Vintage Japanese postwar strippers from kasutori culture still sexy

Decades pass. Fashions and fads come and go. But one thing remains the same: strippers are hot.

These ladies from the 1940s and 1950s certainly knew how to entertain male audiences back in the days of prewar Japan, including, no doubt, more than their fair share of American GIs. We can imagine Donald Richie watching and admiring them, perhaps with a whiskey or two in hand.

In our more “enlightened” and morally “free” times, the girls from AKB48 keep their clothes on, pubic hair is pixellated, and pop stars aren’t allowed to have boyfriends. And heaven help you if you’re caught with drugs because your career is over.

Perhaps we could learn something from these early postwar ladies. Having just shaken off the horrors of war and liberated by many of the reforms of the United States, the emerging “kasutori culture” was a time for drinking shochu, shrugging off hardships and escaping into hedonism.

Here is an example from 1951, showing a strip show with a “milk bath” gimmick.

Here is the actor Tony Tani in 1931 with some strippers in military uniforms.

A little later and we start to see some really amazing love hotels and nude shoots.

The history of Japanese love hotels goes back further, of course. Here is one in Shinjuku’s Nichome in 1950, back when the area was an akasen (red-light district) and not yet the gay nightlife center of Tokyo.