While the rest of the world is becoming increasingly obsessed with sex, the youth of Japan are doing the opposite and shunning intimacy, much to the despair of their government who predict a massive population decrease over the next decade. Dubbed ‘celibacy syndrome’ the crisis has taken a grip on Japanese culture that is in stark contrast to the graphic art of centuries past that depicts a freer attitude to erotica and everything that comes with it. So when exactly did the country that gave us Shunga turn into a nation of sexually-shy youngsters, and is this a sign of things to come for us Westerners in the future?
Judging by the reaction to the British Museum’s latest exhibition ‘Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art’, which explores the sexually explicit pictures of Samurai Japan our acceptance of graphic imagery might not be as willing as one initially may think. This year alone we’ve seen both Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus flauting their wares without so much as a blink of an eyelid from the majority of onlookers but when a collection of 400 year old paintings are displayed in a cultured and curated environment we seemingly come over all prudish.
Defending their recent ‘Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art’ exhibition, and ensuring there is a clear divide between the art on show and the graphic online imagery many of us have become desensitised to, the British Museum were quick to dismiss any notions that Shunga is in fact just very early porn…
‘Today Shunga gets treated like obscene pornography… but this is sexually explicit art, not pornography, produced to exactly the same technical perfection as art in other formats by the same people’.
The shock value that remains, however, is an interesting marker in defining our collective reception to sexual images that are less about the act itself and more about genuine intimacy. Unlike Japan’s current notion that women are less sexually driven than men, Shunga portrays a more equal gratification scenario that belies a recent Family Planning Association study, which claims, ‘Females do not experience the same levels of desire’.
Perhaps our response to the Shunga display at the British Museum isn’t so far removed from Japan’s current disinterest in love, however. Though we might be accepting of nudity and sexually explicit imagery in the media, our resistance towards genuine feelings and relationships remains intact. Distancing sex from love is becoming an ever-increasing problem in our society, so maybe we all need to get back to basics with the help of a little ancient art. It certainly couldn’t hurt.
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