まくらトーク💭🏩🧸🛌

PT2/ born into impoverishment, girls were sold into the yoshiwara brothels at around age 7 or 8 without having a choice of their occupation. this tradition was rationalized by confucian ideals that allowed children to work off a duty to their parents who usually brokered 10 year contracts with the brothel owners to work off family debt. the little girls would usually do daily chores at the brothels, and tended to their sister courtesans, cleaning, and delivering messages. if the girl was gifted by age 11 or 12, she would be chosen for elite courtesan training where she would learn etiquette and refined arts form masters including how to play flute or a 3 stringed instrument such as shamisen to sing paint write haiku/calligraphy/tea ceremony/go/backgammon/kickball. courtesans could continue up the ranks from kamuro (young female students), hashi-joro (lower ranking courtesans), shinzo (apprentice), tayu (high ranking courtesans), and then to the highest ranking oiran role. the more popular you were, the more opportunities for education and certain liberties were provided. the elite oiran, however, only accounted for 2% of the estimated 3000-5000 prostitutes in yoshiwara. not many girls got the chance to reach certain liberties, and were continuously forced to work as lower ranking prostitutes. women were forced to retire at the age of 27 (bcs that’s fkn old.. ) and if lucky might gain their freedom via a proposed position as a wife or mistress for a rich samurai or merchant or go back into a life of poverty and paying back debts some other way. cont…

image source: meikun keichû no yosooi, kitagawa utamaro, around 1800
(you can see the young girl working as an assistant to one of the courtesans here)