Page 31 - Bondage Basics: Naughty Knots and Risque Restraints

Eastern Rope Bondage

The Eastern school of rope bondage has an incredibly long history, although it is generally
accepted that it has its roots in the Japanese practice of hojōjutsu, a martial art of
restraining people using rope or sometimes cord. Related to both budō and jujitsu,
hojōjutsu was practiced by the samurai (those kinky devils) as one of the eighteen
essential fighting arts and is part of a greater cultural practice of tying that goes back over
a millennium, but it’s difficult to pinpoint when hojōjutsu was first used. What we can
be sure of, however, is that its use grew exponentially from 1600 onward before more
specific offshoots of tying and restraining began to appear. It’s quite fitting that modern
rope bondage, which combines sensual restraint with power and raw elegance, has roots
in martial arts, which is built on the same fluidity, strength, and prudence. Hojōjutsu was,
however, also used as a way to immobilize and humiliate prisoners and to demonstrate
the captors’ power over their captives. It is this blending of art and power play that makes
modern rope bondage the exciting and incredibly sexy practice it is today. It is important
to remember that the militaristic origins of rope bondage have about as much in common
with its sensual development as chickens do with the development of the omelet. We
aren’t out to hurt our partners, just to restrain and have fun.

The prevalence of rope art in Japanese culture eventually led to it turning up in kabuki
theater, Japan’s favorite elaborate and anarchic dance and drama style, which in turn led to
rope bondage as a sexual art coming to prominence in Japan in the late Edo period, around
the late 1700s/early 1800s. This practice was referred to as kinbaku. Combining the rope
work of kabuki theater and hojōjutsu with a new, sensual dimension, kinbaku, meaning
“tight binding,” first brought the sexual element into the art of rope in Japan.

The popularity of modern Eastern-style rope bondage is often accredited to Seiu Ito, the
Japanese painter referred to as the father of kinbaku, whose kinbaku and kinbaku-inspired
paintings are as iconic now as they ever were. The popularity of kinbaku and Ito soared
again in the 1950s, and this cultural passion for kinbaku has endured to this day.

ƒ There are many different styles of rope bondage, each with its own unique type of beauty.
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