From Jomon clay figurines to Edo shunga and pleasure quarters, through pre-war ero-guro culture, postwar pink film, the AV video revolution, and into the internet age — a time-axis overview of Japanese and world sexual culture, with links to dictionary entries where English articles exist.
Fertility cults expressed through clay figurines and stone phalli.
Primitive sex-worship in clay figurines and stone phalli
From Izanagi & Izanami to the cave of heaven
Court poetry, clandestine liaisons, and Buddhist influence on sexual norms.
Ancient desire in frontier and folk songs
Night visits, romantic rivalry, and the rise of narrative culture
Tension between impurity doctrine and fertility reverence
Warrior brotherhoods, temple pederasty, and camp-follower culture.
Concubines, page-boy system, and shudo male love
Yoshiwara pleasure quarters, shunga prints, forty-eight positions, and kabuki — an era of rich systematisation.
Pillow books, pleasure quarters, and kabuki intertwined
The shogunate-licensed pleasure district of Edo
Kyoto's licensed pleasure district
Pleasure quarter integrated with Nagasaki's foreign trade
The grey network of unlicensed pleasure spots
Hierarchy and customs inside the licensed quarters
The shogunate's framework for regulating sex workers
Kyoto's last surviving entertainment quarter
Publication and spread of Edo erotic books
Erotic ukiyo-e from Moronobu to Kunisada
Bijin-ga, shunga, and okubie — sexual themes in woodblock prints
Shunga as comic amulet and celebration gift
48 sexual positions systematised in Edo pillow books
The libertine dandy figure in Edo culture
Double-suicide as romantic ideal in Chikamatsu's plays
Rural nighttime courting custom in pre-modern Japan
History of mixed bathing in public bathhouses
The public bath as social hub
Traditional first intercourse of the New Year
Westernisation, geisha emancipation decree, and the import of obscenity law.
芸娼妓解放令と娼妓統制の近代化
猥褻物頒布罪の整備と地下出版
梅毒検診と公衆衛生政策
近代日本の性教育の出発
Cafe modernism and the first stirrings of ero-guro-nansensu culture.
Sexual imagery in the Modern Girl era
Waitress culture and pseudo-romance in Taisho cafes
Grotesque and transgressive pulp culture, until wartime censorship shut it down.
The shadow sex trade behind sake shops and cafes
The RAA, street prostitution, and a flood of cheaply printed erotic pulp magazines.
The RAA system and panpan sex workers under occupation
Cheap erotic pulp magazines of the immediate postwar years
From chaotic reconstruction to the economic miracle
Distribution of contraceptives in modern Japan and the West
From medical massager to mainstream sex toy
Pink cinema, striptease, cabarets, and soaplands — the maturing postwar sex industry.
Japan's low-budget adult cinema from 1962 onward
Eirin ratings and police pressure on adult cinema
Postwar development of live striptease performance
The sex industry's history seen through workers' experiences
The VHS revolution, the birth of JAV, and the systematisation of adult video genres.
From early VHS releases to the bubble boom
Explosive market growth in the 1990s
The systematic classification of adult video genres
Lineage of AV stars and sex icons
Western sexual liberation and its influence on Japan
Comiket, adult manga, PC eroge, and digital doujin — subculture's adult creative sphere.
From Comiket's founding to the doujin convention scene
The rise of DLsite and digital self-publishing
Where mainstream manga pushes the limits of sexual expression
Youth protection ordinances and freedom-of-expression battles
Cruising spots as hubs of Japanese gay culture
Streaming video, social media, live broadcasting, and subscriptions reshape distribution.
Sexual consumption in the early internet era
Mediterranean and ancient Indian sexual culture as comparative context.
Pederasty, symposia, and the polis
Sex from the Republic to the Empire
The classical Sanskrit treatise on love and desire
Chinese fangzhongshu and Korean sexual customs
Historical development of the Western sex industry and sexual consciousness.
History of sexual consciousness in modern Europe
From hardcore legalisation to the streaming era
Institutions and technologies that have underpinned sexual culture across eras.
History of collecting and exhibiting sexual culture
Cultural history of sex implements and furniture
Comprehensive overview of video media and sexuality
This site is a dictionary about sexual expression. Please proceed only if you are 18 or older and understand its content.