X

Fuzoku Kitan

April 1961

← Back to magazine archive

Cover of Fuzoku Kitan, April 1961

Issue Details

PDF pages
152

Summary

The April 1961 issue of Fuzoku Kitan is organized around punishment, cruelty, bondage, humiliation, and the erotic or psychological fascination these subjects exert. Its formal contents page identifies the principal special feature as East-West Past-and-Present Tales of Cruel Punishment. Before that textual feature begins, the magazine devotes an unusually large amount of space to visual material: bondage gravures place women against trees, sheds, stone stairs, traditional gardens, tatami rooms, and domestic objects, while a second sequence turns to spanking and illustrated scenes of women being tortured or restrained. The imagery moves freely between contemporary staged photography, reproductions of Western punishment scenes, and Japanese-style erotic illustration, establishing the issue’s characteristic blend of documentary curiosity, sensationalism, historical inquiry, and fetishistic spectacle.

Read full summary Close full summary

The central special feature begins with Okumura Sekio’s editorial reflection on the sadistic impulse underlying punishment. Mano Rei then surveys the ecology of cruel punishments around the world, describing execution and torture devices and practices from Europe and elsewhere. Banba Takeo’s Various Punishments and Tortures continues the comparative approach, while Umyōin Itta’s Hanai Oume’s Prison Diary shifts toward Japanese criminal history. Ashidate Eikichi discusses punishment under Edo feudal society, Sugasawa Ichirō presents the sensational Shencheng Cruelty Record, and Secret History of the Martyrdom of Magdalena turns to religious persecution and martyrdom. The illustrated section Old Punishments Were Cruel concludes this historical sequence with reproductions depicting execution, suspension, bodily restraint, and other punitive practices.

The issue then pivots from historical punishment toward specifically eroticized restraint. Itō Seiu’s Seiu-Style Ways of Tying Women presents illustrated rope techniques and poses, directly linking the magazine’s historical and punitive vocabulary to bondage practice. Whip-Demon Robert is a translated or adapted foreign story centered on whipping and domination. Kashiwa Masahiko’s Girls for Pleasure returns to illustrated narrative fiction. Later short departments include a masochist’s-letter feature built around Usami Kiyoshi’s comic-erotic My Nostrils Twitch, followed by Ryūmaruji Shin’s confession My Virgin Sacrifice. Several other departments announced in the contents, including material on homosexuality, cross-dressing, bondage enthusiasm, and the relation between homosexual and sadistic desire, belong to portions of the original printed pagination not represented in this copy.

The final substantial narrative is Aoyama Miekichi’s Chinese cruelty story Luo Wang and Peng Hou, which occupies a long illustrated sequence before the magazine moves into Reader Salon. Reader correspondence, editorial commentary, subscription and book advertisements, agency information, publication notices, and the colophon close the number. Across its different genres, the issue repeatedly treats cruelty as something simultaneously historical, judicial, psychological, theatrical, and erotic. Its editorial identity rests precisely on that collision: ethnographic and historical claims sit beside sensational fiction, bondage instruction, fetish photography, confession, and reader community material.

Loading PDF…
Table of Contents 26 items
  1. Red Shoes Domina
    2–5
  2. Various Enema Apparatus
    2
  3. Spring Bondage: 50 Poses
    6–20
  4. The World of Spanking
    21–29
  5. Poses of Women Being Tormented
    44–50
  6. Sadism Hidden in Punishment by Okumura Sekio
    51
  7. Ecology of Cruel Punishments Around the World by Mano Rei
    52–61
  8. Various Punishments and Tortures by Banba Takeo
    62–69
  9. Hanai Oume's Prison Diary by Umyōin Itta
    70–76
  10. Punishment in Edo Feudal Society by Ashidate Eikichi
    77–81
  11. Shencheng Cruelty Record by Sugasawa Ichirō
    82–91
  12. Secret History of the Martyrdom of Magdalena by Abe Kidayoshi
    92–98
  13. Old Punishments Were Cruel
    99–106
  14. Seiu-Style Ways of Tying Women by Itō Seiu
    107–114
  15. Whip-Demon Robert
    115–125
  16. Salon Masochistica
    126–138
  17. Window on Homosexuality
    126–138
  18. Room for Cross-Dressing Enthusiasts
    126–138
  19. Girls for Pleasure by Kashiwa Masahiko
    139–146
  20. Secret Notebook No. 6: The S within H by Kabiya Kazuhiko
    147–153
  21. Masochist's Letters, No. 10: My Nostrils Twitch by Usami Kiyoshi
    154–157
  22. Why I Became a Bondage Maniac by Ebihara Makoto
    158–163
  23. My Virgin Sacrifice by Ryūmaruji Shin
    164–169
  24. Luo Wang and Peng Hou by Aoyama Miekichi
    170–183
  25. Reader Salon
    184–187
  26. From the Editorial Office
    188–194

Highlights

  • The opening gravure sequence stages bondage in outdoor, architectural, and domestic settings, using trees, a dilapidated shed, stone steps, a traditional garden, tatami rooms, and household objects as settings for restraint. (PDF pp. 6–20).
  • A large illustrated sequence devoted to spanking and women under punishment precedes the principal textual special feature and combines Western-derived imagery with Japanese erotic illustration. (PDF pp. 21–36).
  • The issue's principal special feature, East-West Past-and-Present Tales of Cruel Punishment, opens with an editorial statement arguing that punishment contains an underlying residue of human cruelty and sadistic desire. (PDF p. 37).
  • Mano Rei's Ecology of Cruel Punishments Around the World surveys historical instruments and methods of torture and execution, including European devices and public punishments. (PDF pp. 38–47).
  • The special feature develops through Japanese criminal and penal history in Hanai Oume's Prison Diary, Punishment in Edo Feudal Society, and the Shencheng Cruelty Record. (PDF pp. 56–75).
  • Old Punishments Were Cruel forms an extended visual portfolio of historical punishment scenes, including suspension, execution apparatus, bodily restraint, and public punishment. (PDF pp. 83–90).
  • Itō Seiu's Seiu-Style Ways of Tying Women provides illustrated descriptions of female restraint, making it one of the issue's most directly relevant contributions to the history of Japanese bondage practice. (PDF pp. 91–98).
  • Whip-Demon Robert is a foreign-derived illustrated narrative centered on whipping, domination, and punishment, marking the transition from comparative penal history toward erotic fiction. (PDF pp. 99–109).
  • Aoyama Miekichi's Luo Wang and Peng Hou is the final long illustrated narrative and presents cruelty through the magazine's recurring interest in sensational Chinese historical tales. (PDF pp. 128–141).
  • Reader Salon and the closing editorial and publication pages demonstrate the magazine's community dimension through letters, editorial responses, advertisements, notices, subscription information, and the colophon. (PDF pp. 142–152).

Contributors

Named contributors represented in this issue:

Kinbaku Today is an independent online journal dedicated to the study, practice, and cultural history of Japanese rope bondage. Blending essays, translations, interviews, and archival research, it explores kinbaku not simply as technique, but as a living dialogue between history, performance, and human connection.
X

EVEN MORE NEWS

POPULAR CATEGORY

©