Is it not a good idea to ask a married papa (a male supporter) about things like his home life or children?

I think it’s fine to ask casually, as long as you’re not being pushy. But I’m not really sure why you want to ask in the first place. Is there some benefit to knowing? Or are you asking simply because you don’t have anything else to talk about? You might want to think about the pros and cons of asking.

Once we’ve gotten comfortable with each other and can communicate well, I don’t see a problem with it. I talk about children normally with married women. Fuu makes it clear from the start that she has other papas, a boyfriend, and friends with benefits. We both keep detailed personal information private, but I become close with women who are fairly open and willing to talk. So if they ask about my family or children, I’ll tell them. That said, I hardly ask about their personal lives until they’re willing to talk about them, and I don’t talk about mine until they ask either… I just go along with the other person.

Well, only after we’ve met a certain number of times and built up some trust, but I do talk about my family to some extent. I’d probably pull back if she started prying too deeply, though. Women often tell me they feel more comfortable dating a man who properly supports and takes care of his own family. I spent many years in Kyoto, so I learned the very basics of how Kyoto’s traditional patrons conduct themselves: the wife must always remain number one. Putting the family under financial strain is absolutely out of the question, but causing trouble within the household is even worse—you’ll be shunned by the patron community. In return, as long as a man keeps his business and family as his top priorities, it’s considered perfectly normal for his wife not to get jealous even if he supports a geisha and sets her up somewhere as a mistress. And if the mistress has a child—especially a son—it’s also customary for the main family to take him in and have the legal wife raise him. I grew up hearing stories like that, so I suppose that kind of arrangement feels fairly natural to me. In that world, if the husband dies, the legal wife is expected to look after the mistress, so talking to a mistress about family matters would hardly be unusual.