Two people lie on their sides and rub their bodies together as if nestling close. Edo print designers likened the pose to a mated pair of plovers walking the shoreline and named it accordingly.

Yose chidori, the closing plover, is a side-position variant among the forty-eight hands. From the same-direction side-lying “plover” posture the partners draw their bodies closer, the receiver hooking one leg over the partner’s hips or thigh to heighten contact. It is a named posture appearing in Edo erotic books and shunga, a representative applied side form in the early-modern taxonomy of positions. The name comes from likening the two bodies to a mated pair of plovers nestling along the surf.

Overview

In yose chidori both partners lie on one side, pressing together in either a face-to-face or rear form. From the base “plover” (the side-lying posture), the receiver wraps one leg around the partner’s hips and draws the upper body closer, increasing contact; as the degree of closeness changes, so do the angle of union, the surface of friction and the contact of body heat.

It inherits the kinetic merits of the side position (the partners’ weight does not rest on each other, it can be held for a long time, conversation and kissing are easy) while gaining the eye contact and closeness of a near-missionary posture through the drawing-in. Edo erotic albums favoured placing this posture in scenes of “the long night’s union,” embodying an aesthetic of slow, sustained coupling distinct from the passionate missionary or cowgirl.

In mechanics, the depth of penetration varies with how the receiver hooks the leg. Hooked high, the anterior wall receives more contact; hooked low, penetration is shallow. The partners’ up-and-down hip motion is limited, and pelvic rotation and pressing friction are the main sources of stimulation. It is not a posture aimed at deep, vigorous thrusting but a gesture of slowly raising arousal within prolonged closeness.

Etymology

The plover (chidori) is a representative subject of classical Japanese poetry and painting, a small shorebird of the seaside and riverside. From the Man’yōshū onward it was sung as “a bird that nestles in pairs,” established as a symbolic motif of conjugal and friendly love. In Edo design it appears frequently on sliding screens, kimono, lacquerware and family crests, in varied types such as the facing plovers, the flock of plovers, and the wave-and-plover.

In the forty-eight hands the “plover” name likens the side-lying, nestling posture to a mated pair walking the surf. The “closing” of “closing plover” indicates the act of an already-paired plover drawing still nearer, an applied form one degree closer in contact. It is a typical instance of Edo naming by analogy to natural objects, standing alongside the sumo-derived “shoulder dodge” (the modern pine-leaf collapse) as a representative of one of the two great sources of forty-eight-hands naming, the analogy to natural objects, the other being martial analogy. The motion “to draw close” also carries an association of waves washing the shore, so the name cannot be reduced to a single meaning, displaying the layered aesthetic of Edo erotic naming.

History

The name appears intermittently in erotic-book albums from Hishikawa Moronobu onward. It is not among the most frequent postures, but it has held a representative place as an applied side form. Edo erotic albums often set the passionate union of day scenes against the slow union of night scenes, placing the side-position family in the latter; the closing plover is the representative of that lineage, a quiet composition of two figures nestling under the light of an oil lamp.

In the albums of Utagawa Kunisada and Utagawa Toyokuni, close side compositions resembling the closing plover often appear. The artists did not follow the proper names strictly, sometimes calling the same posture by alternates such as “nestling together” or “night plover”; posture names in Edo erotica varied from edition to edition. After the Meiji period, with publication controls and the influx of Western sexual norms, the named postures were replaced by modern positional categories (face-to-face missionary, side, rear), and a name like the closing plover was marginalized to the antiquarian-book market and the circle of shunga researchers.

In modern shunga exhibitions and Edo cultural studies the closing plover is being re-evaluated as a representative applied side posture, though its direct citation in AV and adult manga remains limited.

Form and movement

Both partners take a side-lying posture facing the same direction, pressing the belly side together in the face-to-face form. The receiver extends the lower leg and wraps the upper leg around the partner’s hips. The partner passes the lower arm under the receiver’s hips and supports the buttocks and waist with the upper hand. The heads face at nearly the same height, keeping a distance at which gaze, breath and kissing meet directly.

Penetration depth is set by the angle of the receiver’s hooked leg: lifting the leg high over the hips deepens union, holding it at the root of the thigh shallows it. The hip motion is rotational rather than thrusting, a grinding of the pubic regions against each other. The kinetic character of the side position makes vigorous thrusting structurally difficult, so slow friction and the maintenance of closeness are the essence of the posture, which is why Edo albums placed it in the long-night scenes.

Variants exist: a high-contact form that lifts the hooked leg near the shoulder, an embracing form in which the partners interlace arms and fully hold each other, and an assisted form in which the partner lifts one of the receiver’s legs. Posture studies generally gather these under the single heading of “plover-family applications.”

Reception and meaning

The applied side postures represented by the closing plover bore the slow pole of the “passion and slowness” polarity in early-modern Japanese bedroom representation. Against the deep union of the missionary or the receiver-led cowgirl, the closing plover functioned to make the overlap of bodies and the exchange of body heat themselves the aim.

In modern posture theory the side position is re-evaluated for practical reasons (low fatigue, long duration, ease of conversation and kissing, recommendation in late pregnancy and old age), and the Edo placement of the closing plover partly overlaps these modern assessments, suggesting that the early-modern erotic-book culture held a rich representation of coupling that included the long co-presence of bodies, not merely the pursuit of visual stimulation. The incorporation of the plover, a symbolic Japanese motif, into a posture name displays the literary character of forty-eight-hands naming, a strategy of elevating sexual representation from “vulgar lust” to “refined art.”

Related terms

• Forty-eight hands
• Pine-leaf collapse
• Side position
• Shunga
• Chausu (cowgirl)
• Missionary position