A geisha is a Japanese woman who has trained for years in traditional arts — dancing, singing, playing music, and the art of conversation — so she can entertain guests, usually men, at special dinners and parties. We keep the Japanese word in English; it is not a job name English made up. In the West people often talk as if a geisha were simply a sex worker. That is a loose, and often unkind, use. Her training is about performance, manners, and art. Some of the work is about making guests feel looked after, and that can look like romance from the outside, but the tidy picture “she is a prostitute” is tidier than the truth, and Japanese people often find it insulting. The profession is old, and there are far fewer geisha now than in the past.