Description
Book SynopsisSanitized Sex analyzes the development of new forms of regulation concerning prostitution, venereal disease, and intimacy during the American occupation of Japan after the Second World War, focusing on the period between 1945 and 1952. It contributes to the cultural and social history of the occupation of Japan by investigating the intersections of ordering principles like race, class, gender, and sexuality. It also reveals how sex and its regulation were not marginal but key issues in the occupation politics and postwar state- and empire-building, U.S.-Japan relations, and American and Japanese self-imagery. An analysis of the sanitization of sex uncovers new spatial formations in the postwar period. The regulation of sexual encounters between occupiers and occupied was closely linked to the disintegration of the Japanese empire and the rise of U.S. hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region during the Cold War era. An analysis of the sanitization of sex thus sheds new light on the configuration of postwar Japan, the process of decolonization, the postcolonial formation of the Asia-Pacific region, and the particularities of postwar U.S. imperialism. More than a book about the regulation of sex between occupiers and occupied in postwar Japan, Sanitized Sex offers a reading of the intimacies of empires-defeated and victorious.
Trade Review"[The book] moves between a multitude of spatial and discursive configurations and ties them together into a compact and compelling argument." * H-Soz-Kult *
"Kramm skillfully interweaves a history of the occupation in Japan with a history of sexual reform. This book is a welcome addition to the growing body of works about what it has meant to live with the U.S. military empire, and it will be of interest to students and scholars of gender and sexuality studies, Japanese studies, and modern history of war alike." * The American Historical Review *
"This book employs a rich variety of historic sources and materials to capture the complexity of the regulation of intimacy, prostitution, and venereal disease in the occupation period of Japan. . . . the book will be welcomed by a wide array of scholars interested in sexuality, gender, race, and prostitution in Japan and beyond." * Pacific Affairs *
"Has much to offer to students and researchers interested in issues of gender, sexuality, and the modern forms of coercion in times of conflict and occupation that bind women into sexual servitude." * Monumenta Nipponica *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Comforting the Occupiers: Prostitution as Administrative Practice in Japan at the End of World War II
2 Security: Policing Prostitution and Venereal Disease in Occupied Japan
3 Health: Preventing, Diagnosing, and Treating Venereal Disease
4 Morale: Character Guidance and Moral Purification
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
