Enlisting a small number of women to serve as a buffer protecting the chastity of the “good” women of Japan was well-established policy in dealing with Western barbarians. Special pleasure quarters had been set up for foreigners immediately after Commodore Perry forced the country to abolish its policy of seclusion, and in modern mythology one young woman who gave her body for the nation had already been glorified as a patriotic martyr. Her name was Okichi, and she had been assigned as a consort for Townsend Harris, the first American consul, who assumed his duties in 1856. The procurers of
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