Sada Abe
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Sada Abe (阿部 定 Abe Sada, 1905–?) is infamous in Japan for erotically asphyxiating her lover, Kichizo Ishida and then cutting off his penis and testicles on May 18, 1936, and carrying them around with her in her handbag.
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[edit] Abe Sada Panic
When her crime was discovered the next day, it was an instant sensation. With a "sexually and criminally dangerous woman on the loose," the nation was gripped with "Abe Sada panic". The media showered the public with details of how Sada, wrote "Sada and Kitchi together" on the sheets, in blood, and carved her name on his arm with a knife. She was able to avoid the police for three days before she was arrested, still carrying his severed genitalia. When she was apprehended on May 21, she was reported to be 'beaming with happiness.' Her story garnered her a great deal of sympathy in Japan, was avidly covered by the media, and was one of Japan's most notorious scandals.
She was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison. The sentence was commuted, however, in 1940, on the occasion of the celebration of the 2,600th year after Emperor Jimmu came to the throne. She then assumed an alias and later married, but her husband divorced her when he discovered her identity. Later she became an actress, portraying herself in several productions about the 1936 incident.
After her arrest, Ishida's penis and testicles were moved to the Tokyo University Medical School's pathology museum, but they disappeared.[1] Sada Abe too disappeared, in 1970, and her subsequent whereabouts are unknown.
[edit] Background
Sada Abe was the youngest daughter of a Tatami Mat maker, which in Japan meant she belonged to an upper middle class family. As the youngest she was doted on by her mother and had the run of the house. When she was 14 she was raped, and even though her parents defended and supported her, she became a surly and uncontrollable teenager. She acted out and was irresponsible, so her parents sold her to a geisha house, hoping to find her a place in society with some direction.
In Japan there is some debate about whether she wanted to become a geisha (in those days, geishas were minor celebrities and were thought to lead glamorous lives), or if she was sold as a punishment for her sexual promiscuity. Sada Abe’s sister Teruko had multiple lovers: as punishment, her father sold her to a brothel. In Japan this was fairly common. However, her father later bought her back. Teruko married sometime afterward, and "her sexual history was no obstacle to marriage for somebody of her natal class."[2]
To become truly successful in the geisha world required years of training. The most successful had been sold as children and raised as geishas. Abe spent five years as a low ranking geisha, little different than a high-class prostitute. Her services were mostly sexual and she spent five years plying her trade. After a bout of syphilis and thus consequently facing regular examinations, she chose to become a licensed prostitute.
After a few years in the trade, she decided to run away and change her name in order to avoid her owners, who required she pay off a debt of 2,000 YEN (A huge amount in those days) for her expenses. With no training or skills, she moved from menial job to menial job before again becoming a prostitute.
Seeing no future in that trade, she again tried to "go straight" and was employed as a maid in a hotel, the Yoshidaya. The owner was Kichizo Ishida, whom she would eventually murder after a passionate affair.
[edit] Sada Abe in the Movies
There have been at least three movies detailing her life:
- 1975 - Noboru Tanaka's A Woman Called Sada Abe was released, for a Japan-only audience, but was overshadowed by its more explicit successor that came out the following year.
- 1976 - Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses which was widely banned following its 1976 release, for nearly constant (real) sex and nudity.
- 1998 - Nobuhiko Obayashi's Sada (1998) was the most recent film version.
[edit] Trivia
- There is also a four bass noise band in Perth, Western Australia, named Abe Sada.
[edit] Sources
- ^ http://www.japantoday.com/jp/book/218
- ^ Geisha, Harlot, Strangler, Star: A Woman, Sex, and Morality in Modern Japan by William Johnston,
