Chōkyōsai Eiri. Neat Version of a Love Letter or Pure Drawings of Female Beauty (Fumi no kiyogaki), plate 2 / Ōban album, 1801.

Artist: Chōkyōsai Eiri [鳥橋斎栄里] (Japanese, fl. c. 1759–1818)

Date: 1801 (Kyōwa 1)

Medium: Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper; Horizontal ōban, 249 x 375 mm

Genre: Shunga

Series: Fumi no kiyogaki (婦美の清書き, Neat Version of a Love Letter or Pure Drawings of Female Beauty) – Plate 2

With Eiri's second plate, we come upon an even more bizarre scene: in a tableau unrelated to Utamaro, a fair young harlot is seen masturbating with a grinding pestle, as a man watches intently from under bedding, behind a screen. This plate, too, will perhaps perplex the art critic, if not the general reader. But a potentially awkward situation is indeed displayed here with great grace; and, after one has absorbed the situation-and reflected upon the fact that, these days at least, women have the perfect right to do anything that men do—it must be recognized that the artist has executed a most difficult commission with great skill. — Richard Lane, 1999. [LIB-3445.2025] Chōkyōsai Eiri: Fumi no kiyogaki /Ed. Hayashi Fumichi. — Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 1996.

Dialogue from Fumi no kiyogaki, Plate 2

女（おんな）：「ああ、いく、ああ、どうしても…もっと奥を……って言っても、やっぱり、これとすりこぎばかりだ。こんな時は、誰でもいいのよ。ユー、またいく……ああ……」
男（おとこ）：「なんだか騒がしい。ひちゃくくと、とろでも擦るような。大方、岡のサクがまた始めたか。あれほど飛ばしても……どうか俺も“味”になった。これから“しんぐいぐい”だ。」

Woman:
“Ah, I’m coming… I just can’t stop… deeper…! But even so, it’s always just me and this grinding pestle. At times like this, anyone will do. You, I’m going again… ahh…”

Man:
“Sounds noisy in there. Like rubbing a gooey yam or something. Must be that oka girl starting her tricks again. Even after all that thrashing… somehow, I’ve ended up in that same strange state. Time for a little shingui-gui.”

Note:

• “ユー (You)” reflects the incorporation of foreign words, often from Dutch or English, that began entering the pleasure quarters' language as playful exoticism in the late Edo period.
• “岡 (oka)” is shorthand for okabasho, informal red-light districts.
• “しんぐいぐい（shingui-gui）” is a popular comic or erotic song from the Kansei era (1789–1801), also known as Yarekorya-bushi — possibly sung or referenced here as part of the sexual rhythm or post-climactic amusement.

The whole album can be seen here: SVJP-0034.2015