Invading Sexuality: Perception and Response in Postwar Japan, 1945-1957

Abstract

This dissertation examines Japan during the Allied Occupation and the intersection of Occupation goals for remaking Japan into a peaceful, democratic nation with domestic constructs of sexuality. This study demonstrates how prostitution, sex education, birth control, and obscenity served as crucial lenses to understand how the occupier and occupied attempted to shape sexuality within a complex Occupation power structure incorporating both the victorious Allied Forces and the defeated Japanese government. Rather than proposing a narrative of a dominant occupier subjugating the occupied, this dissertation shows how that dual-power structure allowed Japanese politicians and activists to undermine Occupation reform in order to mitigate perceived negative influences upon domestic notions of proper sexuality and reaffirm a Japanese-constructed sexuality for post-Occupation sovereign Japan.