I’m in Brazil, mostly for vacation, living in a tropical eco-village on the coastline of Bahia. There is a small sex-positive festival happening here in a couple of days, and of course, I’m teaching some rope bondage. People are starting to ask. But what kind of bondage? Japanese? Swedish? It’s both practice and legacy, something I learned in Japan, then brought to Sweden, and now I’m moving it to Brazil. Swedish and Japanese cultures are similar in many ways but also vastly different, and Brazilian culture is vastly different again. For example, the physical closeness, kisses and flirtation in Brazil are often communal acts rather than expressions of personal attraction or preference. In Japan, on the other hand, it is common to move two centimetres away when someone sits next to you on the Tokyo metro as a gesture of giving space. But doing this in Brazil would be deemed rude, implying that your new neighbour smells badly or is in some way unappealing. Yet, both actions are similar as they are social markers showing that we see each other and being able to express oneself elegantly.

The bondage I learned to love in Japan grew out of perversion and taboo, and my favourite European teachers kept that spirit, and so did I in my private bedroom practice. However, I also work professionally in the field of sadomasochism and eroticism. This calls for a colossal adaptation in terms of consent and a strange mixture of rationality and spirituality. 

When I try to explain to someone in Tokyo’s red-light district that I teach bondage in European (and sometimes even Brazilian) esoteric communities, they look perplexed and tell me how they turn their statues of Shinto deities away from their sadomasochistic play, as rope bondage is considered unholy and dirty. So spiritual bondage doesn’t fly in Japan. Similarly in Scandinavia, the Japanese heteronormative gender roles would never be accepted. In Japan ‘maledom’ (male domination) isn’t a kink but everyday life, and ‘femdom’ is a popular but much shamed perversion. The words ‘sadisto’ and ‘masochisto’ are much more used, as the power dynamic is already assumed. And then, in terms of alternative therapy, everything is again thrown upside-down as there is a monetary transaction involved, and the goal is no longer mutual pleasure.

Rope bondage, as a practice, has travelled with me for many years, constantly changing depending on context. We do have words and terms which describe this practice, so let us now define our terms.

Words For Rope Bondage

I’ll attempt to define the words that we will continuously use at the same time as painting a picture around their Japanese legacy.

Rope bondage: I like this word because it has a minimal legacy and no connection to Japan, therapy or esoterism. Sometimes I say human bondage instead to move the focus from the material to interaction. However, calling it knot bondage would be a step in the other direction.

Japanese bondage: this adds a reference to a legacy. In material (jute), style (double-folded ropes, gotes etc.) and collection of fantasies of schoolboy/girl, secretary/office worker, and geishas. Yet it also connects to a rich inheritance left to us by a set of influential people like Akechi Denki (1940 – 2005), Eikichi Osada (1925-2001), Hakuri Yukimura (1948-2016) and Ito Seiu (1882-1961). I am listing the dead masters here to prevent any appearance of favouritism to anyone currently living. There is also a legacy of documenting kink in Japan, with the printed magazine Kitan Club (1946-75) being the best example, where one also finds references to specific clubs in the Tokyo and Osaka red light districts.

Shibari: the Japanese word for tying things. Like shoes and packages, but also people. It’s more or less similar to the term Japanese bondage, and it sometimes gets confused with ‘an ancient art form practised by the holy samurai warriors’, but this, to me, is bullshit. There is Hojo-Jutsu, the Japanese practice of capturing and restraining prisoners from the Edo period (1600-1800), but that is not SM and not meant to be erotic. I think this interpretation is a European thing, trying to make things more exotic and mystical. In Europe, the word shibari has come to mean all sorts of things. Everything from aerial acrobatics and yoga with some bondage to something heavily focused on patterns and knots or something completely de-sexualized. This is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it makes bondage more accessible, but on the other hand, it creates misunderstanding when beginners look for perverted Japanese taboos and are met with yoga. In the worst case scenario there can even be issues of lack of consent or abuse when beginners seek yoga and are met with authentically reenacted Japanese perversion. I try to avoid the word shibari, but I’m often forced to use it in Europe to remain in their frame of reference. I so often get the question, ‘Is what do you shibari?’, and I often wonder how to answer that properly.

Kinbaku: Japanese for tying people with some kind of intimate intention. Japanese is not a very precise language. I like the word kinbaku because it didn’t get diluted in Europe like shibari did. People who say that they practise kinbaku tend to honour the Japanese legacy better, in my experience—keeping it erotic and deviant. Semenawa, aibunawa and many more Japanese expressions; aim to boil down kinbaku and shibari to more specific styles. I usually don’t bother using them, and I’m far from an expert here.

Words For The Esoteric Cross-Over

Next, let us make an attempt at defining tantric ropes, conscious kink bondage, and European/American bondage.

Conscious kink (including bondage or not): this is the term to make sadomasochism more accessible. It refers to a constellation of practices which focus more on experiences, self-development, consent and trauma awareness and less on leather culture and technical skills. Leaning more towards feeling and less on learning. Sometimes conscious kink contains some kind of Japanese bondage, but what kind doesn’t usually matter because once people go deeper, they tend to change the name to shibari or kinbaku. I like the term conscious kink as it is an excellent gateway for newbies to approach sadomasochism and rope bondage.

Tantric ropes: this is the term I started to use at first because I want to teach rope bondage in various esoteric communities. It’s similar to conscious kink but specifically with rope as the tool. It focuses on playing with polarities in a ritual setting in which participants can experience some mystery, and in which not everything is rationally explained. Tantric ropes is a term which honours the erotic aspect of kinbaku but is simultaneously inspired by an Osho quote that the lowest form of sexuality lies in the flesh, the middle in the heart, and the highest in the divine. Obviously, I like this term.

European and American bondage: this is a very vague term. This could refer to a Betty Page and damsel in distress narrative with shiny cotton ropes, the juxtaposition of freedom through restriction as dance choreography, or the bondage happening in the old-school leather sadomasochistic scene. As there is no apparent tradition and legacy to it, as compared to Japanese bondage, I avoid using the words.

Words For Therapy

Now, let’s throw some therapeutic terms into the mix.

Bodywork: this is used to describe a set of somatic interventions with the understanding that an issue, need or desire can be approached through the body instead of through the mind. I like this term as it negates the strict, Descartian separation of body and mind, and provides an excellent, often very helpful alternative or adjunct to talk-based therapies like CBT (Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy).

Therapy: this a form of active intervention with the goal of treating an issue versus ignoring it in favour of pursuing pleasure and perversion. The term is very helpful as it differentiates an act whose goal is pleasure from one whose orientation and goal is therapeutic. Yes, a sadomasochistic play session may have a therapeutic effect just as a therapy session might be pleasurable, but here, intent and focus are everything. The term defines a therapeutic relationship where the exchange is money for service rather than mutual desire. I like this word very much as it cleanly separates the personal from the therapeutic.

Healing: this is that which, in theory at least, occurs in a patient as a result of therapy. Based on my experience, this word is significantly misused to describe pretty much anything cathartic or magical that an initiated masters does to a less-knowing receiver. I believe that a traumatised person knows their trauma much better than I ever could, and therefore holds more keys to their healing than I might. If they are uninformed, I highly suggest that they inform themselves as best they can before any therapeutic session. I try to avoid using this word.

Therapeutic rope bondage: this refers to the use of rope bondage as therapeutic bodywork. Therefore, this is utterly different from Japanese bondage.

All this being said, I offer both paid kinbaku sessions (where I attempt being bakushi) and paid therapeutic rope bondage, and I also have a personal perverted and sexual practice. These three are very different things. To illustrate, I am reminded of a conversation I once had in Brazil.

– Hey, Andy, I heard it’s possible to get tied by you without paying money. Is that true, and how would that work?

– Well, in theory, yes. But instead of paying money to me for a professional service, you give your body, mind and soul to satisfy my perverted desires. Is that what you want?