Girls’ Time, Girls’ Space

Abstract

The July 1970 issue of the magazine Tide (Ushio) prints a conversation between novelist/playwright Mishima Yukio and theatre/film maker Terayama Shuji. Although titled “Can Eros Be the Basis of Resistance?” (Erosu wa teiko no kyoten to nari uru ka?),³ these two giants of the postwar Japanese arts world jump from one topic to another, from the New Left movement to eroticism, from gambling to Catholicism, from body-building to noh theatre. Towards the end of their conversation, Terayama, out of the blue, asks Mishima what he thinks of women. Terayama’s intention is not clear at all, but anyway, this opens up their brief discussion on women — or women, time, space, and body.

MISHIMA:[I]t’s women who dominate time. It’s not men. Ten months¹ during pregnancy is what women possess. …

TERAYAMA: But, women believe in another time according to which they bleed every twenty-eight days. This is why they are indifferent to the time created by SEIKO.² Women are the watches themselves.

[… … … …]

MISHIMA: … [Women] exist within time. Men may end up existing outside of time, so they are so scared without watches.

TERAYAMA: So, I think that men need to stroll around searching for outside watches, because they are always accidental beings.

MISHIMA: That may be true. …

(Mishima and Terayama 2012: 36)