Please post by midnight the night before class. This will allow the rest of the class a bit of time to consider and respond to your reflection and questions about the reading.
Tuesday, 9/5 – Carlos and Rahat
Thursday, 9/7 – Mariem, Fernando, Amos
9 thoughts on “Saikaku, The Life of a Sensuous Woman”
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Ihara Saikaku
Life Of A Sensuous Woman
The story touches upon a preconceived notion in which men are able to sleep with as many women as they want, but when the roles are flipped women are looked upon with disgust. Why are women frowned upon for sleeping with multiple men?
The story starts off with the woman speaking to two young men about how people nowadays make love at such a young age and how back then people used to wait until they were around twenty-five to thirty years old. She tells them her story of how she slept with a samurai when she was about eleven years old and how her family had to leave the town they were in because of the incident. She then becomes wealthy at one point because she marries a wealthy lord, but eventually the lords sex drive cannot keep up with the young lady and so she is sent back from where they found her.
The woman end up selling her body to multiple men to make a living. She becomes so good at her profession she claims herself at one point to be the “oven god” ( the god of fortune). She sleeps with multiple powerful men such as priests, monks and feudal lords.
Yes the woman states that she has slept with more than ten thousand men but that is what she viewed to be her only means of survival, while these”religious men” knew that they were doing was immoral and against their faith they continued to do it anyways. Lords who were already married and priests/monks who were not supposed to have sexual relations with others fell to temptation anyways.
In reality who is really in the wrong, the woman who was fending for herself or the men who took advantage?
-Carlos Gratereaux
I feel that the sensuous woman was not in the wrong since she thought of selling herself to men for the sole purpose of survival. She felt that selling herself was the only way to survive. People would do whatever it takes to survive, and in this case the sensuous woman did just that. However, I feel that the men she slept with were not necessarily in the wrong for “taking advantage” of her since that was basically her job to sleep with them to survive. But, it did show that the married lords and priests/monks did not stay loyal and faithful to their wives and beliefs. Overall, I feel that the sensuous woman is not in the wrong because she did what she felt she had to do, to survive. While the unfaithfulness and unloyalty of the men shows how they were easily tempted by the sensuous woman, when they should not have been.
I agree with what you said about the sensuous women. She was brought into this lifestyle at a young age. It was the only thing she basically knew how to do. It was her main source of income also. She sold her body because it was the only way she could survive. Additionally, like you said, “people would do whatever it takes to survive.” I don’t agree when you say “I feel that the men she slept with were not necessarily in the wrong for taking advantage of her since that was basically her job to sleep with them to survive.” Yes, it is her job, but the way they treated her wasn’t the best. They should have been a tad bit more considerate.
Although there are only six chapters provided in Norton’s Anthology, the woman only mentioned her sexual encounters in four of them. First, with a Samurai, the Daimyo lord, then with the Head monk, and lastly with her “employer” (disregarding the ‘recollections’ of past lovers she sees in the familiar looking faces of the five hundred monks, in the last chapter). It should be noted (unless I’ve misread, or have forgotten) that nowhere in the text does she truly mention, hear (or someone else say), or feel the concept of shame until a sentence in the middle of the final chapter.
The woman lived through hardship (she was fired [though the Samurai she slept with was beheaded] An Old Woman’s Hermitage), misfortune (though the Daimyo treated her well, he grew ill, and the councilors blamed her/dismissing her. The Mistress of a Daimyo), sadness (“Living like this was depressing enough, but sleeping with the priest made me even sadder” A Monk’s Wife in a Worldly Temple.), and disappointment (the seven final paragraphs of A Teacher of Calligraphy and Manners), but never has shame been mentioned.
In fact, in the last chapter she mentions (when remembering her past lovers) a kabuki actor, “who’d started out as a boy actor selling himself to other men on the side”, and how she was the first woman to make love with him. How she taught him the different ways women and men made love, and how well he learned. But, also how he folded up. How his body couldn’t take it, and how he died at a young age of 24. The way she spoke of him was like that of a guardian almost, a mixture of a teacher, an older sister, and hints of a motherly affection. But, there was no shame. There was a connection. In a way, the story could’ve followed the boy, he too had hardship.
Even later on in the last chapter, she mentions more of her lovers, but more importantly how she actually loved them. The only time she feels shame is when she realizes how many men she’s loved (loved emotionally, and physically) and that itself is a very specific type of shame. She felt depravity, not exactly worthlessness, but a deep sense of falseness. It’s very likely that if the kabuki actor were still alive, and stood at the spot she stood, he’d feel a similar sort of emptiness. Some of the people she loved, was not through necessity, but even if she loved each one with as much heart as the last, seeing the sheer number of people she’s been with cheapened each encounter – overwhelming her.
In the very end, she’s composed. She’s catalogued her experiences. Visiting them with the attention they deserve, meditating her journey, much how like a ghost would look back at his/her life.
Finally, (and I’m sure if you’re reading this you’d rather not at this point, in fact you can skip this if you want), the sentence that stuck most with me was “the pure water of my mind turned completely the color of sensuous love, like the water in the Uji River where it turns yellow from all the mountain roses on the banks.” Now-a-days we think “tainted”, “dirt/dust mixed in water” to describe the dirtying of something (back to the concept of shame). But, Saikaku never mentions that. He says her mind turned into the color of sensuous love, she wasn’t tainted, wasn’t shamed or defiled, but her heart was shifted. And he solidifies his claim of change by saying it was roses that made the river yellow. It was something of beauty that changed her. Not the mud from men’s boots or stones thrown, but falling petals, and I just thought that to be, well, beautiful.
-Amos Kong
Mariem Tolba
Hi everyone,
I read the Life of a Sensuous Woman, and it caught my attention that almost every man this sensuous woman sleep with end up weakened and eventually died. The first man (Samurai) she had sex with lost his life for it, then the Daimyo Lord, who she left so weak almost dead. And others. Finally, when she visited the Daiunji temple, she realized that she had made love with all of the five hundred men who are disciples in the temple. All those men had died either directly or indirectly because of her.
What do you think, was she a cursed woman? or punishment from the gods to those men that used young woman to satisfy their own desire?
Hi Mariem,
I liked that you mention how these men’s death can be related to their relationship with this sensuous woman. I personally believe that it was a punishment of the lifestyle they had, but the fact that all of them died except for the woman, makes me believe that the punishment was for her, because she never found her real love and she stayed alone until the end.
Hi Mairem, This is a very interesting point that I did not notice before. I think you are correct with the pattern of deterioration seen in the men she sleeps with. This proves the point of one of the two travelers who go to visit her. Remember that he believed every time someone slept with a woman, their life would get shorter and shorter, while the other slept with as many women as he could. Is this Saikaku’s intention?
What happens when people are rewarded for not doing anything special? What if someone were validated by society in an instant because of certain characteristics that only mother nature can decide? From the beginning of the story, our protagonist, went from being in a miserable family to holding a highly wanted position for the highest ranked aristocrat just because she was beautiful. Although I am not opposed to this, she did not “earned” her spot there by learning or being good at anything , she was just good looking. Because of her looks, validation and admiration from others came to her like an avalanche. Her ego grew to a point where she thought she could do anything she pleased without even realizing it. Her mind had been spoiled by having too much of a good thing. Having the freedom to do what one wants does not mean doing it all, but it means developing the responsible character in order to maintain a balanced life. However in the story the protagonist decides that because she will always have the freedom, and validation from others, she could act irresponsibly. Although I do not blame her, one can see having too much freedom too quick can become corrupting to the mind and dangerous for her well being. This is visible today with celebrities. Celebrities are held up high by society and looked at like models to follow. This causes them to have extensive amounts of freedom (in the from of money) very quickly without having developed any sort of character or responsibilities yet. And what happens then, is that they go through a melt down and either rely on drugs, such as coke, weed, pills etc. to help cope with the fact that life for them could be as they wanted. Or they end their careers quickly by falling out of the spotlight or even fatally. It is similar to how the story tells us that people who are able to have too much time in their hands, money in their pockets and freedom in their mind are able to afford a lot of sex, and having to much sex ends up causing them to lose wight, become pale and dull inside which leads them to death very quickly.
Therefore it is clear that the main theme of this story is to realize that just because one can do something, it does not mean one should do it. Freedom is what we all crave and want, there is a reason why it is so hard to achieve, however, if it is achieved too quick then it is likely that the human mind will not be ready to handle it and that’s when freedom becomes dangerous and toxic.
One of the chapters describes a time in her life where she worked as a secret “wife” of a Buddhist monk. Although she agreed to serve the monk for three years, the woman decides to leave early by lying that she is pregnant: “The priest lost his usual composure. ‘Please go back to your parents’ house,’ he said. ‘Have a safe delivery and then come back here.’… Then he began celebrating and named the child Ishijiyo….” (Saikaku 602). In this particular scene, the female character uses the ultimate sexual power over the man – her ability to become pregnant and give birth. Knowing the importance of her reproductive abilities, she uses it to her advantage to trick the monk and get what she would not be able to have otherwise – her freedom.