From dlupher@ups.edu Sun Mar 12 15:52:53 2000 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id PAA46906 for ; Sun, 12 Mar 2000 15:52:52 -0800 Received: from mail.ups.edu (mail.ups.edu [192.124.98.111]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id PAA21786 for ; Sun, 12 Mar 2000 15:52:51 -0800 Received: from [10.80.1.53] (howarthdhcp53.ups.edu [10.80.1.53]) by mail.ups.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id PAA21416 for ; Sun, 12 Mar 2000 15:52:51 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <38C6D7D2.1ECA1C6C@erols.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 15:54:39 -0800 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: David Lupher Subject: Query: hetairai & geishas My local Sunday paper reprints a Washington Post article about a retired Kyoto geisha, Mineko Iwasaka, who served as a major source for Arthur Golden's novel "Memoirs of a Geisha," which was on the NYT bestseller list for 58 weeks. She objects that "the book is all about sex. He wrote that book on the theme of women selling their bodies. It was not that way at all." And later she is quoted as saying, "In the field I was in, there was some sexual involvement, but it was not the basis of our work." Meanwhile, Mr. Golden (whose book I have not read) is quoted as saying that there are two myths about the geishas: "One myth is that geishas are prostitutes. That myth is wrong. The other myth is that geishas are not prostitutes. That myth is wrong, too." All of this put me in mind of ch. 4 of James Davidson's "Courtesans and Fishcakes" ("A Purchase on the Hetaera"). For example, on pp. 111-2 Davidson contrasts hetairai with pornai thus: Hetaeras, on the other hand, who are seduced by gifts, must make full use of the possiblities of discretion to avoid being seen as common prostitutes, while their enemies use all the lanaguage of the market-place to bring them back into line. Specifying is itself an issue in the sexual economy. If ancient men and modern scholars find it difficult to get a purchase on the hetaera this is not simply because the world of women is complicated. The hetaera goes to great lengths to avoid having herself and her relationships with men made explicit. Otherwise she would not be a hetaera. (By the way, I gather that his main evidence for such reticence on the part of a hetaera is the scene in Xenophon's "Memorabilia" in which Socrates visits the wealthy hetaera Theodote and "Socratically" quizzes her on her mysterious source of income. "Are you a landowner?" etc. Her coy reply is that her source of income is her "friends." It occurs to me that Theodote could have displayed an hetaira's characteristic wit and asked Socrates about *his* main source of income. Would he not have been constrained to give the same answer?) Now, I have long been in the habit of casually comparing the ancient Greek hetaira with the modern Japanese geisha, and a juxtaposition of this news article with Davidson's discussion seems to confirm that somewhat. But what I want to ask of those who know more about geishas (or, for that matter, hetairai) than I do is: how valid is the comparison? What are some of the main points of similarity? What are the main differences? Are the differences sufficiently fundamental to discourage my further use of the analogy? (Subquestions: Are or were geishas paid by the hour or by the service? Are/were they paid a fixed fee, or is/was a major portion of their income something more fluid, more like the "gifts" Theodote got from her "friends." That is, where does the relationship between a geisha and her clients fall in the spectrum between commododity exchange and gift exchange?) David Lupher Classics Dept. Univ. of Puget Sound .