Boye De Mente - Sex and the Japanese: the Sensual Side of Japan

The Judeo-Christian concept of recreational sex as sinful and abhorrent in the eyes of an all-powerful god is, I believe, one of the biggest con-jobs ever foisted on any group of mankind. The ulterior motive of the creators of this concept was, of course, political and social control (especially of women), and had nothing whatsoever to do with morality or saving immortal souls.

To make the system work, the creators of this concept had to separate the human body into two parts, the physical and the spiritual. The body, according to the Church, was of the earth, inherently vile and sinful, not to be trusted, and not to be satisfied because its sensual needs were the work of the Devil.

The spirit or soul, on the other hand, was of heaven and divine, and the only way it could be kept pure was to deny the body physical pleasures, especially those having to do with sex.

This view of human sexuality, which derived from the gonadal obsession of ancient tribal leaders to exercise total chauvinistic, political and social power over tribal members, created a legacy that consigned their cultural descendants to a sexual purgatory in which life was one long nightmare of imaginary sin.

Throughout their history, Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious have obsessively dwelt on the theme that human sexuality is another word for sin and evil, and that women, because they are more sexual than men, must be repressed to keep their sexuality under control.

The men of ancient Japan were wiser than their Western counterparts. The gods they created were far more human, far more tolerant than the Western god. Their gods were conspicuously male and female, single and married, and they engaged in sexual as well as other sensual activities with all the gusto gods can muster.

Of course, Japanese men were not so enlightened as to look upon women as their equals. The world of Japan was until very recently a mans world in which the primary role of women was that of child-bearer, worker, andwhen young and attractiveas instrument of pleasure. But the Japanese recognized and accepted the basic fact that the body, mind, and soul cannot be treated separately, that what affects one affects all.

The social system fashioned by the Japanese was based on their observations of real life, of nature in all of its diversity, rather than on an abstract theology that treated menand especially womenas puppets on strings, born with an overload of crushing guilt.

But it was not until recent decades that Japanese women as well as men became free to take advantage of this enlightened attitude toward sexand the United States was to play a vital role in this fundamental change in male-female relations in Japan.