Kitan Club

July 1963

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Summary

The July 1963 issue of Kitan Club presents a characteristic mixture of staged bondage photography, imaginative torture illustration, reader testimony, erotic fiction, serialized narratives, practical rope discussion, and correspondence. The front matter establishes the issue’s visual vocabulary through photographs of rope and chain restraint, gagging, seated and floor positions, close studies of bound wrists and ankles, and scenes involving metal implements. A second photographic sequence emphasizes compact body positions and self-conscious posing, while another reverses the usual gender arrangement by presenting a costumed woman directing a masked, submissive figure. The illustrated portfolio ranges from fantastic captivity and nasal torment to whipping, ritual abdominal cutting, insect attack, and the downfall of a castle woman, joining contemporary fetish imagery to historical and exoticized settings.

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The prose section begins with Sasaki Tsutomu’s illustrated catalogue of personal sadistic and masochistic fantasies, followed by Shibajima Reiko’s reader letter about loneliness, secrecy, and discovering a community through the magazine. Tsujimura Takashi’s thirty-sixth installment of Tales of the Thirty-Ninth Night then develops a staged photographic narrative in which a model is progressively restrained before an observing group, making the process of image production part of the story itself. Ashizawa Iho’s illustrated confession about abdominal-cutting imagery and Manda Fuji’s Rural Notebook move the issue from spectacle toward personal memory, fantasy, and autobiographical reflection.

The middle of the issue combines reader experiences with essays on punishment fantasies, solitary masochistic desire, rubber fetishism, nasal fixation, and the symbolic appeal of restraint. It also continues Dan Oniroku’s Flower and Snake and includes contrasting accounts of women’s wrestling, one framed as unusual erotic behavior and another as an account of organizing such matches. Discussions of human hair, bodily materials, and specialized collecting extend the magazine’s documentary interest in highly particular fetishes.

The later pages turn toward instruction and extended fiction. A rope-research feature explains binding methods and positional control, while the long novel Wandering in Space shifts confinement into a speculative setting. A reader account connected with the film I Want to Die brings cinema, identification, and masochistic fantasy together. The issue closes with reader communications, replies, exchange notices, advertisements for photographs and publications, ordering information, and editorial matter, reinforcing Kitan Club’s role as both a magazine and a social network for otherwise isolated interests.

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Table of Contents 27 items
  1. Opening Gravure Selection
    6–13
  2. Frontispiece Illustration Portfolio by Shima Takashi and Taki Reiko
    14–21
  3. Later Gravure and Photo Studies
    22–29
  4. My Illustrated Scroll of Cruel Delight by Sasaki Tsutomu
    34–40
  5. A Faint Wish by Shibajima Reiko
    41
  6. Tales of the Thirty-Ninth Night: Thirty-Sixth Night by Tsujimura Takashi
    42–52
  7. My Miserable Pictures by Ashizawa Iho
    53
  8. Rural Notebook: A Confession of Masochistic Love by Manda Fuji
    54–65
  9. Reader Experiences and Confessions
    66–67
  10. The World of Ecstatic Cruelty: Punishment of Women by Etō Masaaki
    68–71
  11. A Solitary Longing for Masochism by Kurise Takashi
    72–80
  12. On Differences in the Binding Process by Makishibamura Toshitaka
    81–85
  13. Rubber-Mania Correspondence by Hirayama Fushizō
    86–91
  14. The Garden of Pleasure by Shima Hiroshi
    92–93
  15. Prelude to the Nose by Akutsu Katsumi
    94–102
  16. Flower and Snake, Part Four by Dan Oniroku
    103–105
  17. Women’s Wrestling: An Unusual Erotic Account by Ashihara Mutsuo
    106–111
  18. How a Masochistic Women’s Wrestling Group Was Formed by Okahira Yoshio
    112–115
  19. To the Human-Hair Maniac by Fukuda Hisafumi
    116–122
  20. A Solitary Longing for Masochism by Tama Hiroshi
    123–133
  21. A Curious Return Visit by Ōnaka Tadashi
    123–133
  22. Bondage Research Course: Classroom of Binding Methods by Shibawa Yoshihiro
    134–141
  23. Wandering in Space by Saji Asako
    142–157
  24. Reader Experience: Concerning the Film I Want to Die by Iwasaki Sashiko
    158–163
  25. Instructional Advice for Binding by Endō Hajime
    164–165
  26. Reader Letters and Communications
    166–169
  27. Model and Reader Correspondence by Ayasaka Tarō
    170

Highlights

  • The opening photographic portfolio combines rope bondage, metal restraints, gagging, close studies of wrists and ankles, and the use of tools as visual accessories. (PDF pp. 6–13).
  • A group of full-page illustrations by Shima Takashi and Taki Reiko depicts fantastic captivity, nasal torment, abdominal cutting, whipping, insect attack, and historical punishment. (PDF pp. 14–21).
  • Later gravure sequences contrast compact floor bondage with a theatrical female-dominant scene involving a masked submissive figure. (PDF pp. 22–29).
  • Sasaki Tsutomu’s illustrated feature assembles a wide-ranging inventory of personal cruelty and submission fantasies, drawing on historical, exotic, theatrical, and domestic imagery. (PDF pp. 31–37).
  • Shibajima Reiko’s reader letter describes isolation, secrecy, and the emotional significance of finding Kitan Club and its readership. (PDF p. 38).
  • The thirty-sixth installment of Tales of the Thirty-Ninth Night incorporates a staged photo session into its narrative, documenting a model’s progressive restraint before photographers and observers. (PDF pp. 39–49).
  • Ashizawa Iho’s illustrated confession discusses a fascination with abdominal-cutting scenes and connects fantasy, drawing, and bodily vulnerability. (PDF p. 50).
  • The central essays and testimonies examine punishment fantasies, lonely masochistic desire, rubber fetishism, nasal fixation, and the appeal of specialized materials. (PDF pp. 63–99).
  • The later fiction section includes Dan Oniroku’s Flower and Snake, accounts of women’s wrestling, a rope-instruction feature, and the long speculative novel Wandering in Space. (PDF pp. 100–154).
  • The closing section combines a reader account associated with the film I Want to Die, reader letters, exchange notices, advertisements, ordering information, and editorial publication matter. (PDF pp. 155–189).
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.

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