While he needs the marriage for financial reasons, Yuichi innocently confides to the older man that he feels no real physical desire for his bride, or for any woman.

The crafty Shunsuke senses an opportunity to mold the malleable, gullible young man into an exquisite weapon of revenge against the female sex as a whole.

He tells Yuichi that his inability to feel desire for women is not a weakness but potentially a tremendous source of strength.

He advises the young man to go through with the marriage and gain financial security, but also to omit no opportunity to experiment with the emotions of others, and to have as many affairs as possible with both women and men.

Two involving the main characters, Yuichi and Shunsuke, are: The most basic thematic element is the clash of opposites: Hortense Calisher said the book had a poor reception in the west, but also argued that Mishima "is never limited enough to treat of sex alone.