Fuzoku Kitan

August 1960

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Cover of Fuzoku Kitan, August 1960

Issue Details

Issue
8
PDF pages
118

Summary

The August 1960 issue of Fūzoku Kitan combines two dominant editorial programs: a special feature on lesbian life and techniques of same-sex love, and a broad collection of supernatural, grotesque, sadomasochistic, and sensational narratives. The cover announces both the lesbian feature and a collection of frightening stories about ghosts and uncanny transformations. As in other issues of the magazine, purported sexology, personal testimony, historical anecdote, fiction, crime reporting, and staged erotic imagery occupy the same editorial terrain.

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The opening section is visually substantial. It begins with reproductions of Japanese erotic prints, a formal table of contents, Western erotic imagery, and an extended gravure sequence of women bound in domestic interiors. The photographs explore standing restraint, soft-rope bondage, bamboo-frame torment, kimono and bathrobe bondage, wrists raised overhead, compact doubled positions, and poses framed as pleasurable suffering. These portfolios are followed by four illustrated bondage fantasies drawn by Ejima Hidehisa, whose scenes transpose restraint into ruined huts, medical rooms, industrial spaces, and torture settings. No photographer or model credits are evident for the gravure sequence.

The principal textual feature opens with Ōtachi Kinji’s survey of lesbian practices and social types, discussing relationships between masculine and feminine partners, sexuality among married women, prostitution, prisons, schools, and different methods of physical intimacy. Kabiya Kazuhiko follows with a more narrative account of lesbian courtship and technique in Japan and abroad. Pierre Robis contributes a dialogue-based piece, while Kawashima Hayato examines cultural fantasies surrounding Lesbos and lesbian seduction. These articles mix observation, hearsay, translated material, case history, and period sexological terminology.

The later surviving sections shift decisively toward death, haunting, possession, crime, and historical curiosity. Nanbara Kiyoshi’s “Sunflower” is a macabre tale of murder, decomposition, and flowers nourished by a corpse. A Meiji-period miscellany collects sensational historical reports. Other contributions describe an acquired fascination with women’s underwear, sexuality and supernatural transformation, a young woman haunted by a dead spirit, a man summoned by the ghost of a murdered woman, regional tales of monsters and animal spirits, revenge from beyond the grave, dressing-room sexual anecdotes, pearl-diving women, and the notorious mutilation of a boy’s buttocks. The issue concludes with reader correspondence, brief editorial matter, publication notices, advertisements, and the colophon.

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Table of Contents 38 items
  1. August 1960 Cover: Special Issue on the Fantastic, Supernatural, Strange, and Cruel
    1
    Summary

    The cover presents the August 1960 special issue through a dramatic portrait of a woman and prominent Japanese text highlighting fantastic, supernatural, strange, cruel, and lesbian erotic themes.

  2. Japanese Erotic Prints: A Secret Meeting and Woman’s True Nature
    2
    Summary

    This visual feature reproduces two Japanese erotic prints depicting intimate encounters, including a clandestine meeting and an image framed as revealing women’s sexual nature.

  3. Formal Table of Contents
    4
    Summary

    The formal contents page inventories the issue’s articles and features, including essays, fiction, visual material, reportage, and a special section on lesbian erotic techniques.

  4. Western Erotic Illustration
    5
    Summary

    A feature presenting Western erotic illustration, centered on stylized depictions of women and intimate erotic scenes.

  5. Double Binding
    6
    Summary

    A photographic bondage feature showing multiple women arranged in elaborate rope restraints and staged poses, accompanied by Japanese explanatory text.

  6. The Woman’s Pleasure
    7
    Summary

    An illustrated erotic scene depicting restrained women in a theatrical interior setting, framing bondage and female eroticism through a dramatic visual composition.

  7. Nude Woman at the Stand
    Summary

    A staged photographic feature depicts a nude woman posed and restrained on a stand in several positions, with ropes and furniture forming the setting and accompanying captions emphasizing the scene’s unusual atmosphere.

  8. Soft-Skin Binding
    Summary

    A photographic feature presents a woman in minimal clothing secured in a series of rope and apparatus-based positions, including bound and reclining poses, under the heading “Soft-Skin Binding.”

  9. Bamboo Torment
    Summary

    “Bamboo Torment” depicts staged scenes in which a woman is bound with rope to bamboo poles and positioned on the floor or within a crossed-pole framework.

  10. Among Fallen Flowers
    Summary

    A photographic bondage feature presents a woman restrained with rope in a series of reclining and contorted poses on a bed, accompanied by poetic Japanese text about fallen flowers and sensual distress.

  11. Bathrobe Bondage
    Summary

    A staged photographic sequence shows a woman in a striped bathrobe bound with rope around her torso and limbs in various seated, kneeling, and floor-bound positions.

  12. Both Hands Suspended
    Summary

    A photographic feature depicts women subjected to rope restraint and suspension-like poses, including raised-arm bindings, bound legs, and restrictive postures in an interior setting.

  13. White Skin of Pleasurable Cruelty
    Summary

    A photographic feature portraying a woman bound with rope in varied seated, standing, and reclining poses, framing restraint as an aestheticized experience of pleasurable cruelty.

  14. Overflowing Enchanted Beauty
    23
    Summary

    A visual feature presenting images of a woman tightly rope-bound in composed, reclining poses that emphasize physical beauty emerging through restraint.

  15. The Posture of the Arms Behind the Back
    Summary

    A photographic study of “arms-behind-the-back” restraint, showing multiple rope-bound postures and the formal variations produced by different ties and body positions.

  16. Folded in Two
    26
    Summary

    A photographic feature presents women bound with rope in tightly folded, contorted positions, accompanied by commentary framing restraint and forced folding as an erotic practice.

  17. Cruelty in a Ruined Hut by Ejima Hidehisa
    27
    Summary

    An erotic illustration depicts a woman stripped and tied with her arms behind her to a post in a dilapidated hut, emphasizing an atmosphere of cruelty and captivity.

  18. The Needle Woman’s Ordeal by Ejima Hidehisa
    28
    Summary

    An erotic illustration portrays a young seamstress in an abandoned sewing room, with her clothing opened, body restrained by rope, and mouth secured with a gag.

  19. Winch Suspension by Ejima Hidehisa
    29
    Summary

    An erotic torture illustration depicts a nude woman folded, bound with chains, and hoisted by a winch above a large boiling cauldron.

  20. Pulley Torment by Ejima Hidehisa
    30
    Summary

    An erotic torture illustration shows a woman tied to a stake while a pulley rope attached to her hair pulls her upward, producing an agonizing suspension and splitting effect.

  21. August Issue Title Page
    31
    Summary

    The title page announces the August issue of Fuzoku Kitan as a special feature on the fantastic, supernatural, strange, and cruel, accompanied by an erotic illustration of a couple.

  22. The Reality of Lesbians by Ōtachi Kinji
    Summary

    A pseudo-sexological survey of lesbian identity and relationships, combining generalized claims about women’s same-sex desire with reported cases involving schoolgirls, married women, prisoners, and women who later marry men or become pregnant.

  23. Techniques of Lesbian Love in East and West by Kabiya Kazuhiko
    Summary

    An erotic reportage and advice feature comparing lesbian relationships in East and West through interviews, case histories, photographs, and descriptions of affectionate and sexual techniques, including kissing, touching, breast stimulation, and role dynamics.

  24. Lesbienne by Pierre Robis
    Summary

    An illustrated dialogue and advice section presenting lesbian romance and intimacy through conversational scenarios, emphasizing emotional attachment, secrecy, kissing, caressing, and other forms of physical affection between women.

  25. Invitation to Lesbos by Kawashima Hayato
    Summary

    An essay surveys representations and experiences of female same-sex desire, moving from Sappho and Lesbos through literary works and modern cultural examples, with an accompanying erotic image.

  26. Sunflower by Nanbara Kiyoshi
    Summary

    A grotesque erotic story follows Yumi and Kazuma through escalating coercion, sadistic violence, murder, and the use of a corpse to nourish a sunflower blooming in midsummer.

  27. A History of Sexual Curiosities in the Meiji Period, Part 7 by Shinkai Yonetarō
    Summary

    The seventh installment compiles sensational Meiji-era reports of sexual and domestic curiosities, including apparent poltergeist phenomena, poison murder, staged or attempted double suicide, and violent encounters involving couples and strangers.

  28. How I Became Interested in Panties by Hoshiyama Aoi
    Summary

    An autobiographical account traces the author’s fascination with women’s panties from childhood curiosity through adolescent experimentation and adult fetishistic desire, including the role of secrecy, domestic life, and purchasing lingerie.

  29. Supernatural Transformations and Sex by Misaki Mitsuo
    Summary

    This cultural essay examines supernatural transformations and sexual symbolism in Chinese and Japanese folklore, discussing yokai, ghosts, spirits, fire phenomena, and the historical anxieties projected onto gender and sexuality.

  30. The Dead Spirit That Possessed a Young Woman by Iwamura Junkichi
    Summary

    A first-person supernatural narrative recounts a young woman’s apparent possession by the spirit of a dead girl, with family members consulting a fortune-teller and struggling to distinguish illness, dreams, and haunting.

  31. The Man Summoned by the Vengeful Spirit of a Woman He Killed by Furukawa Takashi
    Summary

    A sensational account follows a man haunted and sexually manipulated by the vengeful spirit of a woman he murdered, blending police investigation, guilt, possession, and violent retribution.

  32. Tales of Supernatural Transformations from Across Japan by Sengoku Sentarō
    Summary

    This collection presents folkloric tales from across Japan in which ghosts, animal spirits, and other supernatural beings transform, seduce, pursue, or punish human characters.

  33. The Man and Woman Avenged by a Ghost by Shinoda Fujimi
    Summary

    Set in the Edo period, this illustrated supernatural narrative follows a man and woman whose encounters with a murdered woman’s ghost lead to erotic coercion, bodily terror, revenge, and eventual punishment.

  34. Dressing-Room Conversations by Umyōin Itta
    Summary

    An observational essay about sexually suggestive and unusual behavior in public dressing rooms and toilets, including voyeurism, urination-related conduct, and the psychological motives attributed to such acts.

  35. Strange Tales of Pearl-Diving Women by Kashihara Shōzō
    Summary

    An erotic adventure narrative set on a remote island, where a male visitor encounters pearl-diving women and becomes involved in increasingly coercive and sexually charged encounters; the story is accompanied by erotic illustrations.

  36. The Cutting of a Boy’s Buttocks: Noguchi Otokosaburō by Shinkai Yonetarō
    Summary

    A historical crime report on Noguchi Otokosaburō, recounting a notorious case involving the mutilation and murder of a boy and tracing the suspect’s later sexual obsessions, relationships, deceptions, investigation, and trial.

  37. Readers’ Salon
    Summary

    The Readers’ Salon presents correspondence between readers and the editors, including reactions to the magazine’s imagery and special issues, requests for photographs and illustrations, personal accounts, and editorial replies about submissions and publication plans.

  38. Publication Notices and Colophon
    150
    Summary

    Publication notices advertise current and forthcoming Fuzoku Kitan special issues and related illustrated volumes, listing their themes and contents alongside publisher, pricing, ordering, and colophon information.

Highlights

  • The opening visual section combines Japanese erotic-print reproductions, a formal contents spread, Western erotic imagery, and color and monochrome bondage photography. (PDF pp. 2–7).
  • A lengthy gravure portfolio stages women in standing, seated, recumbent, bamboo-frame, bathrobe, overhead-wrist, and compact doubled bondage positions. (PDF pp. 6–26).
  • Ejima Hidehisa contributes four full-page bondage illustrations depicting cruelty in a ruined hut, punishment with a mannequin-like apparatus, winch suspension, and pulley restraint. (PDF pp. 27–30).
  • Ōtachi Kinji’s lead feature surveys forms of lesbian relationships, sexual techniques, masculine and feminine roles, married women, prostitution, schools, and institutional environments. (PDF pp. 32–35).
  • Kabiya Kazuhiko’s extended essay combines case histories, correspondence, social observation, and descriptions of lesbian courtship and physical intimacy in Japan and abroad. (PDF pp. 36–45).
  • Nanbara Kiyoshi’s “Sunflower” presents a macabre vision of a corpse becoming fertilizer for luxuriant flowers, joining eroticized violence to supernatural horror. (PDF pp. 50–53).
  • The Meiji-period sexual-curiosity series reproduces and discusses historical reports of erotic crimes, scandals, unusual deaths, and bizarre incidents. (PDF pp. 54–58).
  • The later supernatural sequence includes ghost possession, vengeful spirits, yōkai transformations, animal-spirit legends, corpse imagery, and revenge from beyond the grave. (PDF pp. 64–94).
  • The final major historical feature investigates the mutilation of a boy’s buttocks and places the case within Meiji, Taishō, and early Shōwa crime history. (PDF pp. 104–115).
  • Reader correspondence, editorial responses, advertisements, forthcoming-publication notices, and the colophon close the issue. (PDF pp. 116–118).

Contributors

Named contributors represented in this issue: