Making Sex in Literature : The Effect of the Controversy over Sexual Desire in Katai Tayama's Futon

Abstract

In the famous controversy over the erotic passages of Futon, the moot point was how sexual desire should be defined. In the process, it was gradually de-sexualized and finally translated into human nature or life itself. As a result, describing sexual desire had become a literary mission. Naturalist writers like Tayama, while attacking other discourses on sexuality as obscene, assumed the part of enlightening readers about sexuality as a privileged owner of sexual knowledge. Thus naturalistic fiction had acquired the privilege of narrating and making sex.