Women were shielded by curtains even when they spoke to male members of their own family. For a respectable woman to be seen in daylight, especially standing up, instead of reclining in an interior, under many layers of clothing, would have been provocative beyond belief. Women of the upper class sat hidden in murky rooms, behind curtains, screens, and sliding doors. One reason that physical contact between men and women is hardly ever described in “Genji” is that courtly lovers almost never saw one another clearly, and certainly not naked full nudity is rare even in traditional Japanese erotic art. A “morning after” poem was an essential part of etiquette. More poems would be exchanged as soon as the approach bore fruit. Quite literally so: the proper approach to a desired lady was through poems, written on scented paper of the finest quality, delivered by an elegantly dressed go-between of appropriate social rank. What counts in the seduction scenes is the art, the poetry. Things are suggested, alluded to, often nebulously. Not that any sexual act is ever mentioned very little in Murasaki Shikibu’s prose is plainly stated. Much of “The Tale of Genji,” the eleventh-century Japanese masterpiece often called the world’s first novel, is about the art of seduction.
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