Back in the Edo period there was lots of shunga that pictured mothers breastfeeding even when entertaining their partner. It also looks like the the breasts diidnt enjoy the same level as detail by the artists as the genitalia. The nipples were not drawn in or coloured. Yoshihiko Shirakawa an expert of the Edo period and shunga was once askedwhat Japanese men thought of breasts at tat time.
“It appears that men of the Edo period considered breast to be a tool for child rearing,” he says. “They were not a sexualized part of the body. In shunga from the early Edo Period, men and women were depicted with largely similar chests. From the point of view of the artists, breasts really didn’t seem to matter.”
Utamaro in particular had difficulty concealing his fondness for breasts. He often depicted prostitutes boldly baring their chests or Kintaro.
But maybe it’s not as simple as saying that most men during the Edo Period weren’t aware of breasts’ sexual component. In shunga depicting sexual positions where the man is shown eagerly taking a breast in his mouth, the woman is shown with an expression of ecstasy on her face.
Maybe we can take a lesson from these Japanese prints and acknowledge breast feeding as a natural act of child rearing and not a sexual act. 2017 and we are still up in arms about breast feeding, even this week a lady was asked to cover up in the Albert and Victoria Museum, which seemed hypercritical as many of the exhibits were also showing breasts.
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