While the actual origin of the term mizu-shōbai[1] is debatable, it is likely the term came into use during the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1868).[2] The Tokugawa period saw the development of large bathhouses and an expansive network of roadside inns offering "hot baths and sexual release",[3] as well as the expansion of geisha districts and courtesan quarters in cities and towns throughout the country. Bearing relation to the pleasure-seeking aspects of ukiyo (浮世, with its antithetical homophone 憂世 "sorrowful cycle of existence"), or "the floating world", mizu-shōbai is a metaphor for floating, drinking, and the impermanence of life, akin to the Western expression: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" (Isaiah 22:13).[4]