>>56773850Researcher Tada Katsumi sees the Kejoro as a satire and commentary on Edo-period “Pleasure District Literature” that were popular at the time. There were many cautionary tales of prostitutes that turned out to be something horrific, and Tada shows the linking of the words化粧 (kesho; make-up, cosmetics) with お化け (obake; monster). Both share the kanji化 meaning “to change,” and the yokai prostitute tales comment on women’s ability to alter their appearance and hide their true face.
However, my personal favorite explanation of the Kejoro—because it is by far the scariest—relates to the ceremony of心中立 ( Shinjutate; Standing Your True Heart).
In the Edo-period prostitutes were bought and sold like property, and their only real hope was that a client would fall in love with them and buy them out of their contract and take them home as a wife. There were some happy endings, but just as often something got in the way—the man already had a wife, or couldn’t afford to purchase the woman entirely. In these cases 心中 (Shinju; Double Suicide) was often the only way out.
But sometimes the love was one-sided, a prostitute who fell so deeply in love with her client that she refused other customers. In these cases, there were rituals—known collectively as心中立 ( Shinjutate; Standing Your True Heart)—that she could perform to make herself unattractive to new customers.
