Bestiality is a recurring theme within the shunga genre, such as dogs, cats and Hokusai Shunga Prints With Copulating Hokusai Shunga Prints With Copulating Hokusai Shunga Prints With Copulating Hokusai Shunga Prints With Copulating Hokusai Shunga Prints With Copulating Hokusai Shunga Prints With Copulating Hokusai Shunga Prints With Copulating Hokusai Shunga Prints With Copulating Hokusai Shunga Prints With Copulating Hokusai Shunga Prints With Copulating Hokusai Shunga Prints With Copulating Hokusai Shunga Prints With Copulating Hokusai Shunga Prints With Copulating Mice and Dogs (P2)"
Form of Parody
Sexual acts between humans and animals are also shown, but mainly in the form of a parody. Usually one human (either a man or woman) has sex with a single animal, typically a dog or a horse. Below some striking examples involving the latter and some rare ones with camels...
Fig.1. ‘Horse and rider making love’ (c.1835) from the series ‘The Floral Road to the Capital (Hana no miyakoji)‘ by Utagawa Kunisada
Blooming Cherry Tree
Kunisada displays his creativity in ehon (book) shunga here (Fig.1), with a horse mounting a blooming cherry tree while his rider forces himself on a country woman nearby.
Fig.1a.
Fig.1b.
Fig.2. ‘Farm woman being penetrated by a horse‘ (c.1834) from the series ‘Sato no yozakura‘ attrib. to Utagawa Yoshinobu (1838-1890)
Resentment
Farm women (Fig.2) are an often amusing character type in shunga, making love with their husbands or lovers while working in the field, but also being forced to have sex with local samurai. In general, shunga was created by members of the artisan class for wealthy merchants, both of whom in social terms were ranked lower than farmers and who were unfavorably compared by samurai with the latter as weak. This naturally caused resentment, which found humorous expression in, for example, portrayals of healthy farm women being strong enough to have sex with horses and oxen.
Fig.3. 'Various copulating animals ' (1771) from the series 'A River of Admonitions for Women with Love Letters' by Tsukioka Settei (1710-1787)
Human Fornicating
Inscriptions for figure 3 read: 'From fowl to insects and beasts, the basics of copulation are illustrated here. These three representatives of the types are useful as examples for human fornicating, and so illustrations have been included.' (Translation Andrew C. Gerstle)
Fig.4. Koban-sized print depicting a
