Japan’s classical ars erotica takes the aesthetics of refinement to extreme heights of sophistication and subtlety but also displays astonishing levels of violence. Like Islam, Japanese culture is postaxial and largely derivative, borrowing heavily from the rich cultural resources of earlier, axial-age traditions in neighboring lands. But in contrast to the multiple sources of cultural assimilation (Jewish, Christian, Greek, Roman, Persian, and Indian) that Islam absorbed through its ever-expanding conquest of new territories, ancient Japan, as an island civilization on the far eastern border of the civilized world, displayed a much more insular and one-sided approach, confining its cultural importations to Chinese sources. It imbibed them so deeply and extensively that one could almost describe classical Japanese culture as essentially defined by Chinese forms and ideas. But it also transformed them in creative and beautiful ways.