Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan 1700-1820 - Second Edition

During the Edo period in eighteenth-century Japan, erotic paintings and prints known today as shunga were popular among both men and women. Yet, prior to Tim Screech’s definitive study, Sex and the Floating World, no one had attempted to situate these overtly sexual images within the contexts of the sexual, gender, or class tensions of the time.

Newly revised and expanded, this second edition of Sex and the Floating World examines how and why these images were made and used. Along the way,...