Oiran
Oiran ( Japanese 花魁 , literally: "flower leader", meaning: "The most beautiful of all flowers") was the common name for high-ranking prostitutes in the licensed brothel district of Yoshiwara from around 1770 in Edo , today's Tokyo . In today's parlance, the term is used in the sense of “ courtesan ” as a euphemistic term for prostitutes in general.
Word origin
The origin of the word is probably derived from oira no anesan ( お い ら の 姉 さ ん , "my older sister") or oira no anejorō ( お い ら の 姉 女郎 , "my older sister-courtesan"). Both names used by kamuro ( 禿 ), girls between the ages of five and twelve who were sold to the brothel and who had to address prostitutes to whom they had been entrusted for training. Interested parties, the brothel owners and the women concerned themselves, then spelled the term with the Kanji und and could thus also have the meaning of “the most beautiful of all flowers”. The term served the brothel owners as a means of increasing sales. The women concerned used it to differentiate themselves from the less successful prostitutes of the respective establishments.
history
By the middle of the 18th century, the highest-ranking prostitutes in the licensed brothel districts of Edos, Kyōtos and Ōsakas were referred to together with the term tayū ( 太 夫 ). Originally, tayū were courtesans who were paid not for their sexual services, which they could provide, but for their artistic performances and entertainment skills. Until the first half of the 18th century they even had the right to reject suitors. For brothel owners and prostitutes it became less and less lucrative over the decades to invest in the expensive and time-consuming training of a tayū. The well-paying public, who could afford the cost of a tayū, increasingly only demanded the good-looking, excellently made-up and dressed prostitutes who were well versed in the erotic arts of seduction and well-versed in sexual practices, who largely renounced their artistic and musical skills could be. In Edo around 1650 there were still 75 tayū in the Yoshiwara factories, in 1702 there were only four and in 1761 Hanamurasaki, the last tayū, left the Yoshiwara.
In contrast to the brothel districts in Kyōto and Ōsaka, new names for the higher-ranking and therefore more expensive prostitutes were used in Edo around 1760. Those women who succeeded in generating the greatest turnover for the brothel and also animate the client to other generous gifts received a higher rank, which the prostitute in her magnificent external appearance (make-up, wigs, jewelry, clothing) and also in could invest the appropriate appearance of a possible entourage.
From around 1770 the three most expensive classes of prostitutes in Yoshiwara were finally summarized under the term oiran. First and foremost were the yobidashi (“only available for pre-order”). These did not have to present themselves to the suitors in the harimise , the exhibition room. The suitors had to appoint them through an intermediary for a period of at least half a day and were then received in teahouses that had suitable premises for the exercise of sexual services. The entourage of a yobidashi regularly included two kamuro and at least two shinzō ( 新造 ), younger prostitutes who acted as servants. In second place were the chūsan (“three bu per day”). Like all other women, they had to present themselves to suitors in the harimise twice a day, but had the privilege of receiving customers in the tea house. In third place were the tsukemawashi (“follow every step”), who also had to introduce themselves in the harimise and receive the clients in separate rooms of the brothel. According to Stein, the prices for these three classes, converted to 1997, were between DM 150 and DM 375 (approx. € 77 to € 192) per day (excluding agency fees, costs for food, entertainment and gifts for the Women and their entourage). In comparison, the cheapest sexual service in Yoshiwara was available for the equivalent of 5.50 DM (2.81 €) (in the illegal establishments in other parts of the city and on the street, simple sex sometimes cost the equivalent of a simple meal).
The system of classifying prostitutes with their respective names continued for a short time beyond the end of the Edo period . In 1872 a law on the “exemption of prostitutes” was passed, which improved the legal position of women employed in the brothels, but initially did little to change their dependence on the brothel owner. In 1873 women in the entertainment industry had to decide whether they wanted to be licensed as shogi (eros courtesan) or geigi (art courtesan) and from then on they had to pay monthly taxes. Simultaneously with the taxation, the prices for women in each district were standardized and made public. This marked the official end of the oiran. Occasionally she lives on in the Transfiguration to the present day in the sense that she was the perfect courtesan, who was actually only the tayū of the Muromachi period and the first half of the Edo period.
See also
literature
- Friedrich B. Schwan: Handbook Japanese Woodcut. Backgrounds, techniques, themes and motifs . Academium, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-89129-749-1
- Michael Stein: Japan's courtesans. A cultural history of the Japanese masters of entertainment and eroticism from twelve centuries . Academium, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-89129-314-3
