Shibari, the modern, artistic interpretation of ancient Japanese rope-bondage, is having a moment. The Netflix show “Too Hot to Handle” featured the practice in a recent episode, prompting Insider and ELLE to publish explainer pieces. Audiences may already be familiar with Shibari other forms of bondage, which figured prominently in Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequel, and played a central role in Bonding, a 2018 Netflix series in which a student who works part-time as a dominatrix enlists her gay friend from high school to be her assistant.
“Submission,” another erotic series that premiered on Showtime, features a woman who finds sexual happiness through submission and conquest, also taking viewers deep into the world of BDSM, an overlapping abbreviation of Bondage and Discipline (BD), Dominance and Submission (DS) and Sadism and Masochism (SM).
Just as that term overlaps, so, too, do modern interpretations of Shibari, its appeal bound up in its fluid definition, which moves between the worlds of art, sex and pornography. Sometimes called Kinbaku, Shibari translates from the Japanese as “to bind” or “to tie,” and Kinbaku means “bind tightly” or “bind in a sexual context.” Celebrities drawn to the practice have helped raise its profile and shape public perception. In a self-directed music video in 2015, UK avant-pop singer FKA twigs tangled and tied her hair in a Japanese bondage style and singer Miley Cyrus sported a bondage-style leather getup for the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas in 2019. On Instagram, professional rope artist @kinono_Shibari has more than 100K followers, while @seattleshibari and @darkartphot are not far behind.
“People are becoming more open and accepting of other people's sexual interests and preoccupations,” said Master “K,” a Los Angeles-based educator, author and authority on Shibari, who has taught and practiced it for more than 40 years. “There's no longer the stigma of being gay, no one hides being gay anymore. The same thing is true with BDSM and other things. Shibari has become very popular through people seeing it and seeing it's beautiful and getting fascinated by it.”
Master “K,” studied under a great Shibari master of the 20th century, Yukimura Haruki. He has written two books on the subject, including “The Beauty of Kinbaku: Everything you ever wanted to know about Japanese erotic bondage when you suddenly realized you didn’t speak Japanese.”
Though most often associated with Japan, Shibari originated in China, in the rather distressing world of warfare and punishment.
The Qing dynasty, established in 1636, was so successful that many of the practices of the Chinese were taken up by both the Koreans and the Japanese. For instance, China’s practice of displaying prisoners in public and torturing enemies later played a big part in the ancient Japanese policing system. The prisoner binding technique, Hojōjutsu, developed slightly differently in different parts of Japan. It was in Edo, the center of Japan and at that time its most prosperous city, that more sophisticated tying techniques began to emerge.
The refined style that formed the foundation for ceremonial tying can be linked to modern Shibari. In ceremonial Hojōjutsu, different methods of tying were used for different classes of society, with the distinctive and often beautiful pattern showing clearly on the prisoner’s back. Echoes of some of those historic binding patterns can be found in modern day Shibari. “It is very interesting to think that what someone in United States does as a BDSM entertainment actually evolved from a brutal form of torture in the 1600s and 1700s in Japan,” Master “K” said.
Besides binding prisoners, Hojōjutsu became a key element of Kabuki theater. The tying that appeared in these plays became the first publicly distributed artistic Shibari images.
According to contents in “The Beauty of Kinbaku”, in 1929, Seme no Hanashi (“Dominaition Conversation or Discussion”), Japan’s first true bondage/SM photography, commentary and art collection was published. The author was counter-cultural artist Itoh Seiu, known as the father of modern Shibari. Itoh first became intrigued by Kabuki at the age of 14, and later, in his day job, he worked as a scene painter for Kabuki theater. But as a sideline, he did torment paintings, tying up his models and then painting them. This behavior was viewed by many as criminal at the time, and if there was a crime nearby, the police always seemed to name him as a suspect. But those who appreciated Shibari say Itoh was simply misunderstood. In fact, they say, it was Itoh who first began formalizing practices to keep those who were being tied up safe from being harmed during the process.
“From him, we start to get not only the appreciation of Shibari as an art form in terms of prints and paintings and other things,” Master “K” said. “But we also start to get the history of how you have to do this very safely.”
Before Itoh, Hojōjutsu was a very cruel martial art, Master “K” said. When people were tied with Hojōjutsu, it started with wrapping ropes around the neck.
“If you're doing things with someone who enjoys this activity, or you're doing something for an artistic purpose, you're not about to do anything that will make it dangerous for the person being tied,” he said. “And Itoh was one of the first to begin to think about how you deal with all of that.”
Japanese rope art first found its way to the United States in the form of an explicit comic strip series called “The Adventures of Sweet Gwendolyn,” by John Willie, an English artist and Shibari practitioner who lived in the U.S.
“And other American rope enthusiast who are interested in BDSM and especially interested in rope, was very impressed by John Willy and began to copy him. So, from around the end of the 50s, through the 70s, most of the time, the only kind of Japanese rope you see, unless you happen to get a magazine from Japan, was in pornography,” said Master “K”.
A dance with Shibari in pop music video
In a recent music video, “Into Me See,” Sarasara, an avant garde French singer, wanted to express extreme anxiety and other deep emotions clearly, so she assumed the role of a nude model, suspended by Shibari performer “Garth Knight.”
In a burst of ethereal electronic music, her hands, legs and back are entangled with rope and Knight binds her with rocks tied into a tree shape.
According to Sarasara, the song is about intimacy and being vulnerable in front of someone. “It is a very scary, uncomfortable and sometimes painful experience,” she said. “There is no guarantee that you’ll be accepted and seen for who you are. It could end up in a disaster or lead to the most beautiful experiences and relationships in your life. But there’s only one way to find out, it’s to overcome fear and just do it.”
This was Sarasara’s first experience of Shibari. Being naked and tied in front of the whole shooting crew, she was self-conscious, but she does not regret the experience. “I think there are misconceptions about it,” she said. “Bondage has been associated with pornography, but some people don’t see further than the edge of their nose.” She said that when she learned a bit more about the traditional Shibari practice, she found that it went far beyond overt sexual gratification. “I tried to focus inward as much as possible, block any kind of external noise and make it as spiritual experience,” she said.
“Shibari is beautiful visually,” said Sarasara, “It also has mystical aspect to it and a strange energy and tension around the practice that makes it seductive.”
Another music video with a very different vibe is “Flesh-eating Lovers” by the all-male Greek EBM/industrial band Obscura Nova. The video features a dark and intense Shibari performance with a completely naked female model fully exposed to the camera.
With minimal lyrics, the video shows fragmented clips of Shibari. “The theme of the music video - which briefly describes the addiction to the weaknesses of the flesh, and not only-rendered entirely from the footage you watched, in a unique couple of roles,” said vocalist Viktor Salem. “Shibari is a very powerful and visual practice, so the clip was shot in such a way as to arouse the viewer’s interest, aiming to pass the meanings that we intend to pass.”
Salem said Shibari’s experimental style was well aligned with the song. “In ‘Flesh-eating Lovers,’ I think the Shibari performance has the visual impact to audience, and it characterizes the strong and dark electronic music,” he said. “It can give something musically new, like our band’s name ‘new dark’, in Latin Obscura Nova.”
An EP releasing party: When Shibari hits pop culture
On the last day of February in 2020, just two weeks before COVID-19 shut the country down, electro-rock duo Noiya had their first EP release party at Seattle’s famed London Bridge Studio, which hosted heyday shows by such seminal late-80s/early 90s Seattle scene bands as Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam.
This night was a bit different. The opening act was independent electronic music artist LŪKA, whose ambient, new-agey tracks were accompanied by an aerial yoga performance art piece, setting a meditative tone for the evening.
Next up was Noiya, whose ethereal sound provided an apt sountrack for a bit of rope art. Their third song began in tandem with Jonathan Ryan and his model, Kasha Sofia engaged in a silent play of intimacy, want and will, the whole audience observed in a vigil-like trance.
Sofia, dressed in a simple black bra and long flax skirt, was presented as a canvas for Ryan to manipulate.
Slowly and softly, Ryan lifted her into the air, her body aloft in a cradle of rope. Sofia was suspended in the air by ropes in different positions - horizontal, kneeling, curled up, stretched. Under the support of the hoist ring, a network of intertwined packings bound by ropes was formed. On the stage, the lights flickered, the music rhythm fluctuated, the rope flexibly shuttled up and down in Ryan’s hands. As he explained later, the rope should be kept tight and must not be loose, because he would tell Sofia through the rope that everything was under his control.
“This was our very first performance together,” Ryan said after the show. Their connection was sincere, right in terms of eye contact. “And then I said a few things once in a while just to make sure that she was physically safe and okay. Because she's never been a stage performance before, and I wanted to make sure checking on her.”
Ryan is a Bakushi - a professional Japanese rope bondage artist, who as @seattleshibari on Instagram he has 62.8K followers. He performs Shiabri shows globally and has a studio in Seattle where he teaches Shibari techniques.
He first became interested in Shibari through a woman he was dating. But as he began to study Shibari, he was entranced by the beauty of its methods. “Ironically, I started doing it because a woman, I wanted to please her,” he said. “But I got really interested in being able to make these beautiful ties and create a beautiful shape with a human being.”
“When you communicate with rope, you are using a number of things,” he said. “The act of tying someone is also the act of telling someone. Are you tying them in a way that’s harsh or gently? Where are you stroking the rope across the body? Can you feel each other’s breath? Can they feel your body heat or not? Just the act of being close to someone or pulling away from someone changes what’s going on. That send’s different messages to people.”
Ryan likened communication through rope to a game he played in science class as a child, “where you took a tin can and another tin can and drilled a hole in both of the cans and you pulled a string between the two and you put the string tight. The vibration of the rope not only can transmit sound but also transmit a lot of information,” even if you are in complete silence.
Sofia agreed, saying s the experience helped her feel at peace and find balance in life.
“If only one of us is speaking, that's just a monologue, not a conversation” he said. “The rope acts as a conduit for that conversation.”
Shibari as a new kind of meditation
Sam Triplett has been a Shibari enthusiast for more than 7 years. He was initially drawn to it because it was unconventional and taboo.
“The earliest I experienced rope was in a BDSM vibe environment with the main purpose of restraining”. Triplett knew Shibari when he was 18 years old, when the first time he practiced with his girlfriend.
“We have seen BDSM elements in music videos, movies, and porn. The first time was a very clumsy affair. We didn’t know what we were doing, and it was very amateur,” Triplett describes his first-time Shibari experience was ‘definitely out of curiosity.’
Bringing him to the real art of Shibari, it was in 2013 he visited his best friend who was doing hair and makeup for “the Armory '' in San Francisco, and he knew some Shibari professionals from there.
The Amory used to be the home of “kink.com”, it was a castle in San Francisco owned by “kink.com” for decades. They have tours of BDSM dungeons, and events. Almost all of their productions are kink, BDSM related pornographic films.
“I ended up participating in events where they were doing Shibari performances. Through that, I got very interested in the journey, because previously all the bondage activities that I had are all oriented towards what happens after someone was restrained, and didn’t pay attention to the restraining itself. And very quickly I developed a strong interest in rope tying in that process,” said Triplett.
Over time, he’s come to appreciate the process and what he sees as a sort of mindfulness in the practice, in which participants are very much in the moment. Triplett said that Shibari takes his mind, ego and thoughts out of the scenario. He can just become the flow of his actions, focusing on the breath and not thinking about tomorrow.
“So you are able to completely get immersed and wrapped up in that process,” he said. “When you are in that zone, nothing else exists. There is just that flow and the experience. You will get so deep into it that you are no longer thinking. You are just doing.”
When the role changes, the feeling is also different.
“I much more enjoy being tied than I do tying,” Triplett said. “I like having the release after handing control over (to my partner). And then going through that entire process.”
The most frequent online images about Shibari are a woman being tied up by a man, but Triplett thinks gender dynamic in Shibari, and all of the BDSM world is even. One of the biggest reason most images are of women being tied is due to the market consumption of these images being much a larger of female models being tied than it is for male model being tied.
“Personally, I prefer being tied by a woman, but depending on the level of experience and the motivation behind the tying, a man doing the tying wouldn’t be refused. 9 times out of 10, I would choose a woman.,” he said.
Triplett describe the best part of tying someone else is feeling the other person’s responses. It’s a conversation they have during dancing through the rope. “It is feeling their body reacting, the thing they say, feeling the small muscle reactions, having that’ kind of intimacy on a very visual level, it filled me with allure, ecstasy and satisfaction,” he said.
For many, Shibari isn't sexual.
Triplett have the BDSM experience both in sub and dom, and he believes Shibari is more subtle than the traditional submissive and dominant sub-categories. “For me, it is less about the sexual aspect but a more sensual aspect, oriented towards satisfying emotional and phonological aspects,” he said. “Like slightly kissing the neck rather than directly touching.”
Even as Shibari becomes more broadly accepted, not everyone is ready to embrace it.
Cynthia Yun, who is now 25 years old, had her first Shibari experience in her early 20s. Growing up in a conservative Chinese family, she said that her family and friends wouldn’t understand her for enjoying Shibari, and said, “Sometimes I seem to be pretending to be another person.”
Yun sometimes feels ashamed to bring her secret interest up.
“When I'm away from the scene, I don't discuss Shibari with anyone. I will never bring it up to my friends and families. If someone brings it up, I can feel my body resist. But deeply in my heart, I know I enjoy it.” Yun said.
Since March of the last year, the coronavirus pandemic has presented many challenges for the Shibari community. Live events such as Shibari live performance and Shibari workshops are not allowed in Europe or North America, and many Shibari workshops across the world have been canceled. Like many other artists who rely on classes and live performance for income and community, Shibari practitioners have gotten creative.
Under the leadership of Master “K”, students may join classes through the video conferencing platform Zoom, which cover topics such as Shibari history as well as rope tying. “Teaching through Zoom has been surprisingly effective for individuals wanting to learn the art or for couples wanting to practice with one another," he said. "K" also holds simulated live events and performances through the video game Second Life using sexy avatars. Group members can control the avatars like playing a video game to experience Shibari in the online virtual world.
Ryan, a touring rope artist, has had at least four performances in the U.S. and Europe cancelled, as well as four events in China. Three workshops k. But he has continued teaching private lessons with precautionary measures in place. “One interesting thing about teaching during the pandemic is that both myself and my students wear masks for the entire lesson," Ryan said. "Since rope is first and foremost about communication, it has been interesting to take facial expression out of the loop."
The pandemic has had a big impact on the world of Shibari, at least temporarily. However, people who interests in Shibari found new ways to continue the pleasure, no matter using AR technic or learning with masks, nothing can stop people from pursing what they want.
