For women writers during the 1910s through the 1940s, writing sexuality meant negotiating various restrictions from social censure to censorship. With this context in mind, this chapter discusses short stories by Tamura Toshiko and novels by Sata Ineko, focusing on the complexities they articulate in confronting patriarchal systems and the status quo. These tales exploring sexuality cannot be seen simply as expressions of celebratory decadence (Tamura) or socialist resistance (Sata); they grapple with early 20th-century realities of male-female inequality, as well as the challenges of treating taboo topics such as sexual violence and adultery.

Introduction

“Sexuality” can encompass many things, from identity to sexual practice. This chapter focuses on female sexual awakening, expression, desire, and violence (in heterosexual contexts) in works by Tamura Toshiko (1884–1945) and Sata Ineko (1904–1998). These narratives are powerful: some feature intimate or even taboo aspects of female experiences, while others investigate love (including its sexual expression) as a key part of modern female subjectivity. As works published in early 20th-century Japan (1910s–1940s)—when women did not have the same rights as men and means of self-expression were limited—these stories are all the more courageous for challenging male-centered voices and perspectives.

Female narratives about sexuality are often viewed as liberatory, but it is important to remember that prewar women writers had to navigate restrictions in ways that did not apply to their male counterparts. Both men and women may have faced similar issues of censorship, but women were burdened by additional concerns when writing sexuality “authentically” (based on personal experience or not). In a world where male authorship was considered the standard (Copeland 2006), women authors writing about female sexuality from a woman’s point of view could convey a sense of authenticity and authority. But at the same time, such writing could lead to social censure and other problems. Writing about adultery as a married woman, for example, would have invited unwanted suspicions and even danger, due to the existence of kantsūzai (crime of adultery), which punished a wife’s infidelity but not a husband’s (men could only be punished for sexual liaisons with married women).