Mizuage

Ceremony undergone by apprentice courtesans and some apprentice geisha (pre 1956)

was a ceremony undergone by apprentice oiran (kamuro) and some maiko (apprentice geisha) as part of their coming of age ceremony and graduation. For kamuro, who had often already lost their virginity, a patron would pay for the exclusive privilege of being a new oiran's first customer; for maiko who underwent mizuage, it formed part of a number of ceremonies and occasions used to mark graduation into geishahood, including symbolic changes in hairstyle and official visits to benefactors. Before the outlawing of prostitution in Japan, maiko who underwent mizuage would see patrons and benefactors bid large sums of money for the privilege of taking their virginity, a sum of money the okiya (the geisha house an apprentice was affiliated to) would take entirely. In the present day, a maiko's graduation is known as 'turning the collar [of a kimono]'; 襟替え; erikae, and is entirely non sexual, though some older sources – such as the autobiography of Mineko Iwasaki, the geisha that inspired the character Sayuri in the novel Memoirs of a Geisha by
author Arthur Golden refer to the non sexual graduation of maiko to geishahood as mizuage. Kamuro, and courtesans as an extension, exist in a wholly non sexual capacity in modern day Japan; oiran re enactment parades are performed by actors, and tayū perform their profession's traditional arts without the inclusion of sex work. In both capacities, the kamuro of both oiran (who are merely actors in a parade) and tayū (for whom the role is a profession) do not engage in sex work as part of a 'graduation' out of apprenticeship.

Mizuage has been long connected with the loss of virginity of a maiko, owing to the fact that some maiko did undergo ceremonies to lose their virginity. Mizuage for a maiko would also include monetary sponsorship by the mizuage patron, intended to support and promote the maiko's debut to geisha status. Through this sponsorship of the apprentice, a patron would essentially purchase the right to take the maiko's virginity. the practice of mizuage formed an important initiation into womanhood and the role of an independent geisha; according to the research of anthropologist Liza Dalby, though this process was generally not pleasant, for many, it was perceived as a natural stage in growing up, with trainees in the same age cohort who had not graduated viewed by their peers as having been somewhat left behind.

Arthur Golden's novel Memoirs of a Geisha portrays mizuage as a financial arrangement in which a girl's virginity is sold to a "mizuage patron", generally someone who particularly enjoys sex with virgin girls, or merely enjoys the charms of an individual maiko. Former geisha Sayo Masuda describes mizuage in her 1957 autobiography Autobiography of a Geisha as sexual exploitation. Masuda describes being sold multiple times by her okiya to men, ostensibly for the purposes of taking her virginity, under the pretence that she had not yet lost it. The transaction was explicitly a sexual arrangement, far removed from the ceremony of graduating into geishahood, netting the okiya a large profit. Despite her personal experiences, Masuda argued against the outlawing of sex work in Japan, explaining that it provided a way for women to make an independent living when chosen as a profession, and through criminalisation, would merely be driven underground.