The History Girls: Love, Sex and Romance in Old Japan – Valentine’s Day Special by Lesley Downer

Cherry blossom time in the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters. Utagawa Hiroshige. Los Angeles County Fund

Until the late nineteenth century, there was no word for ‘love’ in Japanese, no equivalent to the western concept of pure, ennobling, platonic love, the courtly love of chivalry. Love was the forbidden fruit.

The Japanese acknowledged the strength of love, its power to subvert the existing order, and…

Source: The History Girls: Love, Sex and Romance in Old Japan – Valentine’s Day Special by Lesley Downer

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