Masturbation and Discourse on Female Sexual Practices in Early Modern Japan

Much of the discourse on female sexual practices in early modern Japan centred on masturbation, usually with a dildo, deemed necessary for a woman's mental and physical health when the male member was unavailable. References to female same‐sex relations suggest that they too made sense in situations where men were absent. Some sex manuals treated female sexual arousal within the context of conjugal relations, while a text written for wives in polygamous marriages places female sexual practice at the service of male interests. The texts analysed here show not only that early modern Japanese held different attitudes toward sex than their western counterparts, but also that they could hold multiple attitudes at the same time.