The two join while standing face to face, and change posture while turning their embraced bodies. The transition of that movement overlaps with the rotation of the four symmetrical petals of the flower-diamond pattern used in family crests. The erotica artists of Edo called this graceful standing position tachi-hanabishi (Japanese: 立ち花菱, “standing flower-diamond”). As one of the derivative forms of the standing position, it is placed among the representative examples of decorative naming within the forty-eight hands.

Tachi-hanabishi is one of the standing positions listed among the forty-eight hands; it refers to a dynamic posture in which a man and woman join while standing and change the angle of union while rotating each other’s bodies. The naming derives from the “hanabishi” (a left-right-symmetrical pattern arranging four petals in a diamond), much used in the crests of the warrior class and the costume of the court nobility; it is an elegant metaphor overlaying the symmetry of the rotating body onto the rotational symmetry of the pattern. As a derivative of the standing face-to-face position, it has been included in erotica picture-books.

Etymology

“Hanabishi” is the name of a crest and decorative pattern arranging four petals in a diamond. It circulated as a crest of the warrior class from the Muromachi period onward and was also used as a decorative pattern in the costume of the court nobility, Noh costume, and bridal furnishings. In the Edo period it was an everyday design widely spread among townspeople as well, with a visual structure in which symmetrical petals rotate in four directions. The hanabishi pattern contains a strong rotational symmetry, in which four diamond-shaped petals share a central axis and are arranged radially.

The naming of tachi-hanabishi among the forty-eight hands is a metaphor overlaying the rotational symmetry of this pattern onto the turning movement of the body in the standing position. When the man and woman, embracing, rotate their bodies about the waist as the centre, the visual association is born in which the limbs of the two unfold symmetrically like the four petals of the hanabishi; this is the core of the naming. In the picture-books of Edo erotica, compositions are also seen in which the postures of the man and woman are drawn in parallel with the hanabishi pattern, showing that the artists performed the operation of visually emphasising the metaphorical source of the naming citation needed.

The name tachi-hanabishi appears in erotica from Koi no Mutsugoto Shijuhatte (Hishikawa Moronobu, 1670s) onward and is inherited in the late-Edo Makura Bunko and Endo Nichiya Nyohoki as well. The prefix “tachi” (standing) indicates the line that reorganises into the standing position the derivatives of the lying postures among the forty-eight hands, and tachi-hanabishi is a representative example among them with a decorative naming.

Movement

The basic posture of tachi-hanabishi starts from the standing face-to-face position in which the man and woman stand upright facing each other and join while embracing. After joining, the two take a dynamic movement that changes their relative positions while keeping the waists close together. There are several interpretations of the concrete movement, but the movement reconstructed from the compositions of erotica picture-books is roughly as follows.

As the first stage, the man and woman join upright and face to face. As the second stage, the woman wraps one leg around the man’s waist, shifting to a one-legged-standing posture. As the third stage, the two rotate their bodies a quarter-turn, or a half-turn, about the waist as the axis, changing the angle of union. As the fourth stage, when the rotation goes one full round, they return to the original posture. This series of movements is interpreted as a symbolic act corresponding to “the rotation of the four petals of the hanabishi.”

In actual movement, it is difficult to perform a complete rotation in one continuous motion, and erotica picture-books often arrange in separate pictures, as still moments, “the figure beginning to turn the waist,” “the figure after a quarter-turn,” and so on. A continuous movement is described in the text, and the dynamic act is conveyed by the juxtaposition of image and text. It is a high-difficulty position requiring the physical ability of both man and woman, and in erotica too it is positioned as an accomplished play.

Treatment in classical literature

Tachi-hanabishi is often placed in the middle of forty-eight-hands erotica. The image is conventionally drawn with the man and woman facing each other and embracing, the woman’s one leg wrapped around the man’s waist. In some cases, decorative lines suggesting the hanabishi crest pattern are arranged in the background, the artist performing the operation of visually reinforcing the metaphorical source of the naming. In erotica of the Utamaro line, a pictorial method in which the contrast of the costumes of the man and woman evokes the symmetry of the hanabishi was favoured.

In the text are seen expressions such as “turning round together in the standing figure” and “forming a pair like the hanabishi pattern,” making the literary metaphorical source of the naming explicit to the reader citation needed. Within the line of standing positions, tachi-hanabishi is positioned as “a decorative derivative adding a turning movement to the standing face-to-face position.”

Derivatives and adjacent positions

Tachi-hanabishi belongs to the line of the standing position and is continuous with several adjacent positions.

• Standing face-to-face position: the basic standing position that is the starting point of tachi-hanabishi, not including a turning movement.
• Ekiben: a standing position in which the man fully lifts the woman up, requiring a heavier load.
• Standing back: a standing rear-entry position, not having face-to-face character.
• Standing manguri: a standing flexion-insertion, with the open-leg flexion axis as the main feature.

The feature of tachi-hanabishi is the point that, among these standing-position groups, it alone has a “dynamic movement” as an essential constituent element. Whereas the other standing positions indicate a static posture, in tachi-hanabishi the very turning of the body establishes the metaphor of the naming. This dynamic character occupies a special position among the forty-eight hands.

Reception psychology

Tachi-hanabishi is a position that adds the playfulness of a turning movement to the dominance/equality structure of the standing position. In the standing face-to-face position, in which the man and woman join upright, the body axes of the two are equally perpendicular to the floor, and the up-down relationship is neutralised. Tachi-hanabishi, by adding a turning movement there, introduces the continuous change of the angle of union and the mutual dependence of the physical ability of the two.

For the rotation to come off, the closeness of the two waists must not come apart, and the transition between one-legged standing and two-legged standing must be performed in a coordinated way. This requires not only physical ability but also the consent and the matching of breathing of the two, leading to the evaluation in Edo erotica that positions tachi-hanabishi as an “accomplished play” and “a practised act.” Together with the elegance of the naming, tachi-hanabishi can be seen to occupy the position of an “advanced technique” among the forty-eight hands.

In contemporary AV and adult expression, the frequency with which the name tachi-hanabishi is used is low. Instead, a similar composition is reproduced as a combination of movements, such as “turning the body in a standing face-to-face position” or “changing the angle while standing.” In Japanese-style situations and period-piece works, there are cases in which the original name is quoted in the context of a forty-eight-hands revival.

Cultural references

The naming of tachi-hanabishi is a symbolic example showing that the literary tradition of Edo erotica was continuous with the designs of warrior-class and court-noble culture. The hanabishi of the crest is originally a decoration expressing the dignity of the warrior class, and the operation of diverting it to a sexual position typically shows the jocular spirit of townsman culture citation needed. The cultural circuit by which the dignity of the warrior class descends to the playful bedside of the townspeople and becomes a decorative naming speaks of the cross-stratum character of Edo culture.

Folklorically, the sense of overlaying the symmetry of patterns and emblems onto the movements of the body is common with the sense of decoration in bodily arts such as Noh, dance, and bon-odori. Tachi-hanabishi occupies an important position among the literary naming group of the forty-eight hands, as an example showing the continuity of such bodily art with the culture of sexual love. Even after the marginalisation of the forty-eight hands from the Meiji period onward, such elegant naming has been handed down among old-book collectors and shunga researchers.

See also

• Ekiben
• Forty-eight hands
• Shunga
• Sexuality in ancient Rome