Geishas - Japan's alluring and extravagantly turned-out female entertainers - have never had it easy. One of the country's most famous cultural symbols, their status has always depended on the good will of usually rich and powerful men, and their fortunes have fluctuated with those of their patrons.

Geishas were once sold into apprenticeship by penniless parents, but their numbers dwindled in the postwar years as women opted for marginally less onerous jobs as office workers in Japan's companies.

The booming 1980s saw a revival as geisha houses sprang up to capitalise on bulging corporate expense accounts, but in the last 10 years the numbers have dropped again with Japan's slide down the economic league tables.

Often thought of outside Japan as glorified prostitutes, many geishas (which means literally "person of the arts") are in fact skilled singers, musicians, dancers and story-tellers, and they are likely to get angry if you say otherwise. Ask Mineko Iwasaki.

She was the real-life inspiration for Arthur Golden's 4 million-selling Memoirs of a Geisha, which is due to be made into a major movie directed by Steven Spielberg. But she was so unhappy with her portrayal in the book she is suing the author. Iwasaki took special umbrage at a section which described the auctioning of young geisha's virginity to the highest male bidder.

In fact the practice, called mizu-age, was widespread and great care was taken by the house proprietor to chose older, wealthy men for the privilege. And despite the coy, ambiguous question of sex in the geisha milieu, it is clear that the whole world is suffused with it - sex suggested, postponed or, finally, granted.

But what teenager in the wealthy, modernised Japan of today would put herself through the arduous training and ritual humiliations described in Holden's book to become a geisha? Well, there are some, and they can be found mostly in Japan's second city, Kyoto.

A small number of girls aged 14 or 15 still move into geisha houses there as maiko, or apprentices, where they train in classical dance, singing and the traditional tea-ceremony. The maiko are expected to study hard and become interesting and witty conversationalists, able to hold their own with sophisticated, wealthy clients. At 20, they become full geishas and begin their lives as entertainers to the well-heeled. The closest most of the hoi polloi come to a real geisha is on a television screen.

Kohina (17), asked this month by Japan's Daily Yomiuri why she had opted for this odd career, said she was distressed by the growing number of crimes committed by people her age and "decided to enter a world of tradition and respect for courtesy".

The geisha's relationship with powerful males is part of modern political folklore. Rumours of dalliances with the wilting beauties have swirled around many Japanese prime ministers and were ignored for years by fuming wives and compliant journalists. Then in 1989, Prime Minister Sosuke Uno became embroiled in a scandal after his mistress publicly criticised him for being a skinflint, forcing him to resign and prompting his supporters to mutter darkly that in the old days a geisha knew her place.

Current Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi - divorced, handsome and considered a bit of a rake - also has a reputation for mixing with geisha after a hard day at the Diet (parliament).

Powerful men with money and desperate, powerless women with little to lose. Take away the make-up and it could be anywhere.