For National Geographic, Julia Shiota examined some of the misconceptions about geisha with photography by Kin Coedel:
Thanks to centuries of sexualization in Western media, the image of the geisha is often closely linked with sex work. There is some historical truth here—geisha had been connected to the pleasure quarters and, back in the Tokugawa period, did engage in sex work during a time when it was more widely practiced.
However, much of the contemporary, erotically charged conceptions stem from highly sensationalized tales told by writers like Arthur Golding, whose novel Memoirs of a Geisha set the tone for how these women have been understood in the West for decades.
But this misunderstanding of the geisha strips them of a centuries-long history rooted in culture and art.