Parks are not just for strolling around in.
Unlike other cities, Tokyo's parks are open all night. Photographer Kohei Yoshiyuki used to visit Chuo Park in the early Seventies and search for goings-on in the dark.
At the time, it was common for couples to go the park to have sex. But that alone wasn't what was interesting.
The couples weren't alone. People were watching.
In effect, the park was an open-air public happening bar.
After spending months entrenches with the voyeurs so that they would trust him as a "regular" in Chuo, Yoyogi and Aoyama parks, Yoshiyuki then ...
Recently I've been having a few problems down there. I reckon it's been from overuse but Megumi assures me it's just my age.
Well, I tried Viagra and the like, though I found the effects a bit artificial.
So I was very interested to try the kind of tool my ancestors would have experimented with, now recreated by the makers of the Higo Zuika traditional dildo.
The Higo Taiho Erection Pump has a slightly startling name but it's not as scary as it sounds. In fact, it's a simple-to-use support that slips over your member. In your spare hand you then squeeze the pump to tight around your ...
We've talked before about Edo era Tokyo sex shops. Well, the locals also had their own sex dolls as well, called Azumagata Ningyo (吾妻形人形).
After purchasing your "dutch wife" from Yotsumeya, you took the Tenga of its day back home for some fun. It was a crude device, something like a picture school, covered with a bundle of clothing, but made from Tortoiseshell material and so could be heated up with hot water for the natural touch. The piece de resistance was surely the "onahole", in this case a leather pouch.
We should point out that there seems to be no serious historical ...
You can rely on the Japanese to celebrate what's best about the world.
In Komaki, Aichi prefecture in central Japan, there exists the Honen Matsuri, a fertility festival held at Tagata Shrine in mid-March.
A festival that asks for a good harvest, the highlight is certainly the massive phallus that processes around the shrine. Unfortunately, despite the multitude of gods in the Shinto universe, in fact the cock is not worshipped as a deity in its own right.
Even more famous is the Kanamara festival at Kanayama shrine in Kawasaki, that features a massive pink cock and apparently grow ...
The Japanese have always been kinky.
You may know that there are ancient Japanese dildos, historical erotic prints, fart war scrolls, and even bamboo sex dolls from long ago.
But did you know there was also a sex shop in old Tokyo? Yotsumeya was in the Ryogoku area of Edo (the old name for Tokyo), a bustling center and not too far from the famous red light district, Yoshiwara. It first opened in 1626, making it the oldest adult goods shop in Japan, though sadly it closed in the Meiji period (late nineteenth century) when Japan was trying to "modernize" (and did such foolish things ...
At Waseda University they've made available another side to traditional Japanese art in the "Fart War Scroll Picture" (屁合戦絵巻 or He-gassen-emaki), a series of images telling the epic tale of breaking wind competitively in ancient Tokyo.
Japanese humor can sometimes be very slapstick and we have trouble relating it to our western chums. Lavatorial jokes are pretty universal, though, and it seems that Edo era Japanese had a liking for this kind of comedy, if this scroll is anything to go by.
Beyond this one that Waseda has made available online, there are more examples ...
Given their names in Japan -- "Dutch wife" -- you would be forgiven for thinking that Japanese sex dolls come from Holland, or that the Japanese, with their usual filter on history, believe that they do.
As we've blogged about before, there is more than enough love dolls and sex doll history to demonstrate that they are certainly NOT an imported idea. Whether it's Edo era bamboo "husbands" or the contemporary silicone companions, the Japanese have long known what a sex doll is, even without using the word.
The nickname dattchi waifu for love dolls, actually going a big out of ...
The Japanese make great love dolls, that much is well known. But their erotic skills go way back, from creating amazing pornographic prints to traditional dildos like the HigoZuiki Futonaga, made from the stem of the giant elephant ear plant.
Likewise, Japanese dolls (ningyo) have a long history, as ornaments, theatre puppets and more. The people of Edo era Japan also had their own versions of sex dolls with the "bamboo wife" (chiku-fujin) and its variant names, the "bamboo husband" (chiku-fujin -- same sound but different characters), "bamboo guy" (chiku-do), "hug basket" (daki-kago), ...
It's time to go back in history and prove that the Japanese have always been an erotic lot. Do you all know the tale of Sada Abe (阿部 定)?
Born in 1905, she is infamous as the prostitute/maid who asphyxiated her lover and boss, Kichiro Ishida, in an inn after days of continuous sex.
Kichiro was the owner of the eel restaurant where Sada worked and he soon seduced his employee. They made love for the first time to the accompaniment of geisha singing, before eventually decamping to the 1930s equivalent of a love hotel, where they stayed for four days screwing non-stop.
After ...
What's with all the horny women in ukiyo-e and old Japanese paintings? How did they get so excited without the wonderful sex toys of the modern day? Were the samurai just that good?
Well, maybe, but it turns out that feudal Japan's women got their kicks from "higo zuika," the dried stem of the Giant Elephant Ear Plant from the province of Higo. These little pieces of folk craft don't look too sexy at first, but soak them in water, and they get soft, slick, and...stimulating?
Higo zuika has saponin in it, a chemical that stimulates and increases blood flow wherever it touches. We don't ...
