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It's kind of crazy how much material Heian era had to make numerous fanfictions

Recently when I studied thier brothel culture I got to know how systematic it was and the woman working there wasn't even looked down upon instead they were considered kind of similar to Mikos

Brothels were attached to shrines where they were given protection by fujiwara clan or priests in return the leading lady would give them tax for that

Kugustume ( I hope i spelt it right ) were seen as vessel for deities and would also be the leading lady at a courtesean house

Now I want sukuna fanfiction with courtesean reader 🙏🏻🥹 because I do think he might have allowed a courtesean house to be attached by his shrine to rose to power as it was very common back then

Heian era was so damn rich in its culture and information that I just know I can't dive into it too much, at all, before I finish every single thing I started. The research I'll have to make just for a fic to be good enough for me will probably kill me, but yup, brothels were a big thing back then, courtesans were so much more than sex workers.

There is a fucking giant yapping below the cut about it from the sources I have saved in my browser, so if you want more of it, dive in.

And although I detest the harem/concubines trope with Sukuna because oof he would not deal with that (yapped a lot about it in another ask that probably can be found if you type concubine on the search in my blog), a courtesan would probably catch his eye if she was interesting enough, intelligent enough, skilled and cunning enough. There are a few ways that this would work, I think, I won't let it go to waste if I think of something nice for them.

1 sage-gami 2 takenaga 3 uchiki 4 kosode 5 obuto

"Yuko-nyofu (courtesans)" were called "asobime" or "ukareme" in ancient Japan.

After "miko," Shinto shrine maidens of the old times, lost characters of god and priest, they developed natures of vagrancy, entertainment, and prostitution.

After the Heian Era, the word "yuko-nyofu" was shortened to "asobime."

"The courtesans of the Heian Era were cultured and some of their "waka," 31-syllable Japanese poems, were contained in compilation-by-Imperial-command anthology.

The coutesan in the photograph shows a woman for entertainment in "uchiki" style.

Uchiki sugata: This is the most basic outfit of the court ladies of the Heian period. It is an outfit made up of a series of uchiki. While this can refer to just about any garment making up the structure of the layers, this most typically refers to the wide-sleeved, v-necked Heian robes commonly worn by women. In this outfit, the most basic of the Heian aristocratic outfits, a series of uchiki are simply layered one on top of another, with colors and patterns matching appropriate seasonal themes. At the most basic layer was usually a linen garment near the skin–in later periods this would be a juban or some sort of basic kosode, though earlier it would have just been a hitoe. Over this is worn the haribakama. The next layer out would be the akome, followed by layers of uchiki. The number of layers could vary depending on the season and the wealth of the individual, but we typically see at least five or six. As with similar outfits, people may have also used "cheat" garments with multiple layers sewn into a single one, but the outermost would always be its own garment. In the summer they are typically single layer garments, while winter outfits typically use lined robes for greater warmth. From the mid-Heian period to the end of the Kamakura period, this outfit went through a few different changes. Most noticeably, as discussed in the introduction, above, the haribakama were eschewed altogether. Perhaps less noticeable was the body of the clothing–mid-Heian period, most of the outfits appear to have had a softer, more billowy appearance. In the late Heian and Kamakura periods, a more angular look was appreciated, which required fabric with more body, like the uchigi. Over time, this morphed in to the uchikake sugata, with the kosode replacing the older style of uchiki. Parts of the uchiki sugata: Garments: Kosode, haribakama, hitoe, multiple uchiki Accessories: Shitōzu, tatō, hiogi

She holds the skirt with the small string at the waist for entertainment on action.

"Tsuboshozoku" is a formal traveling wear , whereas the costume of courtesan is an informal array.

1 uchiki-wo tsubo-oru 2 uchiki 3 kake-obi 4 kake-mamori 5 ichime-gasa6obuto-no zori

This is the going-out costume of the Imperial Court or a samurai woman.

"Tsubo" is the shortcut of "tsubomeru (to close)" which means wearing without opening clothes.

That is, it can be tucked up and worn at the time of going out.

Downward, "kosode" and " hitoe" and "uchiki" is piled up.

Top "uchiki" is worn flatly with putting arms through sleeves.

As for this "uchiki", the collar attachment and side openings differ from the ordinary one.

A red "kake-obi" (belt) is applied to a breast.

And in case of visiting shrines or taking a trip, a charm is hung in front.

The figure in the photo has a sedge hat called "ichime-gasa" in the hand and wears a pair of straw sandals with fat straps at feet.

In medieval Japan, sexual entertainers and their customers enjoyed great freedoms until a growing orthodoxy stifled their trade.

An early Heian period painting shows three women in a boat rowing alongside a larger boat carrying male passengers, some dressed richly and some ascetically — aristocrats and monks. The kimono-clad women were asobi, or sexual entertainers, singing their siren song to lure the aristocrats to some temporary pleasure shack.

With the monks in the rear, the large boat was probably on its return from some chartered pilgrimage to a sacred site. The asobi knew well the sea lanes for pilgrims who were ready to unburden themselves of their journey's abstinence. Weaker pilgrims might have looked for the asobi even on the way to sacred sites.

How did this libertine activity stand, so laden with irony? In fact it did not, that once liberal perceptions towards sexuality would give way to a conservative sexual orthodoxy in both the Heian (794–1185) and the Kamakura periods (1185–1333).

Entertainments provided by the asobi were not exclusively sexual. The women's high-priced services included folk songs, sometimes lyrically composed of Buddhist sutras, and traditional dances, Goodwin said.

Such sources as courtier and courtesan diaries, records of judicial cases involving the asobi, and divorce settlements to argue that the Japanese embraced a very liberal attitude towards sex in the early Heian period. Men were polygamous, women serially monogamous, widows sexually active, and divorce common. Prostitution was merely risqué, not shameful.

But as time went on, people began to look on the asobi with distrusting eyes. Celibate monks, their chastity perhaps threatened, began to decry the women as a wicked bunch out to distract and corrupt Buddhist men.

One story Goodwin cited was that of a Buddhist monk who recounted seeing a beautiful, naked woman when a sudden stir of wind lifted the wispy curtain that hid her from the street. The sight inspired such burning lust in the monk that he prayed fervently to be reincarnated as an Oni, or devil, that would possess the right to rape the maiden.

Castle Topplers

Beyond temptations and conflicts, social considerations began to prompt change. With the emergence of the shogunate during the Heian period, greater emphasis was placed on a strict patrilinear system. Penalties for adultery grew more strict, in part to prevent feuds among legitimate as well as illegitimate offspring.

Women who seduced high-level aristocrats came to be known as keisei, or "castle topplers," after one lady was sent by one lord specifically to enslave a rival through seduction, finally coaxing him into giving up his holdings.

Meanwhile, the asobi were gaining a reputation as a public nuisance because of their itinerancy. Although some settled in “pleasure districts," they were largely nomadic, drifting about in search of work. "They live in animal-hair tents and drift from place to place in pursuit of food and water, just like the northern barbarians," wrote a twelfth-century observer, Ôe Masafusa, in a sharp departure from the tone he had adopted in an earlier description of the asobi. ("Their voices halt the clouds floating through the valleys, and their tones drift with the wind blowing over the water. Passers-by cannot help but forget their families," Ôe had written.)

Gradually, and as the asobi came under harsh scrutiny from a ministry set up to regulate prostitution, the stigma attached to sexual entertainment prevented many aristocrats from indulging in it.

The sexual orthodoxy that reigned in the asobi had broader consequences for the liberties of Japanese women. Divorce was increasingly frowned upon, and widows were expected to remain unattached and to pray for their dead husbands, perhaps entering a nunnery. Attitudes changed not merely towards physical acts, but towards gender roles, affecting especially the lives of women.

In Heian Japan (794-1185), the most common type of prostitute was the asobi. Asobi were prostitutes, but they were also singing entertainers. The musical element of their work was key to attracting customers. Originally, asobi were itinerant entertainers. They would approach travellers on the road, entertaining them with singing and sometimes sex in exchange for rice, textiles, or other forms of payment. One account of this type of itinerant asobi appears in the 11th century text Sarashina Nikki. The anonymous author of the text was only a young girl when she encountered the asobi on a mountain road en route to the capital of Kyoto. While prostitution doesn't feature in her account, it gives you an idea of how rural asobi would have solicited customers:

There is a mountain called Ashigara [Hakoné] which extends for ten and more miles and is covered with thick woods even to its base. We could have only an occasional glimpse of the sky. We lodged in a hut at the foot of the mountain. It was a dark moonless night. I felt myself swallowed up and lost in the darkness, when three singers came from somewhere. One was about fifty years old, the second twenty, and the third about fourteen or fifteen. We set them down in front of our lodging and a karakasa [large paper umbrella] was spread for them. My servant lighted a fire so that we saw them. They said that they were the descendants of a famous singer called Kobata. They had very long hair which hung over their foreheads; their faces were white and clean, and they seemed rather like maids serving in noblemen's families. They had clear, sweet voices, and their beautiful singing seemed to reach the heavens. All were charmed, and taking great interest made them come nearer.

Here, the asobi approach the party staying in a traveller's hut. Whether they also performed sexual favours for some of the adult men in the author's party is unknown, but it was their singing that made them appeal to the entire party. In order to appeal to their potential customers, the asobi extolled their lineage from a famous asobi. They also presented themselves in clean clothes with painted faces and the long hair of noblewomen. This imitation of court fashions was another method that asobi used to attract customers, and it must have been particularly effective in a mountain road out in the provinces where such fashions were more rarely seen.

By the time Sarashina Nikki was written, however, some asobi had taken to more permanent settlements. An assortment of asobi set up Japan's first pleasure districts on the Yodo River in a place called Eguchi in the 10th century. The Yodo River was one of the major trade arteries to the capital, and it was also the waterway by which wealthy capital-dwellers travelled on pilgrimage. Pilgrimage was all the rage for the Heian elite in the 10th century. While it would be ritually polluting to engage a prostitute on the way to the shrine, all bets were off on the way back home.

The asobi of Eguchi would entice their customers by rowing out on skiffs in the middle of the pilgrimage traffic. Although they were dressed like court women, they did not hide their faces from men, signalling their sexual availability. A skiff was typically filled by three women: one lead asobi singing, one holding a colourful parasol above her head, and a third, usually older woman, rowing the boat. They fought their way through the clamour of merchant vessels (and competing asobi) to approach the boats of travelling aristocrats.

The most important tool for advertising their services was their songs. Asobi sang imayō, folk songs originating among the lower classes of Japanese society. Unlike the refined poetry of the court, which addressed sex in euphemisms and puns, imayō were unabashed in their earthiness. The women would sing about having sex with their potential lovers in no uncertain terms. Not all imayō songs were so sexual; asobi also sang about the hardships of being abandoned by a customer who had promised to make her a concubine, or the bitterness of losing children to the servitude of the wealthy.

Imayō songs became extremely popular at the Heian court as the asobi's customers took their songs back with them. One emperor, Go-Shirakawa, was so enamoured with imayō that he invited a 70-year-old asobi called Otomae to live with him at court. For the next 14 years, she trained him in the oral tradition of the asobi family she came from. He recorded her songs in a text known as the Ryōjin Hishō. While Go-Shirakawa was unique in his devotion to the craft, imayō were certainly very popular at the imperial court where they were known as the "modern style" since they were new to the courtiers in spite of having their roots in old peasant folk songs.

Here is an evocative description of asobi soliciting customers written by Ōe Masafusa:

There, female entertainers have banded together; they pole their skiffs out to meet incoming boats and solicit men to share their beds. Their voices halt the clouds floating through the valleys, and their tones drift with the wind blowing over the water. Passerby cannot help but forget their families. The ripples spray like flowers among the reeds along the shore, and the boats of old fishermen and peddlers line up stern to stern, almost as if there's no water in between. From the highest nobility down to the hoi polloi, the women invite all to their bamboo-matted chambers and bestow favours upon them. Some men make these women their wives and mistresses and love them until death. Even wise men and princes are not exempt.

Asobi were patronized by women for their singing too (there are no recorded instances of women soliciting sex from female asobi). Thus, when the asobi Kokannon approached the boat of Fujiwara Michinaga in the year 1000, her singing also entertained his sister, the Empress Dowager. After Kokannon spent the night with Michinaga, both Michinaga and his sister rewarded the asobi with rice and sumptuous clothing. So as you can see, not only was singing their main way of advertising their services to men, it was also an important source of revenue in its own right. Asobi had the unique privilege of being allowed to approach the elite in a way that was normally forbidden to commoners, emphasizing how their work transgressed class boundaries.

Interestingly, no men were involved as procurers in the Heian pleasure districts. Asobi were organized into matrilineal families headed by a chōja, the normal term for the head of a workers' organization. The pay an asobi received from a client was split evenly amongst all the members of the family, except for the chōja who received more. Although as a group, asobi were considered to be of the lowest social class in the company of beggars and thieves, some chōja were originally women of higher classes. Women might become asobi if their families fell afoul of imperial politics and they needed to help make ends meet. Other women were born into the trade, as some imayō are written about women lamenting that their daughters are following in their footsteps. Asobi "families", then, were formed of a mix of biological and adoptive kinship. Asobi adopted stage names which would be passed down in the "family". The importance of lineage in this system brings to mind the women who the author of Sarashina Nikki encountered in the provinces, who emphasized to their potential customers that they were "descended" from a famous asobi.

So, in short, the main ways that asobi advertised their business were through singing imayō, dressing in court fashions, and broadcasting their lineage from famous asobi. They were granted the special privilege to approach the elite without the usual boundaries of social etiquette, and they stationed themselves on pilgrimage routes and major roads to maximize their potential clientele. It should be noted that while the asobi occupied an uneasy place in Japanese social hierarchy, their work was not at all considered illegal, so their advertisement strategies would have differed from women in countries where prostitution was restricted.

Sources:

Goodwin, Janet R., Selling Songs and Smiles: The Sex Trade in Heian and Kamakura Japan Goodwin, Janet R., "Shadows of Transgression: Heian and Kamakura Constructions of Prostitution", Monumenta Nipponica 55:3 [link] Kwon, Yung-Hee Kim, "The Female Entertainment Tradition in Medieval Japan: The Case of 'Asobi'", Theatre Journal 40:2 [link] Kwon, Yung-Hee Kim, "Voices from the Periphery: Love Songs in Ryōjin Hishō", Monumenta Nipponica 41:1 [link] Kwon, Yung-Hee Kim (ed.), Songs to Make the Dust Dance: The Ryōjin Hishō of Twelfth-Century Japan Pandey, Rajyashree, "Poetry, sex and salvation: the 'courtesan' and the noblewoman in medieval Japanese narratives", Japanese Studies 24: 1 [link]

From this subreddit that I have saved.

Asobi (Singing Entertainers): Primarily known as entertainers whose services included music, dance, and sex, often using their artistic talents to attract customers. Itinerant Nature: Asobi were originally nomadic, working along travel routes and in river ports, rather than in fixed, walled brothels. Reputation and Structure: Though they became viewed as a public nuisance, they had internal structures led by a headmistress (known as a chōja) who protected members and managed affairs. Cultural Influence: Some courtesans were highly skilled in traditional arts, and their poetry was sometimes included in imperial anthologies. Rise of Distrust: Towards the late Heian period, asobi began to be seen as a distraction by some, particularly Buddhist monks, due to their lifestyle.

The structured, walled-in pleasure quarters (like Yoshiwara) did not appear until the 16th century, well after the Heian period.

From Wikipedia on Asobi.

And going to Edo period, we have the Oirans too, if you wanna give it a look.

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