Jun 19 (Japanese Comedian Meshida) - Now foreign people regard tentacles as just crazy porn from Japan, but it is part of our traditional culture. Look at this painting. This style is called shunga. It was painted by the famous Japanese artist Hokusai in 1840, over 200 years ago. He drew tentacles, and it has a history longer than Canada and almost as long as the United States.
Shunga is one type of ukiyo-e, a genre of traditional Japanese painting that was established and became popular among ordinary people during the Edo period. Shunga depicted sex between a man and a woman, between women, between men, and even between people and animals. In the Edo period, shunga was very popular, but now in Japan it is often seen as obscene and dirty. This modern perspective was influenced by Christian morality, but at that time, sex was not shameful for Japanese people and was not hidden. Japan was much more open regarding sex. Shunga was not only pornography but also comical art, depicting sex with humor and entertaining people with a wide variety of themes. There were scenes of girls chasing men, cheating, costumes, gay romance, comedy, and fantasy. The exaggerated sizes of body parts, like huge bananas, were clearly humorous fantasies.
Shunga was even used for sexual education. Samurai daughters were taught with shunga textbooks. It must have been exciting for them to imagine sex with such exaggerated depictions, but perhaps disappointing when they saw real life. It’s like visiting the Merlion statue in Singapore and realizing its small size compared to the expectation. During the Edo period, the Tokugawa Shogunate tried to ban shunga three times, thinking it corrupted public morals. As a result, shunga became illegal and was published underground, which actually made it even more popular. When things are prohibited, they become more exciting. Despite the bans, famous ukiyo-e painters continued creating shunga. Painting shunga was considered a mark of true skill for these artists. Even if arrested and punished, they painted with passion, and people enjoyed their works immensely.
Even 1,500 years ago, Japanese clay figures already showed erotic depictions. Male figures displayed fantasy-sized penises, and female figures lifted their skirts to reveal their parts. Although many cultures created erotic art, as Christianity spread, Western views saw sex as sinful. God created the world without sex, Jesus was born without sex, and pleasure from sex was treated as dirty. This is why many Christian priests historically had scandals involving forbidden desires. Japan, trying to avoid colonization by Western powers, adopted Western values to modernize. That meant adopting the Christian view that sex is dirty, leading Japanese people to become ashamed of their own sexual customs. We hid things like shunga and hentai to be accepted as a developed nation by Western standards. Ironically, these once-obscene traditions are now widely admired by Westerners.
Shunga also depicted a wide range of gender expressions. Some figures that looked like girls were actually boys having sex with men. In the Edo period, young kabuki actors would wait in tea houses, providing sexual services to both women and men. They were seen as gender-neutral, and society accepted this fluidity. In this way, Japan was more progressive in accepting LGBTQ+ diversity compared to many other countries.
Japanese women also enjoyed shunga. They would rent shunga books from a kind of library that delivered to their homes. Western visitors to Japan were surprised to see women smiling while looking at explicit pornographic images. For Japanese people, sex was often a topic of humor. Today, shunga is recognized as art in many Western countries. Its portrayal of women as aggressors in sex scenes stood out from Western art of the same era. Shunga exhibitions have been held in Helsinki, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, and London. The largest ever was held at the British Museum in 2013. We can now say shunga is art. However, in Japan, shunga is still often seen as dirty. Even after its success overseas, a famous Japanese museum refused to exhibit it, insisting on censoring it like modern pornography. Only a small museum dared to exhibit it uncensored, attracting many visitors.
We Japanese have what I call a hentai DNA. In Japan, hentai means sexual fetishes or perversion. As a leading hentai country, we should proudly show our hentai culture to the world. In Japan, we only change our mindset through external pressure; we rarely change by ourselves. That’s Japanese society. So please don’t complain about our sexual customs or call us weird. These are traditions we cannot change. If you appreciate shunga and our hentai culture, let us know. If enough people praise it, Japan may display it openly again without censorship. We shouldn’t hide it but be proud of it.
Source: Japanese Comedian Meshida
