Base Cultures: Sex Workers and Servicemen in Occupied Japan SARAH KOVNER This article examines how the bodies of Japanese women became a key site of pol- itical and cultural contestation during the Allied occupation. The sale of sex, once legally recognized and regulated, became a conspicuous symbol of postwar chaos. Ostracizing sex workers who catered to servicemen provided a means to display an abiding nationalism without directly confronting the occupiers. But these women were also indispensable in the economy of military base cities. Journalists and social critics sought to discern or impose order by devising elaborate taxonomies, cartographies, health regimes, and moral codes. Sex workers were active participants in this process, but their personal testimonies show how their lives defied categorization. When the Diet finally intervened with the 1956 Prostitution Prevention Law, it was merely the culmination of a long process involving every segment of Japanese society. I N OCTOBER 1946, YOSHIDA Sumiko sent a letter to Allied occupation authorities: “Please make it possible for hundreds of women to go home freely to their fathers and mothers as soon as possible. We can do nothing because the employer holds the notes for our debt” (USNA 1946c). 1 Yoshida wrote seeking her freedom. As a matter of law, Commander in Chief Douglas MacArthur had ordered it earlier that year, when he directed the Japanese government to abro- gate all laws that permitted licensed prostitution and nullified all contracts that committed any woman to the practice (USNA 1946a). But MacArthur’ s decree did not close the market in sexual services, nor did it free women from all forms of debt bondage. It merely deregulated the market. With deep poverty and an influx of American and British Commonwealth servicemen, there were unparalleled incentives and opportunities to sell sex for money. Streetwalkers known as panpan quickly became a vivid and contentious symbol of the Allied occupation. 2 In the military base areas, a flood of new sex Sarah Kovner (kovner@ufl.edu) is Assistant Professor of History and Asian Studies at the University of Florida. 1 The names of all sex workers have been changed. “Allied occupation” refers to the period from August 1945 to April 1952 when Japan was subject to foreign control and occupied by Allied troops. 2 There is no one word—in English or in Japanese—that describes the world of panpan, formerly licensed prostitutes, base workers, and other women who sold sexual services from 1945 to 1956, much less all of the others who profited from this trade. “Sex worker” is a term coined by prac- titioners themselves to describe the sale of sexual services. It has some problems, as it was not The Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 68, No. 3 (August) 2009: 777–804. © 2009 The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. doi:10.1017/S0021911809990052 http:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021911809990052 Downloaded from http:/www.cambridge.org/core. Columbia University Libraries, on 19 Sep 2016 at 12:50:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at