Strike up a song, ladies!
“Never did I dream of finding / courtesans flowering with such beauty / amid heaps of horse manure ...”
Where are we? In the heart of Edo (present-day Tokyo), in the Meiwa Era (1764-72). Humor was bawdy, song was lusty, brothels breathed elegance, courtesans were artists, sex was culture and a man — if of the right sort — could have himself quite a time of an evening and a night.