isbn=0099286386 |page=115 |edition=3rd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-V2iiI7G7cwC&q=geisha+liza+dalby |access-date=12 March 2020}} {{transliteration|ja|Mizuage}} for a {{transliteration|ja|maiko}} would also include monetary sponsorship by the {{transliteration|ja|mizuage}} patron, intended to support and promote the {{transliteration|ja|maiko}}'s debut to geisha status. Through this sponsorship of the apprentice, a patron would essentially purchase the right to take the {{transliteration|ja|maiko}}'s virginity. The {{transliteration|ja|mizuage}} patron would often have no further relations with the young woman in question.
In the modern day, {{transliteration|ja|mizuage}} is a contentious issue, both within the geisha communities of Japan and elsewhere. The practice was outlawed following the introduction of the Anti-Prostitution Law in 1956, categorised under the "traffic in human flesh". Many geisha who came of age before the passing of the law went through the experience of {{transliteration|ja|mizuage}}, and though most geisha had no choice in the patron who took their virginity, with some instances of geisha being sold more than once,{{cite book |last1=Downer |first1=Lesley |title=Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World |date=2000 |publisher=Headline Book Publishing |location=London |isbn=978-0747271055 |pages=256–266}} the practice of {{transliteration|ja|mizuage}} formed an important initiation into womanhood and the role of an independent geisha; according to the research of anthropologist Liza Dalby, though this process was generally not pleasant, for many, it was perceived as a natural stage in growing up, with trainees in the same age cohort who had not graduated viewed by their peers as having been somewhat left behind.{{cite thesis |last=Crihfield |first=Liza |date=1976 |title=The institution of the geisha in modern Japanese society |chapter=8 |publisher=Stanford University |pages=161–162 |quote=When queried as to how they felt when it was time for them to become [full] geisha, these older women presented the following picture: a group of young girls would become apprentices together{{nbsp}}[...] They would see the maiko who were several years ahead of them suddenly change to the dress of adults and attain a new independence of movement, although as younger apprentices{{nbsp}}[...] they were not clear as to what all was involved in making this change.{{pb}} As they reached the age of seventeen or eighteen, proposals from customers to be their mizu-age patron would be presented to owners of their houses, and by this time the girls had a better notion of what they could expect. They remember being somewhat apprehensive, but in the context of their world, they said it just seemed like a natural stage in growing up. The girls to be pitied were the ones who were left behind when all the others in their cohort had undergone the initiation and become [full] geisha. In such cases, the ones left behind would be quite anxious that their house find them a suitable patron as soon as possible.}}
Post-1956
Mineko Iwasaki, former high-ranking Gion geisha, detailed her experience of {{transliteration|ja|mizuage}} in her autobiography, Geisha, a Life. Describing her experience of graduation to geishahood with the term {{transliteration|ja|mizuage}}, Iwasaki described her experience as a round of formal visits to announce her graduation, including the presentation of gifts to related geisha houses and important patrons, and a cycle through five different hairstyles before graduating. This set of graduation experiences is generally referred to as {{transliteration|ja|erikae}} in the modern day.
Dalby relays the change between pre- and post-1956 attitudes to {{transliteration|ja|mizuage}} within the geisha community through her first-hand accounts with the geisha mothers of Ponto-chō:
{{quote|"What about {{transliteration|ja|mizu-age}} now?" I asked, seeing this as a chance to find out more about sex in the geisha world{{nbsp}}[...] "It's all changed now," said the {{transliteration|ja|okāsan}}. "There's no {{transliteration|ja|mizu-age}} ceremony any more{{nbsp}}[...] All the maiko have been through junior high school, so they aren't as ignorant as we were – right, Ichiume? They pretty much pick their own boyfriends and patrons when they're ready. That's not the same as {{transliteration|ja|mizu-age}}."}}
All modern {{transliteration|ja|maiko}} and geisha have full control over their personal choices regarding sex, and most {{transliteration|ja|maiko}} begin training, attending banquets, and interacting with customers aged 18 – though they may start living at the {{transliteration|ja|okiya}} as a {{transliteration|ja|shikomi}} (maids) for a few years before graduation to {{nihongo3|{{lit|learning by observation}}||minarai}} and then {{transliteration|ja|maiko}} status.
Though customers attending geisha parties and banquets generally expect some level of convivial and low-key flirtation, a {{transliteration|ja|maiko}} is likely to be considered off-limits as a younger and more vulnerable participant to such gatherings. {{transliteration|ja|Maiko}} are instead treated with generosity by guests cognisant of their relative inexperience at geisha parties.
In literature
Arthur Golden's novel Memoirs of a Geisha portrays {{transliteration|ja|mizuage}} as a financial arrangement in which a girl's virginity is sold to a "{{transliteration|ja|mizuage}} patron", generally someone who particularly enjoys sex with virgin girls, or merely enjoys the charms of an individual {{transliteration|ja|maiko}}.
Former geisha Sayo Masuda describes {{transliteration|ja|mizuage}} in her 1957 autobiography Autobiography of a Geisha as sexual exploitation. Masuda describes being sold multiple times by her {{transliteration|ja|okiya}} to men, ostensibly for the purposes of taking her virginity, under the pretence that she had not yet lost it. The transaction was explicitly a sexual arrangement, far removed from the ceremony of graduating into geishahood, netting the {{transliteration|ja|okiya}} a large profit. Despite her personal experiences, Masuda argued against the outlawing of sex work in Japan, explaining that it provided a way for women to make an independent living when chosen as a profession, and through criminalisation, would merely be driven underground.
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{wiktionary}}
{{Portal|Japan}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20100106181143/http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/qa/documents/02473409.htm Remaking a memoir – A new autobiography, former geisha Mineko Iwasaki]