The Arrest of Sayuri Ichijo--Early 1970s A Woman at the Crossroads of Sex and Freedom

The Arrest of Sayuri Ichijo--Early 1970s A Woman at the Crossroads of Sex and Freedom

In the early 1970s, Japan was experiencing rapid economic growth and urbanization, and society's values regarding sexual expression were shifting. Sexual topics that had once been kept secret were coming to the forefront through magazines and television. At the same time, however, sexual liberation was always accompanied by moral and legal restrictions.

At the forefront of this trend was stripper Sayuri Ichijo. She was more than just a naked woman; she shared the tension with the audience on stage, toggling between the boundaries of beauty and perversion. One night, her stage performance was broadcast on the late-night TV program "11PM," and the next day the Osaka Prefectural Police were inundated with calls telling them that it was "too much" and that they should "control it. She was then arrested.

In response to this uproar, writer Akiyuki Nosaka questioned society's repressive response to sexual expression. The more sexually explicit expression is made public, the less curiosity there is about it," he said. It is on the side of those who crack down on expression that abnormality lurks, and this is also a sign of social instability and intolerance.

Nosaka also expressed his strong discomfort with the behavior of those who watch late-night programs and then report it. If they don't want to watch it, they don't have to watch it, but what is the anger of those who go out of their way to watch it? The dark side of the repressed social psyche, where desire and fear over sex are intertwined, is exposed.

This incident was a moment that tested the freedom of sexual expression and society's acceptance of it. At the same time, it overlaps with the reality of the time when Nosaka himself was being tried as a "defendant for selling obscene documents. When the state attempts to uniformly control values, the anxiety and anger lurking within people's hearts rebounds like a mirror. This incident concerning sexuality and freedom of expression was a symbolic episode that challenged the boundaries between democracy and censorship in postwar Japan.