Taruho Inagaki
Taruho Inagaki (稲垣足穂) (December 26, 1900, – October 25, 1977), was a novelist known for writing stories about flight, mechanism, eroticism, and heavenly bodies (both on Earth and in outer space).
Life and work
Taruho was born in Senba, Osaka as the second son to a dentist. During elementary school, he lived Akashi city with his grandparents, and later moved to Kobe.
He began his career as a novelist by writing fantastical stories about aviation and heavenly bodies. Later, he turned his focus to the subject of boy-love, and wrote the novel "One Thousand and One Second Stories" [1] and the essay "Aesthetics of Boylove" (also known as 「少年愛の美学」 and "Asthetik der Knabenliebe"). The essay "Aesthetics of Boylove" won an award in 1969 from Nihon Bungaku Taisho (Japan Literature Grand Prize). [2]
Taruho's maiden work, One Thousand and One Second Stories, was revised countless times until he was satisfied. This was a habit which would reappear when he wrote "Aesthetics of Boylove", which also went through many editions.
His essay, 「A感覚とV感覚」, or "A-Sense and V-Sense", was first published in Gunzo magazine in 1945. [3]In this essay, Inagaki drew copious inspiration from his own youthful experiences and from Freud's developmental stages. He argues that humans are connected by one tube running through the body from mouth (O), to anus (A), which is regarded as the most important and essential of all erotic organs/sites including V[agina], P[enis] and K[litoris]*. He considers A to be "the paragon of the comic, primitive, innocent, and beautiful". A-Sense and V-Sense" garnered praise from many authors including Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, Kousaku Ikuta, Tatsumi Hijikata, Suehiro Tanemura, Juntaro Matsuyama, Ikuya Katou, Mutsuo Takahashi, Seigou Matsuoka, and Hiroshi Aramata, as a original unified erotic theory.
- =Inagaki uses the German spelling rather than the English spelling.
Aesthetics of Boylove
Taruho's compiled essay "Aesthetics of Boylove" went through many name changes and revisions throughout the years. It was originally published in 1958 in a magazine under the name "About Hypnide", which was then renamed to "Boylove Supremacy", which then again changed to "Aesthetics of Boylove", and finally became "Aesthetics of Boylove (Revised edition)". The contents as well, was revised and augemented many times, so that now it not simply limited to the topic of boylove. It also has high value as a work about unique emotional love in general.
In the 1973 edition, the contents is as follows:
Forward...7
Little Boy Hypnide...13
A-Sense Abstraction...95
Koya Sixty Nachi Eighty*...199
A long tale of autumn night...261
In the forward...he discusses his previous work, Memory of Hemmorhoids, and his inspirations for this work. In actuality, this work has nothing to do with hemorrhoids. He explains being inspired by Francois Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, and Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw". He describes it as his version of "The Turn of the Screw".
In Little Boy Hypnide...he talks about the development of the previously mentioned erotic zones in children. He believes that is unfair to associate the mouth with only ingestion of food or the anus with only excretion. In general, he argues, children are experts at making any part of their skin a “second erotic zone”.
In A-Sense Abstraction, he touches briefly on what is Paedicatio. (p.143)
- =This phrase is a reference to Mt. Koyasan and Mt. Nachisan. According to the phrase, in Koyasan and Nachisan nanshoku is so popular, that there are some people who can find a partner even when they are aged 60 or 80.
Thoughts on pederasty and nanshoku
"To sum things up, the mythical Latin word "pederastia" has morphed into the modern word "pederasty". Greek and Roman literature both use this word. Therefore, to describe the tradition of nanshoku in English, it is appropriate to use the term pederasty. The meaning is boy's love." [4]
Paedicatio
Paedicatio is a collection of highlights of his work that has to do with boys.
