The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife  

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Image:Dream of the fisherman's wife by hokusai.jpg
The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, an erotic woodcut made circa 1820 by Hokusai

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The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife is an erotic woodcut of the ukiyo-e genre made around 1820 by the Japanese artist Hokusai. Perhaps the first instance of tentacle eroticism, it depicts a woman entwined sexually with a pair of octopuses, the smaller of which kisses her while the larger one performs cunnilingus. A shot of the work printed on a postcard that is being looked at by Anaïs Nin (Maria de Medeiros) at the beginning of the 1990 film Henry & June earned that movie the very first NC-17 film rating. It is no coincidence that the wife in question is a fisherman's wife, the significance of the absence of men in fishermen's villages is also testified by the fact the first dildos were found in fishermen's villages.

History

Hokusai created The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife during the Edo period in when Shinto was making a resurgence; this influenced the piece's animism and playful attitude towards sexuality. It is a celebrated example of shunga and has been reworked by a number of artists. Similar themes of human females having sexual intercourse with sea life have been displayed since the 17th century in Japanese netsuke, small carved sculptures only a few inches in height and often extremely elaborate.



Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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