-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
> The question, then, is why class power was expressed through sex.
In the case of sex and art in Edo, the class power of merchants got channeled by the Tokugawa government into expressing itself, among other things, through conspicuous expenditure in licensed and regulated pleasure quarters and luxurious private production of shunga, circumventing the limits of feudal sumptuary laws that attempted to confine them...
*** Perhaps because the Tokugawa government was more Confucian in orientation while the rising merchant class would have been coming out of loose-knit Shinto practices. Perhaps this luxury was the welcome wagon of a new intellectual regime? or the return of the repressed? (I really have no idea, most Confucian ideas would not be too favourable to pleasure quarters officially... not that this has ever mattered) [however, Confucian scholars have also had a long tradition of theorising justice... so perhaps pleasure quarters were created as a means of balancing out some other kind of deprivation]. As far as I know, Japanese culture-religiosity has historically had a rather strange relationship with sex - with the attitude that sex is primarily polluting (which is fairly typical the world over... sex and death are polluting) ... coupled with a strong layer of gendered subordination (some Shinto creation myths begin with "And she spoke" followed by "And he said, you spoke first - this is bad - let us begin again"). Without that being said --> power / chauvinism has to be expressed in some way: control over sex, death, and food are the most common. For a food example, you have to check this out: http://www.aps.uoguelph.ca/~swatland/rep239nr.htm
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No more shall Fame expand her wings To sound of heroes, states and kings; A nobler flight the Goddess takes, To praise our British Beef in steaks,-
A joyful theme for Britons free, (chorus ) Happy in Beef and Liberty.
Oh! charming Beef, of thee possest, Completely carved in steaks, and dressed, We taste the dear variety, Produced in earth, in air, in sea,- Their flavour's all combined in thee, Fit for the sons of liberty.
Throughout the realms where despots reign, What tracks of glory now remain! Their people, slaves of power and pride, Fat Beef and Freedom are denied! What realm, what state, can happy be, Wanting our Beef and Liberty?
O'er sea-coal fire and steel machine, We broil the beauteous fat and lean; Our drink Oporto's grapes afford, Whilst India's nectar crowns the board,- A right repast for such as we, Friends to good cheer and Liberty!