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By *ensual OP Man
over a year ago
Sutton |
This is largely taken from an article by Zawa Netsu from a Web magazine Kinbaku Today.
This note is mainly aimed at those that love rope.
I would preface by saying I was never a believer of shibari as an ancient Japanese art. Nor am I a fan of pretty rope for its own sake. Please note when he talks of the "erotic" he is not referring merely to sex and physical expression but to the important connection of minds.
Here are three extracts.
"The history I am referring to is not the long-fabled story of Japanese samurai, hojojutsu, and Ukiyo geisha bound with kimono obi. Nor is it a story of beautiful art and ties.
It is the story of people’s lives.
In 1925, a magazine called Sunday Mainichi (??????) published a series of photos of by Ito Seiu of Sawara Kise, bound in the snow. It was an important moment not only because it is one of the earliest representations of erotic bondage in Japan, but because of the reaction to it. As a result of those pictures, Ito was branded a “pervert” (??/hentai).
Kise Sahara: The first SM model in Japan? Kinbaku Today 1
From that period on, erotic rope bondage in Japan became something that would require sacrifice in order to practice.
It wasn’t just bakushi who made those sacrifices, it was the models who would appear in the early magazines (which is why there were so few of them, especially in the early days of Kitan Club) and those who fought censorship to get those early magazines published.
There is an essay from Kitan Club in 1953 by Tsujimura Takashi titled “The Psychological Impulse to do Seme” that engages a number of readers of the magazine in a roundtable discussion about why they enjoy rope and SM. The various participants discuss some of their earliest memories and fantasies and what inspires them to do SM play in the bedroom.
What struck me as a read the piece was the degree to which those kinds of practices needed to remain hidden, much more than they do today.
It one sense, it is story of a group of people with what were considered strange, perverted, and abnormal desires finding each other and beginning the process of discovering they weren’t."
"Which brings me to my second point. For those of us who practice shibari this way, it is not about the rope, it is not about the ties, it is not about the photography, or instagram likes. It is about the erotic connection we feel with our partners and that they feel with us.
We use rope as a tool, as a means, as a way to bring our erotic fantasies and desires to life. It is about a human, erotic connection between people. How one does a particular tie and what it looks like is secondary to what the rope is doing in relation to the fantasy. We learn to tie to do something, to create an effect, to build a scene, to create an experience for our partner. The tie is never the end or the goal. It is always a means to something else, something deeper, something physical or psychological."
"When you come to rope and insist that it is something other than erotic, you are participating in a long history of demonizing those do see it that way and who practice rope in a way that allows them to express something with each other that has been shunned, ostracized, and dismissed by most of mainstream culture, by their friends, and by their families.
We have names for that activity, we call it “shibari” and we call it “kinbaku.”
When you do the same and insist it is not erotic, you do so that the expense of those who came before you, who sacrificed a great deal, and who believed things and practiced things that you do not.
There are a wealth of terms you can use: bondage, rope bondage, getting tied up, rope art, western rope, decorative roe, fusion rope, Japanese-inspired rope, and dozens more.
Please use those instead."
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