Green Light for Red Lights

In the palmy days before World War I, no red-light district in the world could boast the gilded wantonness of Tokyo's Yoshiwara. There, along a garden lane redolent with flower blossoms, the powdered and pomaded prostitutes of three centuries had minced along as dainty as figures on a sandalwood fan. The nightly pleasures they offered included even mock marriage ceremonies.

The ravages of time have long since swept away Yoshiwara's refinements, without sweeping away prostitution itself. In fact, since prewar days, Japan's red-light districts have increased by almost one-third. An estimated 500,000 women now work as prostitutes; many of them, sold into prostitution by their parents when still school girls, work for a pittance.

Undesignated. Today less than half of the girls wear the traditional kimono. Clad in cheap Western skirts and blouses, they stand instead in front of their houses screaming "I love you" at Western passersby, or "irasshai" (come on in) to Japanese males. Five times since 1947, Japan's newly enfranchised women have tried to tighten the ban on prostitution, but their menfolk have taken care that the bills died before coming to a vote.

Last week the Judicial Committee of the Japanese Diet considered a sixth and even stricter antiprostitution bill, one that provided stiff jail terms and heavy fines not only for prostitutes and procurers, but for their customers as well.

This posed an intrinsic threat not only to prostitution, but also to the G.I. practice of keeping girls known as "onlies." More important, it was a threat to the time-honored Japanese custom of keeping concubines--a practice openly followed even by Japanese Premiers in the past.

Hurriedly, one of the bill's sponsors explained that prostitution means cohabiting only with "undesignated" partners.

With the menfolk thus reassured, the women of some 24 organizations went to work compiling a stack of petitions three feet high against prostitution.

To the Floor. "Every civilized nation in the world today has some law prohibiting prostitution," cried one irate clubwoman. "As Communist China has already proved, it is not impossible to turn prostitutes into decent women . . ." Backed by the women, the new bill got farther than any of its predecessors--it reached the floor of the Diet. But there, due largely to a $130,000 slush fund raised by brothel owners, and to the natural inclinations of Japanese Diet members themselves, it was defeated by a vote of 191 to 142.

"Whew," gasped a bullet-headed brothel owner, sitting in his underwear underneath a willow tree, with other members of the Yoshiwara Special Tea House Cooperative Association. Down the street, the ladies under his protection merely giggled and chatted, pausing only to scream "I love you" at passing men.

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