In her introduction to this very interesting collection of essays, Fran Lloyd emphasizes that the portrayal of sex and consumerism in Japanese art has formed an important part of the country's complex experience of modernization and commodification.
Further, as Timon Screech demonstrates in his stimulating opening contribution, both elements were a definite part of Japan's urban culture well before the impact of Westernization. This past, he argues, serves as a template for the way in which sex and consumerism are portrayed in Japanese art today. Sexual consumerism was, and is, used by the ruling powers as a means of both controlling potential political unrest and furthering economic prosperity.
Author of one of the finest studies of the earlier uses of sexual consumerism in Japan ("Sex and the Floating World" [1999]), Screech demonstrates, with many examples, that "commerce and sex formed part of the discourse of the shogunal regime. The authorities had built it into their polity and they had, therefore, likewise built it into their systems of control."
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