Paper short abstract:

This presentation examines the counterpoint between the spiritual and the physical in Ihara Saikaku's portrayals of sex and love in heterosexual and shudō contexts, focusing on the redeployment in heterosexual, chōnin contexts of elements rooted in a samurai ethos of devotion and self-sacrifice.

Paper long abstract:

Despite their reputation for bawdiness, various eros-focused fictional works by Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693) only intermittently bring up the messy corporeality of sex, with such references mostly limited to the context of heterosexual intercourse in general and sexual encounters between males involving some degree of coercion. Depictions of consensual sexual relationships between males typically eschew references to coarse physicality and present these relationships as occasioning lofty sentiment, self-sacrifice and lasting spiritual bonds. This elevated tone reflects the association of shudō (age-structured male homosexuality) with the samurai in Saikaku's day, when erotic relationships between males were seen as partaking of the prestige of the samurai as well as their ethic of honor and loyalty at all costs. A transfer of samurai shudō prestige to heterosexual love involving commoner women occurs in the final two novellas of Five Women Who Loved Love when their chōnin (urban commoner) heroines arrogate to themselves the male prerogative of erotic pursuit, wooing and winning, respectively, a samurai youth and a samurai-mimicking chōnin man, both of whom are linked, in turn, to samurai males through shudō. This is accompanied by a shift from coarse physicality in a heterosexual context to a heterosexual love that partakes of shudō's lofty sentiments. Thus, in fiction consumed by a largely chōnin readership one sees a samurai erotic mode and the prestige it carries cross the lines of both status-group and gender.