"Her lips languorous like a loose-wound spool, the fragrance of her perfume reaching to the skies. And how lovely when she moves, swaying back and forth. ... When compared to this creature, a man's wife can hardly seem more than a salted fish past its prime!"

Most writing from the 17th century shows its age. This little snippet, from a satirical novel published in 1666 by Asai Ryoi, is as fresh as this morning. Some things never change, or the more they do the more they remain the same. The longing for beauty is insatiable. It drives us to subterfuge, excess, shame, disgrace, even crime. "And thus," concludes the moralizing elder brother in Ryoi's story, "do many men go to their ruin."

He seems suspiciously conversant with the pleasures he's warning his wastrel younger brother against. He too in his youth must have frequented the elegant and accomplished courtesans of the "floating world," the licensed urban pleasure quarters. You had to, in those pre-smartphone days, to make your secret dreams come true.