If we did everything we actually could, we would never cease to surprise ourselves.

Thomas Edison

I’m on a twenty-four-hour layover in Tokyo before the flight home. The first thought was an airport hotel, pay-per-view movies, bathtub and room service. The second thought was to dance the night away in Womb’s concrete bunker like many times during my working years in Tokyo. It brought back night clubbing memories of sweaty swinging bodies, laser lights cutting through smoke screens and time standing still. Finally, the third thought went towards you, and I couldn’t help but smile. This is so absurdly decadent but still so fabulously right. It’s interesting how ambitions change us.

– Got another 24h in Tokyo. be my date, my toy and my joy?

– Okay, leaving the office at 7pm, where do we meet?

Tokyo Dome hotel, check-in as me and wait in the room. Hugs and kisses!

Tokyo Dome Hotel, where I stayed for six months in one room, I still remember the skyscraper of dark tinted glass and black marble, the eternally bowing staff, the politely greeting elevator and the smell of neat flower arrangements. When the plane from Okinawa lands, I find the message that you have checked in as Miss Me and reply briefly that you should get ready like a proper girl, lay out dinner clothes on the bed and wait naked in the hall with something inspiring blinding your eyes. Before leaving the airport, I lock my hiking backpack in a coin-locker and buy a bottle of champagne in the duty-free shop.  

With my passport, an hour or so later, I pick up an extra key card at the reception desk and take the elevator to the sixty-second floor. The glass elevator glides silently along the outside of the hotel and provides a panoramic view of the city’s nightlife. The avenues between Shibuya, Shinjuku and Ikebukuro are lit up by neon signs that rise in an anthill. Along the skyscrapers, the red helicopter warning lanterns wander slowly upwards, so the city appears to boil. My heart beats with anticipation and excitement when the key card is placed against the door with the number 6227, so the red diode turns green and the lock clicks open.  

The motion-controlled hall lights come on, and you sit naked with your legs slightly apart on your knees in front of me. Over your eyes is the sash of an under kimono, which is given as a gift by many finer hotels. My fingers wander along your damp neck and whisper in your ear that you must have been sitting very still. Once behind you, I drop to my knees, put an arm around your neck and bend your head slightly upwards. You cough from the lack of air while my other hand inspects you; your milk-white freshly washed skin, your shaved arms and legs, my fingers against the brushed teeth of your mouth and my tongue tasting your throat. I feel the harsh perfume taste and my teeth bite your neck disapprovingly. You should have learned that your throat is mine to eat.  

My body is in total opposition to yours; messy unshaved hair and the taste of a salty sea in my skin. My cheek is against yours, rough hands parting your legs, leaving tear marks on your inner thighs and continuing to your sex. You are violently pressed down into the carpet, my saliva runs down your face, and your body is penetrated again and again. More and more loudly, my fingers pressed far down your throat to muffle the screams. Afterwards, you sit on your knees in the bathtub where the shower water washes over us, sea salt is flushed from my skin, and coarse stubble is shaved away. You are decorated with bite marks, redness and a happy smile.  

Your hair is still wet. You wait on the edge of the bed. Next to you is the black office suit, and you look down at your feet in shame. Your underwear and tights are neatly folded in your handbag together with your passport, mobile phone and keys. My hands tie the rope around your neck, knot where the collarbones meet, and the rope runs between your breasts, legs, buttocks and up through the jacket sleeve. Resting on my arm, we head out of the hotel corridor, almost invisible in the subdued light. We slide forward with the rope leading in my hand. We land in the top floor jazz bar where a cacophony of night birds murmurs to the peacock queen’s song. The night black window reflects your parted pale legs and my hand resting against your sex where our secluded table looks out over the city.

40 

Standard Edition. Paperback. 499 pages.


20 

80Mb 7-day digital download. 499 pages.

It took forever, but my book is finally available—either as a printed paperback or a downloadable PDF. Watch the trailer on the left!

Dear unknown friend, to access the adult-rated material you must create a free account and log in. This is due to social media and their algorithms. Sorry for the inconvenience.

FIRST PARADOX

BEING AND DOING

SECOND PARADOX

SELF-SACRIFICE

AND SELFISHNESS

THIRD PARADOX

SELFISHNESS AND

HOLDING SPACE

FOURTH PARADOX

UNITY AND POLARITY

FIFTH PARADOX

SYMBOLS AND REALITY

FIRST RITUAL

SUBMISSION

SECOND RITUAL

DEVOTION

THIRD RITUAL

REJECTION

FOURTH RITUAL

DESIRE

FIFTH RITUAL

DEATH

“M”

Rituals and paradoxes- the intimacy of belonging in sadomasochism and esoteric eroticism by Andy Buru.

“Take my hand, follow me, be not scared, I got you”

“You do not need another guru, do not follow the man with a beard”- the words echoe in my mind when I start reading “Ritual and paradoxes- the intimacy of belonging in sadomasochism and esoteric eroticism” by Andy Buru, professional Japanese rope bondage practionner/teacher: besides almost being named guru, he indubitably takes a position of authority by publishing himself, and considering the subject matter and that I do in fact have some first hand experience of Andy (double-entendre intended) – should I not be a bit scared and keep distance?

Drawing from his extensive experience as teacher, body worker and personal life, Andy approaches the subject through a set of paradoxes that are defining sadomasochism, or “eroticization of pain and power”. These paradoxes create polarities which sadomasochism explores through careful and compassionate play with the inherent tensions that varies between individuals and the power dynamics of ”dominant/submissive”. The resulting book, a solid block of nearly 500 pages, reaches however far beyond an introduction into bdsm, a guidebook, or a collection of personal reflections.

Instead, the aim is to bring attention on esoteric qualities of sadomasochism, as in the ritualization of sexuality towards enlightenment or union with God/Divine. Sadomasochism, with its inherent polarities, has according to the author a high potentiality to address deeper needs usually associated with spirituality, such as belonging, submission, self-sacrifice, and devotion, which according to the narrative are not promoted in our pleasure-seeking western societies (“joy joy lala land”) that mostly focus on achievement and selfishness, on “doing”. The sadomasochism that Andy presents and cultivates provide thus as a contrast a safe playground to discover or further dive into meaningful and transformational states of being.

So what am I holding in my hands? First of all I cannot hinder to be seduced by the format and structure. After all, the presentation is significant when your topic is rituals, and the writing project in itself is introduced as mystic for the author: a compact volume beautifully segmented all in black and white by the paradoxes that define sadomasochism, visually chaptering the thought in numbered lemmas/verses, accompanying poetic lines followed by a clear, straightforward prose, occasionally punctuated by Andy Buru’s warm humour, at the rhythm of sneak peaks into his very intimate (at times thick and sick) diary. Abstract concepts are both cleverly illustrated and made tangible through illustrations and a selection of tastefully curated photographies taken by the author himself during his sessions, seducing with their raw beauty and display authentic vulnerability.

“Rituals and Paradoxes” is a companion to anyone’s own paths of self-/collective exploration- practical or intellectual. Andy Buru acts as a Virgilius, not taking down seven levels of hell as one might associate sadomasochism to, but truly accompanying the reader on a journey. His written edifice is a temple where the dark meanders of eros find light and love, in which the paradoxes are pillars and a room for rituals are formed/performed, and where the self is absorbed in the community. Pushing the comparison further, one might find that the fragments of experience that Andy Buru shares, at moment heavy and intense as incense, are counterparts of the vibrant paintings hanging in the side-choirs of a baroque church. (The dramatic lives of saints and martyrs, full of suffering and self-sacrifice, are after all early tangents to the world of bdsm).

The Reading of “Rituals and Paradoxes” could be an invitation into a sacred place with many shrines and as such be decisive or it may stay at the level of a mere tour, an exotic sight-seeing of deviancy and perversion, depending on maturity and receptiveness of the reader. One anecdote from the book (or should I qualify it as a votive picture in adoration for the Japanese culture and to which the author is so indebted?) may provide some evidence of the author’s expectations on the reader: a flower arrangement school in Japan, where everyone gets the degree, but you would, by paying proper attention, be aware of if you actually got to the deeper sense or not.

I think that the strength of the book comes from this sensible approach, where the mystery, despite being unfold for us and made available in words, by the end of the day needs to be “felt” as well, or to paraphrase the first paradox, “to be”. Regardless of your previous experience in bdsm or more generally within sex, or your degree of self-knowledge, the book has nonetheless something essential to offer as an invitation to discover or further explore the vast inner universe that is yourself and your sexuality, but also, by making you sensible to the esoteric dimensions involved in bdsm and thus to elevate your practice to a profoundly metaphysical act.

Yes, Andy, maybe I will take your hand, and follow you, I am not scared, you got me.