Sada Abe - Later Life

Later Life

Upon release from prison, Abe assumed an alias. As the mistress of a "serious man" she referred to in her memoirs as "Y", she moved first to Ibaraki Prefecture and then to Saitama Prefecture. When Abe's true identity became known to Y's friends and family, she broke off their relationship.

In the aftermath of World War II, wishing to divert public attention from politics and criticism of the occupying authorities, the Yoshida government encouraged a "3-S" policy — "sports, screen, and sex". This change from the strict pre-war censorship of materials labeled obscene or immoral helped enable a change in the tone of literature on Abe. Pre-war writings, such as The Psychological Diagnosis of Abe Sada (1937) depict Abe as an example of the dangers of unbridled female sexuality and as a threat to the patriarchal system. In the postwar era, she was treated as a critic of totalitarianism, and a symbol of freedom from oppressive political ideologies. Abe became a popular subject in literature of both high and low quality. The buraiha writer, Oda Sakunosuke, wrote two stories based on Abe, and a June 1949 article noted that Abe had recently tried to clear her name after it had been used in a "mountain" of erotic books.

In 1946 the writer Ango Sakaguchi interviewed Abe, treating her as an authority on both sexuality and freedom. Sakaguchi called Abe a "tender, warm figure of salvation for future generations". In 1947 The Erotic Confessions of Abe Sada became a national best-seller, with over 100,000 copies sold. The book was in the form of an interview with Sada Abe, but was actually based on the police interrogation records. Angry that he had implied that the book was based on interviews he had made with her, Abe sued the author, Ichiro Kimura, for libel and defamation of character. The result of the lawsuit is not known, but it is assumed to have been settled out of court. As a response to this book, Abe wrote her own autobiography, Memoirs of Abe Sada. In contrast to Kimura's depiction of her as a pervert, she stressed her love for Ishida. The first edition of the magazine True Story (実話, Jitsuwa?), in January 1948, featured previously unpublished photos of the incident with the headline "Ero-guro of the Century! First Public Release. Pictorial of the Abe Sada Incident." Reflecting the change in tone in writings on Abe, the June 1949 issue of Monthly Reader calls her a "Heroine of That Time", for following her own desires in a time of "false morality" and oppression.

Abe capitalized on her notoriety by sitting for an interview in a popular magazine, and appearing for several years in a traveling stage production called Showa Ichidai Onna (A Woman of the Showa Period). In 1952 she began working at the Hoshikikusui, a working-class pub in Inari-cho, downtown Tokyo. She lived a low-profile life in Tokyo's Shitaya neighborhood for the next 20 years, and her neighborhood restaurant association gave her a "model employee" award. More than once, during the 1960s, film-critic Donald Richie visited the Hoshikikusui. In his collection of profiles, Japanese Portraits, he describes Abe making a dramatic entrance into a boisterous group of drinkers. She would slowly descend a long staircase that led into the middle of the crowd, fixing a haughty gaze on individuals in her audience. The men in the pub would respond by putting their hands over their crotches, and shouting out things like, "Hide the knives!" and "I'm afraid to go and pee!" Abe would slap the banister in anger and stare the crowd into an uncomfortable and complete silence, and only then continue her entrance, chatting and pouring drinks from table to table. Richie comments, "...she had actually choked a man to death and then cut off his member. There was a consequent frisson when Sada Abe slapped your back."

In 1969 Abe appeared in the "Sada Abe Incident" section of director Teruo Ishii's dramatized documentary History of Bizarre Crimes by Women in the Meiji Taisho and Showa Eras (明治大正昭和　猟奇女犯罪史, Meiji Taisho Showa Ryoki Onna Hanzaishi?), and the last known photograph of Abe was taken in August of that year, She disappeared from the public eye for good in 1970. When the film In the Realm of the Senses was being planned in the mid 1970s, director Nagisa Oshima apparently sought out Abe and, after a long search, found her, her hair shorn, in a Kansai nunnery.