{"id":725,"date":"2020-11-30T19:34:50","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T19:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/?p=725"},"modified":"2020-11-30T19:34:50","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T19:34:50","slug":"yamamoto-senji-a-sexual-educator-for-the-japanese-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/2020\/11\/yamamoto-senji-a-sexual-educator-for-the-japanese-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Yamamoto Senji: A Sexual Educator for the Japanese People"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the beggining of the Meiji period (1868-1912) sexuality in Japan has been a topic of extensive debate among Japanese government officials and reformers. In Sabine Fr\u00fchst\u00fcck\u2019s book, Colonizing Sex: Sexology and Social Control in Modern Japan<\/em>, rather than partake in the debate, Fr\u00fchst\u00fcck\u2019s goal is to \u201c[examine] radical changes in the perception and description as well as the colonization of sex and sexuality;\u201d more specifically, her \u201canalysis centers on the strategies employed in the colonization of sex in Japan,\u201d moreover \u201cthe techniques at work in the conflicts and negotiations that aimed the creation of a normative Japanese sexuality.\u201d1<\/a><\/sup> In other words, rather than focusing on the consequences of the actors of sexual colonization, she examines the interactions and debates between those who wished to colonize sex. Of the many varying actors referred to throughout the book, most of their thoughts on sexuality can be categorized into two main groups: those who wanted to establish control of sexuality, and those who were devoted to finding the truth about sex.<\/p>\n

In Fr\u00fchst\u00fcck\u2019s analysis all the actors referenced in her book have the goal of creating \u201ca normative Japanese sexuality;\u201d however, this blog will argue that not all of the sexologists in her book wanted to \u2018colonize\u2019 sex.2<\/a><\/sup> A few aimed to find the truth about sex in hopes to disseminate that information to the public and have the people create their own normative sexuality based on correct information. This blog will mainly focus on Yamamoto Senji, the first of these \u2018sexologists of the people\u2019.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Previous to Yamamoto\u2019s first successful publishing in 1925, sexual education and sexual studies were aimed towards the eradication of venereal diseases that were crippling the Japanese army. These studies were somewhat scientific, but their goal was to educate people on the dangers of sex. Fr\u00fchst\u00fcck explains that Yamamoto \u201cdeclared war on \u2018ancient sexual knowledge.\u2019\u201d3<\/a><\/sup> In other words, previous sexual education was focused on venereal diseases and sought to repress sexuality causing people to fear sex according to Yamamoto. To combat this \u2018colonization\u2019, Yamamoto argued for \u201cpurely scientific sexual education;\u201d he looked for \u201cthose who \u2018loved the truth\u2019\u201d in hopes to free sexuality through truthful sexual education.4<\/a><\/sup> Additionally, Fr\u00fchst\u00fcck explains that Yamamoto\u2019s goal was to create a \u201cscience for humankind,\u201d to make \u201cscientific knowledge comprehensible and accessible to the wider public.\u201d5<\/a><\/sup> Yamamoto\u2019s work was incredibly influential. Other sex researches followed in his footsteps to \u201cpopularize the knowledge of sex.\u201d6<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

In this light, Yamamoto Senji was not one of the actors whose goal was to \u201c\u2018colonize\u2019 the sex and the sexuality of the Japanese populace,\u201d as originally stated by Fr\u00fchst\u00fcck. His goal was to educate the masses on the truth about sex and have the people decide what was socially acceptable.7<\/a><\/sup> That being said, although Yamamoto Senji does not fit Fr\u00fchst\u00fcck\u2019s original claim in her introduction, he is still an incredibly important actor in the history of the sexual colonization of Japan and Fr\u00fchst\u00fcck\u2019s reference to him and his work is apt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

  1. Fr\u00fchst\u00fcck, Sabine, Colonizing Sex: Sexologoy and Social Control in Modern Japan<\/em>, (Los Angeles, 2003), pp. 1-2 [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  2. Ibid.<\/em> [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  3. Ibid.,<\/em> p. 85 [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  4. Ibid.,<\/em> pp. 86-87 [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  5. Ibid.,<\/em> pp. 94-95 [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  6. Ibid.,<\/em> p. 97 [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  7. Ibid.,<\/em> p. 1 [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Since the beggining of the Meiji period (1868-1912) sexuality in Japan has been a topic of extensive debate among Japanese government officials and reformers. In Sabine Fr\u00fchst\u00fcck\u2019s book, Colonizing Sex: Sexology and Social Control in Modern Japan, rather than partake in the debate, Fr\u00fchst\u00fcck\u2019s goal is to \u201c[examine] radical changes in the perception and description … Continue reading “Yamamoto Senji: A Sexual Educator for the Japanese People”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":727,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions\/727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}