Kagema
'Kagema' (陰間) is a historical Japanese term for young male sex workers. Kagema were often passed off as apprentice kabuki actors (who often engaged in sex work themselves on the side) and catered to a mixed male and female clientele. For male clients, the preferred service was anal sex, with the client taking the penetrative role;[1]: 109 homosexual fellatio is almost unmentioned in Tokugawa-era documents.[1]: 121–122
Kagema who were not affiliated with an actual kabuki theatre could be hired through male brothels or teahouses specializing in kagema.[1]: 69–72 Such institutions were known as "Kagemajaya" (陰間茶屋) (lit., "kagema teahouse"). Kagema typically charged more than female sex workers of equivalent status,[1]: p111 and associated notes and experienced healthy trade into the mid-19th century, despite increasing legal restrictions that attempted to contain sex workers (both male and female) in specified urban areas and to dissuade class-spanning relationships, which were viewed as potentially disruptive to traditional social organization.[1]: 70–78, 132–134
Many such sex workers, as well as many young kabuki actors, were indentured servants sold as children to the brothel or theater, typically on a ten-year contract.[1]: 69, 134–135 Kagema could be presented as young men (yarō), wakashū (adolescent boys, about 10–18 years old) or as onnagata (female impersonators).[1]: 90–92
This term also appears in modern Japanese homosexual slang.
See also[]
- Homosexuality in Ancient Japan
- Kagemajaya (ja)
References[]
- Bernard Faure "The Red Thread" 1998.
- Kabuki
- Japanese sex terms
- History of human sexuality
- Japanese words and phrases
- Japanese prostitutes
- Male prostitutes by type
- Gendered occupations
- LGBT history in Japan