Shudo
A Tale based on Historical Fact
By Maryanne Peters

I am no student of history. Please do not take my word as truth in these matters. I am but a humble youth, who lived by the way of such people, until I was forced to choose. All that I can do is tell you something of what happened in my country and how I was forced to choose.

My country is Nippon, or in America it is called Japan, and people like me are Japanese. When I was born my nation was isolated from the world, and had been for over 250 years. We called this period the Edo Era. We followed our own traditions, and to speak of them now makes them seem very strange.

When Commodore Perry arrived in Japan [1853] and the old world collapsed, we call this time bakumatsu, I was a youth. We say wakashu, But that word has a special meaning, even now. Back then I was under the protection of Keizo Manahiro. He was my mentor and my lover, in accordance with our custom.

When I say I was a youth, I understand that this is a word in English that can mean either a boy or a girl, or perhaps somebody who is neither, or both. That was our way, and had been that way for a very long time.

Some boys were raised in other traditions. Many will know of the way of the warrior – bushido. This is the way of the youth – wakashudo, or just the way – shudo.

My family was neither rich nor poor, but I was a good-looking child. Even before I reached the age of seven Keizo approached my family to express his desire that I become his. My father did not agree straight away. He wanted proof that Keizo’s intentions were honorable. I understand that my father was also wakashu, which might make it easier to understand, but he preferred not to confirm this.

Before I went to Keizo, I lived as a boy lives, but as wakashu I gave up that for a life that some may call “in between”, although I do not. Wakashu wear special clothes and have a special hairstyle. The clothing is that of a woman, but sometimes with some small differences. The hairstyle also appears to be like that of a woman, but with a shaved area across the top which marks a wakashu as being something else. The forelock can be thick, or like mine, marked with a peak in front that men find very attractive. It can be worn in a way that shows off who you are, or to feign the appearance of a woman.

People say that a wakashu is a third sex, and it is known that there are some children who are born that seem to be neither male nor female. But so long as it is only temporary, can it be called that? These are boys who are used for sex as if they are women – their anuses penetrated. And in our society, this is not only accepted but honored by the highest of classes. It is the subject of art and song. People talk of the special beauty of a wakashu – like the cherry blossom – and the special delights of making love to one of us – like the sweetest cherry.

Our society, and in particular the samurai class, admire masculinity, but also wish to see the pretty young men dressed as women and behave like them, and cry out when they are thrust into. It is so very hard to understand.

Throughout the Edo period there are many works of art that depict a wakashu, in particular shunga prints – erotic drawings that are often displayed on the walls and cabinet tops of fine homes. Many show men with women, but many more show a man with his wakashu, sometimes in the very act of impaling. This was considered high art then, and even now people collect these prints and speak of times gone past.

It seemed that a wakashu was more exciting than women. Some women who sell their bodies would even dress as a wakashu to excite their customers. Many men, even of lesser classes, sought to have their own wakashu. But according to custom a man must commit to provide for their charge. There is an exchange of sacred vows, like those my father insisted upon from Keizo. He promised to provide for me and to be “a role model”. In return, I promised to respect and obey him, and to give him my body for his pleasure.

He took his pleasure. What do you learn from that? He told me that I was never to act or speak as a boy or man, not only in his presence but at all times. How can you learn to be a man like that? He entered me and he filled me – how can that help me to be a man?

How could I really learn the ways of a man when I am bound to live as if I was a woman? My father explained that Keizo was of the warrior class, and living in his household and sharing his bed, I could learn from him. I learned that people like Keizo need to dominate, and for them a sexual partner who is a weak and soft woman is not enough. Keizo needed a male body under him to feel fully male, and yet one who was feminine enough so that he could convince himself that this was in accordance with nature.

He took his pleasure but that was not allowed for me. A wakashu is never permitted to love their mentor back or to seek love from anybody other than his mentor. That would be a perversion - homosexuality. People would say that the love a man has for his wakashu is not that – it is something special. Declarations of extreme love for the young man that you had sex with were the subject of passionate poems. It may include drawing blood as a symbol of the intensity of feelings. That was all normal in those times.

In return I was expected to be grateful There should be no love back, but as I never loved Keizo, that is fine. I should not enjoy his lovemaking, so I would cry out in pain, like I did the first time. But after the third or fourth time, the cry was a lie.

After I lived as a wakashu I found that I could never love a woman, and never love anybody except as a woman.

Nothing about the role of a mentor requires him to be faithful to his wakashu. Just like men and women in our society, men and in particular men of wealth or class may seek out other wakashu or women. I remained faithful to my vows for many years. It was only when I discovered that I could be loved as a woman that I decided that when my time came, I would not return to manhood, if I had ever truly been there.

The way it is supposed to be is that when a youth has learned the way of a man, then tradition has it that his forelock will be shaved from his head in the style of a grown man, and he shall go forward in life, forever grateful to his patron and mentor.

The genpuku or coming of age, should take place at the age of 17 or thereabouts, but for some wakashu it can come late, and for some, never.

Older wakashu keep dressing in a feminine way and keep their forelock to mark their bodies as for sale to men for sex. Of course men like Keizo would never consider an old wakashu as desirable. That would be homosexuality, and that would be shameful. But there are many of these people - o-wakashu or “senior youth”.

Some seek business among men of lower station who may prefer the bodies of men, and perhaps in the appearance of a woman that seems more appropriate, but some who could never have their own wakashu and can dream of what it might be like just by having one for an evening – even an older one.

That was not my future. I wanted more, but I wanted to live the feminine life that I had learned to love.

We have an old book in Japan by a great writer, Ihara Saikuku, which is about wakashu. It is called “The Great Mirror of Male Love – The Custom of Boy Love in Our Land“, written almost 200 years ago. Saikuku-san explains it like this – there are the admirers of boys and there are the woman haters who will never lie with a woman. I think that Keizo was of the latter kind.

I learned that before me Keizo had with him a “senior youth” like one described in the book. But the shogun discouraged these partners as dishonorable. Keizo’s partner was sent away. I heard that because he was of samurai class he chose to end his life by seppuku in accordance with bushido.

Because of this Keizo was determined not to become attached to me, and only for that am I grateful to him. But he kept me as his for long after the time for genpuku. When I spoke of leaving Keizo had used his ritual dagger to ensure that I could never be a true man. He said that it was simply to keep me young for a few more years.

But then came bakumatsu and in what is called the Meiji period. Suddenly all old traditions were questioned as not being compatible with the modern world. The new world disapproved of homosexuality and to try to explain that a man sticking his penis into the anus of a young man dressed as a woman was not homosexuality because it was a tradition, sounds very strange.

Once it was branded as homosexuality then all wakashu were shamed, and all their patrons were too. All forelocks were shaved, although that hairstyle for men would not last either – except in the sumo ring.

But for me, I could not abandon my hair. I grew the shaven part and pinned it up in the style of a woman. There was no future for me as a man.

Still I was marked in my society. People knew what I was. For that reason I decided that I would need to leave.

With the final collapse of the uprising by Enomoto Takeaki and his French mercenary “advisers” at the Battle of Hakodate, in 1869 when 600 rebels took on 6,000 imperial troops, the Meiji era was confirmed. Japan opened to the world and some Japanese stepped out into the world. The first to go to America are called issei, or the first generation. I was with them. We left in 1870 when I was 35 years old, and regarded as too old for bearing children. But I was clever and I learned to speak and to read and write English when this was very unusual – after all only a few years before all languages but Japanese were considered animal noises.

I have now spent more than half of my life living outside the nation of my birth. I have used my language skills to develop a trading business dealing in Japanese artifacts that are in great demand as decorative pieces.

I even have some shunga prints, some of which I can easily recognize that the woman being ravished carried that small shaved part on the head that marks her as not being a complete woman, but I do not need to explain that to Western collectors. The images that show the woman has a penis are less popular in America

Nobody would think me anything other than a woman, unless I was to appear before them naked. Even then I like to think that they might choose to disbelieve their own eyes, as many have.

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2021

Author’s Note: I have always been fascinated by the wakashu tradition and all its internal contradictions in Japanese aristocratic society at the time. I hope this one is worthy of comment, or perhaps questions?