Sexual Consent in Heian Japan

[kate_nepveu]

Okay, I did read chapter 20 last night, but I want to talk about two articles first since my thoughts about the chapter are influenced by them. So we'll see how long this takes and whether I get to chapter 20.

Comments

[hikarugenji]

There's an interesting passage in the Hahakigi chapter when Genji is pressing his first sexual encounter with Utsusemi. Tyler's translation has "It upset him to find that his forwardness really did repel her, and he saw how justly she was outraged."

The original Japanese is a little vaguer, and if I can get the spacing to work I will try a linear gloss:

kaku oshidachi tamaheru wo fukaku nasakenaku ushi
that forcing (honorific) deeply distress sadness

to omoiiritaru-sama mo,
way of thinking [i.e. by Utsusemi] also

geni itohoshiku kokorohazukashi kehai nareba
actually sad embarassing state
Obviously the text is not very clear, although it's more clear than that nearly-incomprehensible gloss probably indicates. The question is exactly what Genji is finding embarassing -- I was very surprised to find that the note in the Shogakkan edition I'm using says "mizukara no koui ga goukan to no jikaku wa aru" ("he realizes that his own actions are rape"). I personally thought that he was just thinking

[kate_nepveu]

Bryant's article mentions that men in Heian literature often feel guilt, but can't come to firm conclusions about it.

I'm not sure what Seidensticker translates that passage as--possibly "He was sorry for her and somewhat ashamed of himself, but his answer was careful and sober. 'You take me for one of the young profligates you see around? I must protest. . . . '"

In a Western context, I would suggest that the men are feeling guilty for "despoiling" women; I don't know whether that would translate here.

[hikarugenji]

Another thing to remember in the cultural context is that the sexual encounters in many cases were tantamount to a marriage, and some of the women's reasons for refusal have less to do with the sexual act itself than the consequences of it -- for instance, Akashi's fear that Genji will be recalled to the capital and leave her behind. Utsusemi is another example; at the end of the Hahakigi chapter she thinks to herself that if she were not married already she would gladly accept Genji

[kate_nepveu]

Tyler thinks they weren't violent at all, which I questioned in the margin of my printout and then left aside in my post. Specifically, I wondered how he could be so sure, because so much is elided, but he's the scholar and I'm not.

[jonquil]

I now want to kick Tyler rather a lot. After all, leaving aside Murasaki's opinion, as Tyler would like us to, her maids, who are not being 'lifted to a height of grandeur', clearly think she is still too young for Genji's attentions.

[hikarugenji]

That's considerably earlier in the tale when she is younger, and their objections are mostly because they think Genji will forget about her, not because they think she's too young for sex (in any case, Genji waits a number of years before finally initiating the sexual contact).

I think Tyler is only trying to set the instances in the context of the tale. I don't think he's trying to defend Heian sexual and courtship practices in an absolute sense, he's merely saying that within the context of the Tale's idealized portrait of Heian culture, Genji's actions do not constitute rape as we would understand it.

[kate_nepveu]

I've just looked back at chapter 9 and don't see any objections by her maids on account of her age.

My summary may have done Tyler an injustice in your eyes, by minimizing the extent to which the essay speaks from the perspective of the narrative (or narrator). It doesn't come across well in the quoted bits.

[jonquil]

Hikarugenji is right and I am conflating two episodes.