Describing the Indescribable Fragrance

Describing the Indescribable Fragrance

In The ‘Indescribable Fragrance’ of Youths, Ian Buruma reviews an exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum called “A Third Gender: Beautiful Youths in Japanese Edo-Period Prints and Paintings.” In this article, Buruma educates readers about the cultural and sexual practices of the time, and questions the exhibition’s portrayal of the subject matter. With quotes from authors who lived during this period, Buruma establishes the sexual trends of the Japanese population in ways that the exhibition did not. He also poses the question of whether or not historical examples of erotic art should be hidden from the public eye.

As described by the museum, A Third Gender invites you to think differently about gender and sexuality (Royal Ontario Museum). The exhibition’s theme is the wakashu, which were beautiful youths who were the focus of love and sexual attention in a practice called shudo, or boy love. As Buruma writes, “Lusting after pretty teenage boys was not considered shameful in premodern Japan.” During this period, there was a wealth of shunga, or erotic prints, made to showcase wakashu, and often featured men who were more feminine than their partners, who were either male or female. The subject of sexual desires of the Edo-Period in Japan is very complex, and though some material could make people uncomfortable today, it is a historical account and its accuracy should be preserved. In his article, Buruma confronts the question of whether the exhibition was right to shield viewers from works of erotic art made so long ago. The concept of wakashu provides insight into the social and aesthetic values at the time, but the values in place today prevented a full representation of these people. The exhibition displays featured predominantly female interest in wakashu, which are referred to as the third gender, shown through pictures of people daydreaming and dancing. Buruma writes, “The impression that wakashu were mostly the objects of heterosexual desire in the Edo Period would be quite false.” Though a catalog in the exhibition contained male couplings, there were far fewer than heterosexual ones. To people observing these displays and catalogues, it may be determined that shudo was rarely practiced by men. “Leaving homosexual pictures out, while showing women swooning over or lunging at teenage boys, seriously distorts the history of the third gender,” says Buruma. Stemming from samurai ethos, relationships between adult men and young boys were held in higher esteem than heterosexual relationships. Though women were necessary for reproduction, only men represented the romantic concepts of brotherhood, comradeship, and self-sacrifice, learned through the mutual devotion established during samurai bonding. Today, many cultures frown upon inappropriate relationships such as this with minors, but Buruma questions the need to be shielded from viewing works of erotic art made three centuries ago. By using examples of homosexual encounters with wakashu from the time and explaining their motives and meanings, Buruma provides context for readers to better understand these cultural practices in a way the exhibition did not.

Buruma also confronts the lack of shunga, especially homoerotic ones, in the exhibition. Before diving into his opinion on the subject, he offers the museum’s explanation, giving the reader a chance to understand a different perspective on the subject. A curator for the catalog explained, “In consideration of the Canadian child pornography law, and in consultation with managers at the museum, I had to make the difficult decision to exclude explicitly sexual images (shunga) of wakashu from the exhibition.” Also, Canadian law bans shunga through its laws on pornography. Buruma finds it hard to imagine anyone seeing this shunga and feeling encouraged to recreate these same behaviors and abuse minors. These artifacts are pieces of history, not suggestions. Though Buruma disagrees with the Museum’s decision to leave out these prints in the exhibition, he proves to be sympathetic to the reasoning. However, the idea that pornography shown openly is justifiable if it is historical is a dangerous one. He may see shunga as an artistic representation of the aesthetic shudo, but others may interpret it differently. He does not call for the exhibition to add shunga or examples of homosexual shudo, but instead encourages people to think about presenting a full historical account of sexual behaviors no matter how uncomfortable it makes people.

The exhibition featured stunning woodblock prints, paintings, illustrated books, kimono, and armor to tell the story of human sexuality in the Japanese Edo-Period (Royal Ontario Museum). However, there are additional resources that can be used to tell a more detailed account of the sexual practices during this time. In his article, Buruma showcases the different aspects of shudo using multiple sources in addition to the exhibition. Using Ihara Saikaku, a literary chronicler who lived during the Edo-Period, he shows how shudo were celebrated and preferred to over women, and makes the point that sexual preference was more fluid and a matter of taste as opposed to an identity. Referring to Inagaki Taruho’s book The Aesthetics of Boy Love, Buruma reveals shudo to be not only a matter of erotic fulfillment, but of artistic refinement. Using a description of a prince from an eleventh-century aristocratic woman, Buruma proves that the idea of young male beauty was apparent in Japanese culture far before shudo became popular. By referencing these authors and highlighting their points, Buruma helps the reader understand more about the complexity of shudo. He is also a knowledgeable source about Japan, since he lived there from 1975 to 1981, attending Nihon University College of Arts in Tokyo, then working as a film reviewer, photographer, and documentary filmmaker (The New York Review of Books). Through these resources and elaboration on their main points, Buruma develops a line of reasoning explaining well how he is arriving at the conclusion that the exhibition did not show all that it could or should have about the topic.