It was chiefly members of the military class and priests who came to houses of assignation (age-ya) and engaged these young men, but their services were also requisitioned by not a few women. At first the lads only appeared at banquets as pages in waiting on the guests, danced for the amusement of the company, and were engaged by enthusiastic patrons in the ordinary way, but eventually their exclusive business led them to become as familiar with their guests as ordinary female prostitutes. They aped the style of females, blackened their teeth with ohaguro (like the women of those times), and gave themselves languid effeminate airs in imitation of the fair sex. Originally they dressed in a distinctive costume, and their get-up was known as wakashu-sugata (young man style), but gradually their mode of dress underwent a change, and in the Meiwa and An-ei periods (1704 to 1780) they attired themselves in graceful garments dyed in rich designs, adopted long flowing sleeves such as were worn by females, wore wide girdles around their waists, and did their hair up woman-fashion.
In the Genroku period (1688 to 1703) the common practice of the vice had declined, but the custom of hiring yar� was as popular as that of hiring courtesans, and in the Meiwa and An-ei periods (1704 to 1780) it had reached its zenith. At that time there were as many as ten places in Yedo where yar� could be hired—namely in Yoshi-ch�, Kobiki-ch�, Hateh�-bori in Kanda, in the grounds of the Shrine of Yushima Tenjin (!), in front of the Shimmei Shrine (!) in Shiba near the Hirakawa Tenjin Shrine (!) in K�jimachi, near the Hachiman Shrine (!) at Ichi-ga-ya, etc. The number of yar� carrying on their infamous calling in the city was two hundred and thirty at this period.
Before long, nature either began to assert itself or the laws against the vice passed in Kwansei period (1789 to 1800) were severely applied, for in the Temp� period (1830 to 1843) only four places remained where yar� could be found.[68] Of these Yushima was patronized most extensively, but only twenty-two lads were kept there. In the 13th year of Temp� (1842), in the time of Ieyoshi, the 12th Tokugawa Shogun, the vice was utterly rooted out in consequence of searching reforms instituted by Midzuno Tadakuni, Lord of Ichizen, and from that year unnatural sexuality ceased almost entirely in Yedo. In the Kwan-ei period (1624 to 1643) a number of so-called “incense-dealers� (K�gu-uri) appeared in Yedo who offered unnatural services to their customers, and by the era of Genroku (1688 to 1703) the business was firmly established and the practice prevailed far and wide. Beautifully dressed, handsome, and effeminate looking young men wandered through the city carrying about with them various kinds of incense in kiri-wood boxes wrapped in light-blue silk cloths, and, under the guise of selling incense, wormed their way into the mansions of the nobility and gentry, but in course of time the custom was abolished. In those days it was quite general for lewd and abandoned women to hire actors and indulge in immoral pleasure. Such women, when they attended a play, would call actors to the tea-houses and there enjoy themselves with the players in the same way that male libertines were wont to call courtesans.
The above description of yar� is condensed from the Nikon-Fuzoku-Shi (日本風俗�), but the writer desires to add that the literature of the Genroku period, as typified in several ancient volumes in his possession, clearly reveal the fact that the vice was practised quite openly, and apparently without any sense of shame, in the 17th century. Curious readers are referred to the Danshoku Ō-kagami (published in 1687) and the Danshoku Ki-no-me-dzuke (published in 1703) as specimens of this precious literature.[69]
The Grave of a Courtesan.
