| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Janet R. Goodwin. Selling Songs and Smiles: The Sex Trade in Heian and Kamakura Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. 2007. Pp. viii, 208. $48.00.
While we have a fairly solid understanding of prostitution in modern times, Janet R. Goodwin's new book outlines a more fluid and opaque picture of women entertainers in the Kamakura (1192–1333) and Muromachi (1338–1574) periods. Professional entertainers such as asobi, kugutsu, and shirabyōshi entertained their patrons with songs that ranged in tone from pious to bawdy and played an important role in bringing the culture of the street to the aristocracy and, later, to the military elite. The first chapter, on "Delightful Sirens and Delighted Patrons," combines an examination of the varied sources—including essays, diaries, poems, and tales—for both male experiences with sexual professionals and details about the women's lives. Here Goodwin introduces one of the central points of the book: namely, that it was not moral concerns but the women's proximity to centers of power, their ability to form liaisons with elite men, and their growing visibility as they expanded their areas of operation that contributed to the doubts and fears expressed in male discourse on female entertainers and the sex trade throughout the period.	1
"Defining Transgression" (chapter two) turns out to be a slippery business. Neither tales nor laws provided a clear figure of the transgressive woman. Rather, context and ill-defined excess determined whether a particular act was censored. Once authorities subjected marriage and sexual relationships to legislation, however, women rather than men ended up being punished for sexual acts, including the unwitting arousal of male desire. While sexual entertainers seemed less problematic than unfaithful wives, conflicts in the way sexual relationships were presented in even a single collection of tales suggest that it remained difficult to settle on one orthodox mode of sexual behavior.	. . .

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