Sawa Hiiragi, “Birth Names and Blue Easter Eggs”

This piece is an English translation of a Japanese article posted on the blog of a Japanese survivor of prostitution, Sawa Hiiragi. It is published here with the author’s permission.

I recently re-read Moto Hagio‘s serialised comic book A Cruel God Reigns for the first time in a long while.

It’s a human drama about two young men—Jeremy, a boy sexually abused by his mother’s new husband, and Ian, the abuser’s biological son—who struggle to rebuild their shattered lives after years of violence and lies.

I’ve read the story to the end at least once before, but I barely remembered any of it. The only thing that remained with me was a faint recollection of Greg, the abuser, inflicting his unhinged violence on Jeremy.

I’ve been collecting Moto Hagio’s works bit by bit for years—starting with her The Poe Clan—but at some point, life happened, and I had to let go of my collection. Now I’m in the process of building it back up again.

That’s why I ended up getting my hands on the complete set of A Cruel God Reigns. The day the set arrived from Amazon, I opened its first volume without thinking.

Honestly, that was a mistake.

It was not a storybook I should have picked up so casually—not in the state I was.

The comic portrays, with gut-wrenching realism, the devastating impact of sexual violence: how it crushes a victim’s body and mind, implants trauma, and traps them in a cycle of re-enactment even as they desperately wish to heal. Victims are forced to accept even their own destruction as part of their lives. And on top of that, they are further wounded—again and again—by the judgment of those around them, including family and friends: Why didn’t you just run away? Why didn’t you ask for help?

These horrors are laid out in excruciating detail over the course of ten volumes.

After Greg’s death, Jeremy finally speaks the truth about what happened to him. But Ian, unable to accept that his own father was the abuser, dismisses it as a delusion. Reading that scene, I felt like shredding the book into bits.

Even in death, Greg hovers in Jeremy’s mind like a curse, an unshakable phantom whispering in his thoughts. The most harrowing moment comes from a particular memory: Greg, pinning Jeremy down, rapes him and instructs, You love me too. A violent, insidious suggestion—one that continues to eat away at Jeremy long after Greg is gone.

This hit too close to home. Far, far too close.

There are countless harrowing scenes in the story, but, for me, the most unbearable was the blue Easter egg incident.

In a desperate bid to break free from the cycle of abuse, Jeremy secretly begins seeing a psychiatrist, Orson. Through him, he befriends Orson’s granddaughter, Valentine, who gives him a blue Easter egg as a symbol of renewal and hope. Jeremy clings to that egg, trying to believe in a future beyond his pain.

Then Greg finds it.

And he uses it as a sex toy to violate Jeremy.

“You’re a hen,” he sneers. “Lay an egg.”

I used to hate my birth name.

It’s unmistakably feminine, both in its Chinese characters and its pronunciation. Adults used to shorten it in a cutesy way. The meaning of the characters—something like grace or beauty—felt absurdly ill-fitting for someone like me, who never saw herself as feminine.

I used to wish I had a cooler name, something boyish. Dai, Sho, Ken, Ryu—one like that.

That feeling stayed with me from early childhood into adulthood. Because of it, I chose nicknames for myself derived from my surname—gender-neutral, impersonal, safe.

My mother called me by a cutesy shortened form of my name.

My father and brothers shortened it too, but not in a cutesy way.

A childhood friend, someone who had known me since kindergarten, called me by my full name, no flourishes.

Every time someone called my name, their feelings reached me through the sound of their

Voice calling me for dinner.

Voice inviting me out to play.

Voice expressing annoyance.

Voice expressing anger.

Voice bubbling with excitement, eager to share something fun.

Voice audible only as a hushed whisper, sharing a secret.

My name wasn’t something I voiced myself. It was a signifier, a label meant for others to use. The warmth and familiarity layered into it—those moments of affection, recognition, and history—were, in a way, the story of my life itself.

Names are just symbols. But they’re also the most intimate ones we have.

For me, at least, this was the case.

Then I fell into financial trouble and started working in the sex industry.

Women working in the sex industry are always given pseudonyms. In some places, you get to choose your own. Others hand you a list of pre-approved names to pick from. Some clubs go for ordinary, common names; others give all their women fake surnames. Some places insist on foreign-sounding names like Julia, Anna, and Chanel. Some lean into an exoticised Chinese aesthetic: Kinren, Karin, Mao.

The point of these pseudonyms is twofold: they help men indulge a fantasy, and they provide a flimsy layer of privacy for the women. In the end, though, they are just symbols.

Wherever I worked, I always picked a name farthest from my real one.

I stopped using the first-person pronoun when referring to myself, replacing it with my working name. “Julia thinks…” “Mao wants…”＊

It was a strategy.

If I fully inhabited this fictional persona, customers would be less likely to pry into my real life. The one servicing these men, pandering to their desires, faking pleasure—it wasn’t me. It was her, the woman with the fake name. The one being forced into degrading positions, the one being made to say obscene, humiliating things—it wasn’t me.

There was no other way to endure it.

But no matter how carefully I distanced myself, they always wanted to know more. Where I was from. Where I lived. My real name.

If I tried to dodge the question playfully—“Oh, that’s a secret!”—they’d press harder. If I set a firm boundary—“That’s personal information”—they’d scoff. “There’s no harm in telling me your name or where you’re living.” “Why act so secretive over something as simple as a name? You’re overreacting.” “Don’t tell me you actually think you’d get stalked or something?”

Most sex venues claim to have a strict rule: If a customer makes a girl uncomfortable, he’s out. But, in practice, nearly every one of them does something uncomfortable. If we called staff every time, we’d be reporting almost every man who walked through the door. And then what? They’d ban all their customers? Totally unrealistic.

When customers behave abusively or dangerously, women are made responsible for handling it. Even if it comes to kicking a customer out, or women finding themselves in personal danger, blame for the situation falls on them.

“You just didn’t handle it well enough.” “Causing trouble with customers isn’t acceptable.”

With these words, sex venues can easily push out any woman they deem “useless.”

Customers, on the other hand, can say whatever they want about what happened behind closed doors. After paying for sex, after having a woman help them ejaculate, after even having her clean their dirty asshole, they can go online and write posts like:

“The girl from such-and-such a venue is ugly, fat, has bad breath, body odor, rushes the session, barely can string two words together, and gives terrible blowjobs. She’s a disaster.”

And in so doing, they ingratiate themselves with other men who buy sex.

This is especially true for escort outcall prostitution, where women meet with customers in hotels or even their homes. Refuse an unreasonable demand, and you are alone. No easy way to change the situation is available, there is no immediate escape to a safe place.

Boundaries we try to maintain were constantly being encroached upon and trampled over. The more we try to enforce venue rules, the worse our situation becomes. The system was designed that way.

And the most fragile boundary of all was our birth names.

As women working in the sex trade, we had to create false names, fake hometowns, and fabricated life stories. We had to become entirely fictional characters. We revealed these lies carefully, little by little, as a way to protect ourselves from the men who pushed our boundaries without a thought.

When I first went into the industry, I didn’t know any of this.

There was no one to teach me. Women working in the same venue were instructed to speak to each other as little as possible. The male admin staff all said the same thing:

“Our customers are all kind. You’ll be fine.”

I believed them and tried my best to get by.

“Tell me your real name.”

One day, a customer was relentless.

“Until you tell me, we won’t do anything.” “No need to touch me. But the clock’s ticking.” “Are you okay with wasting time together?” “Come on, it’s just a name. What’s the big deal? It’s not like you’ll die.” “Is your name really that unusual? Will I find it if I search for it?” “Stop stalling. Just say it.” “What’s there to think about? You already know my name. Isn’t it unfair?” “I won’t pay for more time if the clock runs down. Hurry up.”

He kept pressing me, over and over again.

I was inexperienced and powerless. I panicked, feeling guilty that my “selfishness” was wasting the customer’s time. I was confused and flustered.

Maybe I should have just run away. But as I said before, “running away” wasn’t really an option. If I did, my situation would just be made worse. I had this misguided sense of duty, thinking, “I can’t just abandon my job.”

That’s how men who buy sex are given unchecked power to corner and oppress us.

If a customer doesn’t reach orgasm in a good mood, no matter the circumstances, the blame always falls on the woman. That’s the reality of the sex trade.

In the end, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t think quickly enough to give him a fake name. I told him my real one.

From that moment on, he kept repeating it.

When he touched my body. When he ejaculated. When he showered. As he left.

He kept calling my name, over and over again, asking, “Do you like this?”

Then he forced me to say, “Sawa loves you.” “Sawa wants to have your baby.”

I was disgusted beyond words.

I was furious. I was devastated. I wanted to cry and vomit. I felt like I was losing my mind from anger.

I wanted to scream, to thrash around, to smash his head in with the telephone or an ashtray.

I wanted to kill him there and then for defiling me through calling me by my precious name.

I was moments away from forgetting why I shouldn’t.

My name. The name that was tied to love, friendship, and bittersweet memories of adolescence. The name that carried my personal history. Its beautiful characters, its sound. The name written on notes passed in class between me and my best friend. The name my mother called me by. The name spoken by old friends in their warm voices.

That precious name—he trampled on it for his own amusement, spat on it, shredded it.

And that kind of violent, invasive experience wasn’t a one-off.

It happened again and again, like custom.

Over and over, I fought to protect my name, my privacy, my personal boundaries. And, each time, men laughed at me for resisting.

Even when I fabricated a fake name, hometown, and background, the uncomfortable feeling of revealing “personal” details never disappeared.

Because the goal of these men wasn’t just to find out our secrets. It was to masturbate over them. To ejaculate while whispering our names.

They buy sex not only to violate our bodies but to strip away our humanity, to destroy the sanctity of personal relationships and boundaries.

Whether we resist or submit, to them it’s all just another pornographic scene.

Locked away in a private room, while guarding their own privacy, they violate ours. That’s where they find pleasure.

Even if we lie about our names and backgrounds, the feeling remains: “I’ve found out your secrets.” “I’ve conquered you.” “Aren’t you happy I overcame your boundaries?”

That smug, vile sense of entitlement never goes away.

The sex trade is a space where men hold absolute power and any form of violence is allowed.

Even a woman’s grief and rage at being violated become material for men’s arousal.

Reading the scene where Greg defiles Jeremy with the blue Easter egg reminded me of all this.

What Greg did to Jeremy was clearly an act of violence. And what happened to me was the same.

People who defend prostitution and the sex industry often say, “How is it violence?” “You knew what you were signing up for, right?”

Whenever sexual violence occurs, they try to redefine it as an unfortunate “miscommunication” in a commercial exchange.

They say, “If you take the money, then you have to take responsibility for whatever happens.”

But what that really means is, “If you pay money, you can do whatever you want.” (And because they understand that the buyers are almost always men, they must not acknowledge the implications of that logic.)

Having something deeply personal and important trampled on—

This horrific thing that happened to me in those closed rooms is still happening to other women, in the same way.

Even at this very moment.

＊In Japan, women who behave in a way that emphasizes their childishness and cuteness are called “burikko.” Burikko is a strategy used by young women to appeal to men.

One of the unique behaviors of burikko is calling oneself by one’s name in the third-person instead of using first-person pronouns, and this childish behavior appeals to men’s desire to protect and control, as well as their pedophilic sexual desires.

I have never been a burikko in my real life, but, in the sex industry, it was a natural strategy to adopt this behavior. It is evidence of efforts made to be a good sexual object as prostitutes, and it shows the widespread social pressure that women should behave cutely and childishly towards men.