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Tatami mats and techno fetish. Kimono and cutesy pink sex toys. Japanese S&M has a distinctive style that blends traditional images with the steel edge of the Tokyo cyber playground. But if one thing binds it all together it is probably rope bondage. Japanese ropes wind through a history of torture and punishment to their place in the modern Japanese sexual underground where the nawa sensei continues the traditional art of rope bondage.
There are about 20-30 rope sensei in Japan at the moment. Of these, about six are considered masters. To become a rope sensei requires years of experience, a high level of bondage expertise, a considerable level of visibility and status in the S&M scene and, it seems, a male gender. Modern bondage experts look back at ancient traditions of Japanese torture for inspiration and fuse them with modern concepts of sexuality to create a highly psychological and emotionally charged form of eroticism. Nawakesho, literally rope make-up or the cosmetics of rope, is what it is called by its exponents.
As Chiba sensei, one of Japan’s more prominent rope sensei puts it: “Rope makes a woman beautiful. Her body is the canvas and the rope is my brush.” To the appreciative eye, skilled rope bondage is an aesthetic of great beauty and intensity, intricate and delicate while filled with the suggestion of power and submission. The Japanese eye for detail and stylistic beauty has made their rope work the most highly appreciated in the world. The gory history of its use as torture and punishment contrasts with its current role as an instrument of a particular kind of pleasure. However, much inspiration is drawn from its prominent role in social control and punishment hundreds of years ago.
Traditional Japanese rope torture was highly ritualized and codified. It started with one loop at the wrist until the whole body was bound using this one piece of rope. From this a wide variety of positions and designs was created. Its restrictive use was extremely painful and would often result in long-term nerve and circulation damage or death. Its punishment was psychological too, bending people into positions of humility, tightening around the neck if the victim struggled and hanging prisoners suspended in positions of complete helplessness. Traditionally highly abrasive straw rope was used.
It also strictly reflected and enforced the social roles of the day. Different rope binding styles were used for people of upper and lower classes, for men, women, children and monks. The bondage punishment was calculated to fit the crime. An onlooker (and the punished were often suspended or bound in public places) could determine the crime, social position, age and often, the profession of the victim simply by examining the rope-work. The rope masters of the day were highly skilled at their cruel techniques. They were practitioners of a discipline called Hobaku-jutsu, the way of catching criminals. Hobaku-jutsu was a disciplined and specialized martial art that was taught by sensei to their students. The skills of the art were highly developed and precise and formed the foundation for the rope work now found in modern Japanese bondage.
When the bloody and protracted Shinkoku Period drew to an end and the peaceful times of the Edo Period began, the leaders of the time wanted to put behind the violent years of the War Period. A result of this was a phasing out of rope torture. The tradition of passing the methods from master to student was stopped and its images were destroyed. Hobaku-jutsu slowly died out. Everyone forgot about the barbaric violent methods of times past. Almost.
Sometime during the artistic heights of the Edo Period, perhaps by now safely distanced from its cruel realities, artists began depicting torture and humiliation for aesthetic purposes. This developed a popular following but it was not until the social changes at the beginning of the 20th century that people began (or perhaps just began documenting) the exploration of its use for erotic pleasure.
Enter the modern rope sensei. The images of rope bondage were still very much part of the Japanese psyche as a symbol of punishment and control. Naturally it was to fit perfectly into fantasy games of S&M as an important symbol of power. To rediscover the authenticity and skills of this craft, the modern Bondage masters and mistresses carefully collected what survived of the old images of rope torture. Most had been destroyed, but some remained, such as the ones now found in Matsumoto Castle, where photography of them is still banned. However, many of the old techniques were rediscovered. Faithful replication of them was impossible as they were highly effective and dangerous torture methods. They were modified to become safe, and adjusted to tthe needs of S&M and bondage. Rope bondage is still a potentially very dangerous technique of S&M and the modern rope mistress or master has the responsibility to play safely. Part of accomplished rope work is the ability to suspend, restrain and decorate the body of another person with rope while doing no damage.
“Rope is very dangerous, more than the whip or piercing. These are only one strike, but rope can paralyze.” Chiba sensei believes that his true bondage began after he caused temporary damage to one of his models seven years ago. It was an experience that made him carefully assess what he was involved in and the level of safety he was employing. Now Chiba says that safety is his top priority. This is not surprising from a man whose bondage is intrinsically linked with a close relationship with his submissive partners.
“My relationship with the masochist is the most important thing. If there is no relationship there is no bondage. If she has sorrow or grief I feel it too. Her sorrow and her grief are my sorrow and grief. I talk to the girl with the rope.”
Part of Chiba sensei’s attraction to the world of S&M is the intensity intrinsic to a relationship that is reviled by and hidden from the rest of the world. He even feels that the growing acceptance of S&M by Japanese society has caused something to be lost. “Before, if people found out, maybe you would lose your job and everything. You had to live in a secret world and relationships were very deep.”
Chiba sensei is one of an elite group of men who have made successful careers out of rope bondage performance and workshops. While rope mistresses can be found doing rope performance, the heights of fame and success seem to be a male domain. This is ironic, as there are at least several highly accomplished rope mistresses doing bondage in Tokyo’s mistress bars that are second to none. Shinobu, a bondage mistress of 20 years standing from the Nakano Queen offers the following explanation: “Rope work looks better on the body of a woman. But women mostly tie men and men tie women, so men become more famous.”
True, most of the audience of rope bondage is made up of heterosexual men. However, the bisexuality of many bondage mistresses means that it is not just men who tie women, although perhaps it is more the case when in the public eye. The situation may be attributable to the restraints of gender roles and the fact that men perhaps are more easily recognized as being of, and quicker to claim, expert status.
So whether that of a star rope sensei, a talented professional mistress or a housewife with a handy skill in tying her salaryman hubbie into amazing positions at home, the dramatically beautiful rope work of Japan has come a long way. While the torturers of medieval Europe were chaining, manacling and strait- jacketing their unfortunate victims, the Japanese were simply using a single piece of rope. Simple but effective, the skill of today’s rope workers is linked to the practitioners of Hobaku-jutsu not only by the replication of their techniques but also by the Japanese cultural distinctiveness of their approaches. Much of modern Japanese popular culture shares the attention to detail and simplicity typical of a traditional Japanese aesthetic. What woodblock prints are to manga, so is Hobaku-jutsu to S&M.
To watch the rope sensei at work is to revisit the menace and drama of the refined cruelties of older times, but sweetened with the consensual erotic dynamics at play between tied and torturer. The tension of this rub is perhaps the key to the emerging attention that Japanese bondage is receiving from all parts of society and the world. |
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