Terms
Several terms have been used as euphemisms for the sex industry in Japan:
- Baishun (売春), literally "selling spring" or "selling youth", has turned from a mere euphemism into a legal term used in, for instance, the title of the 1956 Anti-Prostitution Law (Baishun-bōshi-hō, 売春防止法); the modern meaning of the word is quite specific and it is usually only used for actual (i.e., illegal) prostitution. The word for "prostitute" in Japanese is baishunfu.
- Mizu shōbai (水商売), the "water trade", is a wider term that covers the entire entertainment industry, including the legitimate, the illegal, and the borderline.
- Fūzoku (風俗), literally "public morals", is commonly used to refer specifically to the sex industry, although in legal use this covers, e.g., dance halls and gambling, and the more specific term seifūzoku (性風俗), "sexual morals", is used instead. The term originates from a law regulating business affecting public morals.
Read more about this topic: Prostitution In Japan
Famous quotes containing the word terms:
“Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest.... It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms of ideas destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“I am a patient man—always willing to forgive on the Christian terms of repentance; and also to give ample time for repentance.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“It is not [the toddler’s] job yet to consider other people’s feelings, he has to come to terms with his own first. If he hits you and you hit him back to “show him what it feels like,” you will have given a lesson he is not ready to learn. He will wail as if hitting was a totally new idea to him. He makes no connections between what he did to you and what you then did to him; between your feelings and his own.”
—Penelope Leach (20th century)