Talk:Mizuage

message: Is there a way we could go ahead and fix these sources? As discussed below, we have quite a few problems with this article. First of all, it cannot tell the difference between Courtesans and Entertainers. Secondly a lot of the sources ultimately stem back to Arthur Golden's book which I think most here already agree has been proven factually dubious and more fantasy than anything. How about we strip out most of this page and start anew? A lot of the other Geisha pages have been linking this one on a roundabout way, I've even seen pages all over the the net doing so which just perpetuates the myth that Geishas were "honored prostitutes". Ryunaga (talk) 03:07, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps the difference between Courtesans and Entertainers was difficult to discern at that time, if there was even a difference. Also, I do not see how most of the sources are related to Arthur Golden's book. This article is actually very well referenced.Djd sd (talk) 05:28, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

text: I agree with Ryuanga. There are not enough credible sources on this topic. This is a topic that the Japanese, especially formal geisha, should know best about. Yet, the sources cited are mostly non-Japanese. There is definitely a need to consult more credible sources. There definitely may be a chance that most of the information in this entry is retrieved from Arthur Golden's fictional book. Leaving the entry as it is would be spreading false knowledge on Japanese culture, which the Japanese would surely not appreciate.Yaeyoung (talk) 05:06, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  those comments were made 5 years ago, when the article looked like this. It is in much beter condition now. Do you know of any Japanese sources that discuss this subject? ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 17:05, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I still feel like there are more revisions we can make. We can look at some Japanese sites like this, although it is no where close to an academic paper. Yaeyoung (talk) 01:17, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Correct the article please

message: The information in this article has just been corrected. I have a direct quote from a former geisha, Mineko Iwasaki, who wrote her autobiography in large part to debunk the mizuage myth. In this quote from an interview,  I think she makes it pretty clear that mizuage does not involve virginity for a geisha. Here is the interview:
"Q: Talk to me about the mizuage ceremony. What is it, and why is there so much confusion about it?
A: This again goes back to the separation between the pleasure quarter and the entertainment quarter. Mizuage is really a coming-of-age ceremony, and apparently there was some selling of the virginity that went on in association with that ritual ceremony in the pleasure district a long time ago. However, that has never been true for the geisha. For the geisha, it was simply when they were becoming a young woman, similar to a sweet 16 in the West, and it was symbolized by the change in hairstyle, into a more womanly, grown-up hairstyle. And also certain subtle changes in the ensembles. There are a lot of rites of passage, but for some reason this one has been really latched on by people, and maybe it’s because of this misunderstanding.
Also, it is true that as with many of the rituals and rites of passage, once one has become a maiko [geisha-in-training], or a geiko, it’s very expensive, because every time you go through an entire change of kimono, for example, or of hairstyle and you need different hair ornaments, these are expensive things. For me, I was the successor to the house, the atotori, so there was no question that the money was there to provide this. But if someone is coming from the outside and training, as basically someone who is there under contract, it is expensive, and sometimes they do ask their patrons to help pay for the cost involved in making the transition.
Q: But their virginity isn’t offered in exchange for that help?
A: That is never on the table. There is one other potential source of confusion, and that is with the word "mizuage" itself. In the Gion, the geisha district, and in many areas of the entertainment industry, "mizuage" is also a term that directly means "gross earnings," because it’s an old fishing term; as you may know, Japan was dependent on fishing for one of its main economic bases for many years. "Mizuage" means "to take out of the water." It stood for the catch. "What was your catch?" — "How much money did you make from the water?" So when I refer to mizuage, I’m actually referring to my earnings, rather than the ceremony itself."
It is from an interview of Iwasaki by Tamara Weider in the Boston Phoenix, the url for it is http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/qa/documents/02473409.htm. I'm suprised nobody mentioned it before, it is one of the first Google results for "mizuage." puppies_fly 22:26, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Iwasaki information

message: I can't see how you can dismiss Iwasaki so lightly given that her whole life she was immersed in or connected to the Geisha life and art-form. Liza Dalby, while oft-quoted and undoubtedly an interesting source is less reliable IMHO if for no other reasons than being an outsider and having less exposure. Ultimately she is a foreign novelist who has ties to another novelist (Arthur Golden) who is most famous for a controversial book in which his misrepresentation of geisha as prostitutes landed him in court. I think it's no coincidence that the western interpretation of Mizuage, in particular, is now inescapably linked to his novel despite the fact that it is so riddled with innacuries.
The bottom line I suspect is that there are strong arguments for both views. Given the extremely insular nature of Japan at the time the geisha were most numerous and the secrecy and mystery that surrounded the geisha within that culture I doubt a clear and simple consenses can be reached. It is also worth considering that geisha operated somewhat differently at different times in their history and in the different cities and regions they operated in so both views may be valid in different contexts.
This article currently presents only one viewpoint however and noticably it's the more western and sensational position. The article is therefore lacking and should be corrected.
Re: Mineko Iwasaki
Mineko Iwasaki was a maiko/geisha during the sixties and seventies, and can only relate her personal experiences. She is NOT a historian, or any sort of an expert on historical geisha, nor can her experiences be applied to the geisha who came before her. To blindly take her word, when she obviously has an agenda, over the scholarship of so many others who dedicated their lives to researching history is illogical and can only result in a biased article. What she describes may well be the modern form of mizuage, but to claim this is what has always been is ridiculous. 
I noticed that she never explains what the cutting of the maiko's hair actually symbolises. Why? I would think that would be incredibly important. Not to mention that the explanation of the symbolism itself is important to the validity of this article.
In GEISHA, Liza Dalby's book, she discusses the historical mizuage openly, and relates the stories of former Geisha who actually experienced the deflowering ceremony before the anti-prostitution laws. To deny that it happened at all, aside from being a slap in the face to all the women who were forced to go through this, is blatant revisionist history and has no place here. Dalby herself felt that the experiences of these women were important enough to document, regardless of how the modern mind perceives the ceremony. What happened in the past wasn't always clean and pretty and politically correct.
Let us not forget that back in the 'old days' no one CHOSE to become geisha. Girls were either sold or born into it. They did what they had to do to survive, and pay off the massive debts that were heaped upon them by the people that purchased them. Regardless of the mizuage and danna, geisha were not prostitutes because these practices were not, at the time, considered prostitution. That our definition of prostitution has changed to put these practices into a grey area, is irrelevant. Historical people should not be judged based on modern definitions and standards of morality, but on the definitions and standards of their own times.
I think the only logical way to handle this is to discuss both the historical mizuagi and the modern practice in separate sections, and make the distinction very clear to the reader. 
Furthermore, it is important to put geisha and mizuage into their proper context of the larger picture of historical Japan. For all its beauty and elegance, it was also a very brutal and oppressive society with traditions, practices, and ideologies that directly oppose the mindset of the average modern westerner. To change the history of any culture to make it more palatable today's mindset, and the fantasies of children, is downright despicable.
Kookykrisp 19:06, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re: above 

message: I have limited Japanese language knowledge, but does the word 'danna' not imply a mastership of sorts? or is this a more modern usage? Voici 12:42, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Danna" is also a common word for husband.  MightyAtom 23:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Danna 

message: It is not our place to decide who is lying and who is telling the truth, if we do that, wikipedia will slowly be filled with inaccuracies, because sometimes we'll be wrong. Our job is to put down all the relevant facts down for both sides and explain the possible motives behind both sides down with a NPOV. If we do this, and simply document, we cannot go wrong. This acticle must be expanded to include both sides or it is a lie, or at least a misrepresentation. As far as what is TRUTH, the truth is that a geisha's vow of secrecy (does this exist?) and general misunderstanding of the japanese culture prevent us from knowing the absolute truth. As to the above comment, why would 'mastership' imply anything sexual? BDSM and the idea of sexual dominance is a highly western concept. There are plenty of cultures where you can say 'master' without sexual overtones even if the western culture isn't one of them. DamienBlack 03:19, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: I decided to look up what the mentioned hairstyles looked like. Immortal Geisha says that the split-peach hairstyle is another name for the ofuku, in contrast to the information in this article.
209.194.12.120 22:55, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ofuku 

message: The viewpoint that mizuage was (mainly) about getting a new hair style is directly contradicted in The Courtesan's Arts: Cross-Cultural Perspectives 
I think the distinction is between:
#a woman who makes her living selling sex (i.e., a "professional" prostitute); and
#a woman who engages in one, initial episode of selling sex (i.e., has "engaged in an act of prostitution")
I don't think anyone is saying that geisha are prostitutes. The dispute is about whether they (1) were required to; or (2) generally did; or (3) hardly ever did provide sex for money (see prostitution). --Uncle Ed (talk) 21:23, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Losing virginity or changing hairstyle

message: According to Golden, mizuage and erikae (襟替え, the turning of the collar) were two different events that could be years apart: After mizuage an apprentice wears her hair in a new style, and with a red silk band at the base of thepincushion bun, rahter than a patterned one. (Memoirs of a Geisha,  Vinage Edition Canada, p. 284) After two or more years [...] I made the shift from being an apprentice to being a geisha. [...] We call this change the "turning of the collar," because an apprentice wears a red collar and a geisha wears a white one. (ibid, p. 290). Mizake also talks about mizuage as a "coming of age ceremony" unrelated to erikae.  Andreas  (T) 16:29, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you made some good edits, but remember, Memoirs of a Geisha is not a reliable source. It is a novel (a work of fiction). Djd sd (talk) 04:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Erikae 

message: Japan's official history books like to omit things like the Rape of Nanking, the well-known atrocities that Japanese soldiers committed in the 1930s. I say "well known", but it is only well known in the West. They also don't like to talk about the Comfort women, mostly foreign girls kidnapped into sexual slavery for the Japanese troops. 
I'm not surprised that many contributors would like to suppress any mention of the act of (ritual?) prostitution which began each geisha's career.
Let's not assert that it did happen, if there is really any controversy over this. Let's simply list those historians (or others) who said it did or did not happen. --Uncle Ed (talk) 17:56, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Japanese reluctance to admit shameful historical practices

message: The item for ja and zh articles has two statements: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16603455 They are "instance of: human", and "sex or gender: female". I don't know how to create these statements in the item currently used by this article (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1858857), so I am not combining them. I also don't know how to automatically merge the two items. 2601:600:8500:B2D9:782C:2CF3:9CEE:F010 (talk) 02:47, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Linking to Japanese and Chinese articles 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: A good clarifier for this page would be to describe the differences between mizuage and erikae. 
Erikae is 'turning the collar', the point at which a maiko graduates to a geisha, and is a very ritualistic event - a new geisha dresses in her most formal outfit, new wig, the whole shebang, and spends the day conducting social calls to various teahouses and okiyas. It's a full event, and doesn't include sex in any way.
I am, however, unclear as to whether or not this was separate to mizuage, from whence it arose, and how it was affected by the outlawing of prostitution in the 1950s. I think anyone visiting this page might assume that geisha simply don't graduate to being geisha anymore, it just kind of happens, and the only notable thing is that the maiko you called on to entertain at your party the week before is now dressed like a geisha.
Both pages, this one and the erikae page, need a lot more work. Better sources and more of 'em are needed for the pair, otherwise we continue to go around and around in two poorly-referenced partly-conjecture pages on some delicate topics that really do require love and attention.
As part and parcel of my studies for my next year at university, I'm going to buy a softcover copy of Liza Dalby's dissertation on geisha in Japan - not the book she wrote in the 1980s, the dissertation that book arose from. 
A quick leaf-through of a university copy I borrowed earlier this year shows a lot of very helpful appendices which I think could definitely boost the standards of this page - the data itself is drawn from various geisha registration offices, meaning it's got clout that could help this article. Referencing the book she wrote after is great, but it was just that, a book. A nice, if involved, read, but not something heavily reference-filled - hopefully, the addition of the dissertation will resolve this issue. --Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 21:59, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  A section on erikae?