A 55-year-old science lecturer is found naked on a university campus. His student lover has made him strip as a show of devotion — "Get naked to show me your love," she reportedly demanded — and then scampered off with his clothes. The lecturer resigns, apologizes for "causing considerable trouble," and returns to living with the student.
This real-life incident happened at Taisho University in 2014 — a testament to the fact that, on the 50-year anniversary of the death of writer Junichiro Tanizaki, there still are fools for love in Japan.
Once deemed by censors as "injurious to public morals" and banned from publishing during World War II, Tanizaki — like no other writer — mined the realm of forbidden fantasies. From subtle eroticism to full-blown pathology, he made poetry of pleasure and torment, the confessions of men who outrageously and deliciously carry things too far.