Japan’s lustful nature has deep cultural origins. The Japanese have two different understandings of “color”, which is broader than our widely understood “color”, including not only “erotica” meaning, as well as the meaning of color. Below I will elaborate on these two aspects respectively.

Let’s first talk about the “color (がおいろ)” of color. The emergence of Japan’s “color” culture started with color. This starts with the formation of the Japanese nation.

According to the research of ethnologists, the ancestors of Japan were formed by a mixture of the primitive inhabitants of the mainland, the primitive tribes of the south and the indigenous inhabitants of Japan. The spirit of the Japanese nation is also a mixture of the (primitive) cultures of these nations. spiritual traditions. What plays a dominant role among these spirits, that is, what forms the bottom line of Japanese national cultural spirit, is the ideological spirit of Japan's indigenous residents. The essence of this spirit is the narrow, delicate, sensitive, simple and other character traits of the island residents. Here, I want to boldly criticize the prejudice against Japanese culture by some people who do not understand Japanese culture. This is not to defend the Japanese, but to refute such shallow ideas academically. These people always think that the Japanese culture is completely borrowed from others. In fact, Japanese culture is composed of two parts-the surface layer and the deep layer of culture. The surface layer of Japanese culture is all the foreign culture absorbed, including Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism absorbed from China, and modern culture learned from the West. Of course, many of these ideas have also become a deep part of Japanese culture over a long period of localization. However, when Japan absorbs foreign culture, it does not accept it in full but draws on part of it. This shows that there is something deep in the Japanese heart. A kind of local bottom-level cultural origin. This cultural origin is reflected in the Jomon pattern of Japanese culture and the cultural psychology formed during the Yayoi period - the island nation's temperament: frugal image, simplicity and indifference, sensitivity and slenderness, respect for nature, and open sensibility. The admiration for nature has formed the Japanese people's beauty of natural colors.

This cultural natural color is still preserved in the hearts of Japanese people to this day. In particular, their love for the colors of forests and oceans is unmatched by other nations. This is determined by the early living environment of the Japanese - densely forested islands and oceans producing seafood. As a result, Japanese people have also become interested in the elegant and simple colors in nature: blue sea, blue cedar forest, white snow, green plants, and bright moon. These also form the basic aspects of Japanese natural beauty. It gave rise to the philosophical realm of "harmony between man and nature".

So, when looking at the Japanese “color” culture historically, we cannot but talk about the Japanese’s views on color.

The Japanese nation is a nation that does not like to use strong colors. The color concept expressed in literary works, paintings, architecture, clothing, etc. confirms this view.

Let’s talk about another meaning of "color" - "erotica (じょういろ)". The reason why pornographic culture is so widely spread in Japan that we don't understand is because "erotica" has a long history and tradition in Japan. As a part of Japanese culture, "erotica" is also related to the formation of Japanese characteristics. Japan's original marriage system has existed for a long time. Unlike mainland China, which had taboos and restrictions on marriage and sex very early (Spring and Autumn Period), when Japan introduced mainland culture in the early Asuka period, the marriage system was still a remnant of incest marriage. It was not until the Dahua Reform that there were institutional provisions for this type of "polygamy". Therefore, when Japan formed its own national culture, this open attitude towards sex had already penetrated into its national characteristics.

This characteristic begins in the myth about the origin of Japan. According to the mythological records in "Kojiki" and "Nihon Shoki": the male and female gods Izanagi and Izanami saw a pair of love doves kissing and imitated their kissing. They witnessed the union of a pair of wagtails and were inspired. Izanagi asked: "How is your body?" Izanagi replied: "My body is gradually becoming complete, but there is one place that has not been closed yet." Izanagi said: "My body is okay. "There is an extra place, so I will give it to you." So the pair of gods couldn't help but merge into one, producing the Japanese islands, mountains, rivers and vegetation, as well as Amaterasu and the eight million gods who control the islands and everything in the world. People call this union "divine marriage."

It can be seen from this that Japanese gods can enjoy love and sex calmly. There are no sexual taboos based on religious reasons in Japan, and they have adopted a very tolerant attitude towards love and sex. This is also the Japanese people's view of sex.

Different from mainland culture’s attitude towards sex, Japanese culture adopts an open attitude. When Japan absorbed a large amount of mainland culture, it only absorbed some things that were useful for their social progress, and rejected those that conflicted with their inherent culture. In particular, they are very dissatisfied with the asceticism of Buddhism, because Japanese culture does not believe that sex and Buddhism are in opposition. On the contrary, it values ??human nature and lust, and adopts a tolerant attitude towards love and sex. Japanese monks have the right to "eat meat and marry wives." In the early Kamakura period of the 13th century, Shinran, the founder of the Pure Land sect, married Enobu Ni; in the middle of the 15th century, the Muromachi sect's famous Rinzai sect Ikkyu was famous for his alcoholism and lust, and many erotic poems in his "Kungunshu" wrote about boudoir secrets; in the 18th century, Jiang In the middle of the household, the famous monk Liang Kuan met and fell in love with the beautiful female disciple Zhen Xinni. Japan's Shinto and Buddhism have no restrictions on sex, which has affected Japanese people's ethics and daily life about sex.

In the Edo period, when Zhu Xixue was the ruling ideology of "preserving natural principles and destroying human desires", the Tokugawa shogunate banned behaviors that conflicted with Zhu Xixue in society. In particular, the government banned the performance of the "love death" scene in kabuki. Moreover, there was also the "Lan Zheng Ban of Foreign Studies",[3] which announced the banning of doctrines other than Zhu Xi's studies. But the government's repressive policies met with resistance from the people. In philosophy, "Chinese scholars" emerged, among whom Mabuchi Kamo and Nobunaga Motoi clearly put forward a view that was opposite to the abstinence in Zhu Xi's studies, focusing on the catharsis of instinct and returning to the original character of the Japanese. Kamo believes: "Chinese teachings go against the nature of heaven and earth...because of the names of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trust, they bind things." Motoi Nobunaga went a step further. He devoted his life to the love story "The Tale of Genji" "The revival of the book encouraged the hedonism of the town people, and even Hirata Atsuhin, who regarded himself as orthodox, was known as a praiser of the liberation of carnal desires, and among his followers there was a group that regarded "yendo" as its tradition. [4] This also illustrates the conflict between Japan’s inherent culture and foreign culture. In literature, there are lustful literature represented by Ihara Saikaku, Chikamatsu Monzaemon's lustful Joruri, and Kabuki scripts. One of Chikamatsu's plays was the sensational "Sonezaki Love Death", which was staged by many theater companies in Kyoto and Osaka, creating a craze. This is also the Japanese people's resistance to the foreign Zhu Xixue as the government's ruling ideology. The lustful tradition from ancient times to the Edo period has also penetrated into the blood of modern romanticism, naturalism, aestheticism, etc.

Japan’s tolerant attitude towards sex is also reflected in daily living habits. Anyone who has been to Japan thinks that Japanese people love to be clean and "must take a bath every day." Moreover, there is a special phenomenon in Japan, which is mixed bathing between men and women. This may seem immoral to people from other countries, but the Japanese face this matter calmly and do not think it violates any ethics. It is normal. Because sex and marriage are separate in Japan, they adopt a tolerant attitude towards nudity.