Kagema

Kagema (陰間) were male entertainers and sex workers – usually teenagers; often quite a bit older but made up to look like adolescents – in Edo period Japan whose clients were largely adult men.

Some kagema were kabuki Actors who moonlighted as prostitutes. For them, the stage frequently became an opportunity to advertise their charms; audiences frequently became rowdy and brawls occasionally broke out over the favours of a particularly handsome young actor. This contributed to the shogunate's clamping down on kabuki in 1652.