A Modern History of the Standing-up Prostitute: Men Motioned to Be Approached…High-Class Street Prostitutes Also Appeared from the Meiji to the Early Showa Eras

No longer “prostitutes of the lowest class,” standing girls

Street girls also existed in Yokohama and Kobe. In those days, “playing in Hama” meant “playing in Honmoku in Yokohama,” and Honmoku was one of the leading international prostitution districts in Japan. Honmoku was one of the leading international prostitution districts in Japan, and the “Honmoku girls” played to the lustful men not only of Japanese but of all over the world. In Kobe, they appeared in Suwayama Park, Nagata Shrine, and the Aoya area, with Suwayama Park being the most common. If one was not careful, he or she often fell into the trap of a beauty pageant. They were also found in Fukuhara, where as many as 370 kojos were concentrated, and would join the pimps at the entrances to the flower districts, on park benches, and in dark back alleys.

Although different from standing prostitutes, there were many unique forms of private prostitutes as in the Edo period. In the Meiji era (1868-1912), newspapers began to be published, but they did not spread to ordinary households, and a “newspaper and magazine browse shop” was established where newspapers and magazines were presented for people to browse through. A woman who worked as a store keeper there sold spring. The same was true of the women who worked as store keepers at target shooting parlors, young women who counted the points at billiard parlors, and women who were assigned to play with a single customer at go parlors.

A notable feature of “tachinbo” from the Meiji Restoration to the prewar Showa period was the emergence of “high-class street prostitutes” in Yokohama and Ginza. This is a major difference from the Edo period, when standing prostitutes were considered to be the lowest class of prostitutes. The street prostitutes were dressed in elegant clothes and served customers in the downtown area, not outdoors, but indoors at places such as theEnshuku (an inn that opened in the early Showa period, where customers could rest for as little as one yen) andMachiai Jaya (a teahouse that rented seats for intimate meetings between men and women or for the entertainment of geiko and customers), as in Kabukicho in Shinjuku in the Reiwa period (2025) or in Umeda in Osaka. The next article will discuss the “street prostitutes” in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

In the next article, we will examine the reality of street prostitutes in the postwar Showa period, with a focus on the “panpan” or standing prostitutes that abounded in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

Reference
Kindai Toshi Shigeki Shakai 1 (Modern Urban Lower Class Society 1), Kusama, Hachioo, Akashi Shoten, 1990.
A Sociological Study of Street Prostitutes, Yoji Watanabe, Hohkosha, 1950.
A Guide to Japanese Pleasure Towns, Kiyoshi Sakai, Chuokoron-shinsha, 2014.
Shinpen, Kuro no Seikatsu, Nakano Eizo, Yuzankaku, 2024.
Catalogue: A History of Sex in Japan, Third Edition, Yoshihiko Sasama, Yuzankaku, 2018.
Yami no Onna tachi (Women in the Dark), Goichi Matsuzawa, Shinchosha, 2016.

In addition, numerous other books and online media were referenced.