Japan: Japanese prostitutes dressed as 'geisha' at a brothel catering to American occupation troops, Tokyo, 1948.

After the defeat of Imperial Japan in 1945, the Japanese authorities feared that US occupation forces might exploit Japanese women in the same way that the Japanese army had raped and brutalized women throughout East Asia during the war years. Accordingly, a ‘Recreation and Amusement Association’ was set up to ‘construct a dike to hold back the mad frenzy of the occupation troops and cultivate and preserve the purity of our race long into the future…’. By 1946 it was clear that the American forces were not about to go on raping sprees, and also that Japanese prostitutes, operating independently and often dressed as ‘geisha’ to appeal to the GIs, were doing brisk business. Faced with this reality, the Recreation and Amusement Association was shut down in 1946.

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