Kitan Club

June 1963

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Summary

The June 1963 issue of Kitan Club combines extensive bondage photography, full-page punishment illustration, historical and sociological writing, reader testimony, fetish essays, serialized fiction, and a substantial correspondence section. Its opening visual material establishes the issue’s dominant vocabulary through seated, kneeling, recumbent, and compressed rope positions, several forms of gagging, close attention to posture and bodily exposure, and scenes in which women alternately occupy submissive and dominant roles. A sequence of illustrations by Shima Takashi, Taki Reiko, Kurokawa Fujio, and other artists ranges from bathing and bodily punishment to disembowelment, cigarette torture, historical female cruelty, and same-sex intimacy, linking modern fetish culture to imagined historical and theatrical settings.

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The main prose section begins with Higuchi Itsuma’s research feature “One Hundred Forms of Prostitution,” a historically oriented survey of prostitution, entertainment districts, regulation, vocabulary, and urban sexual commerce. Hamura Kyōko’s “When a Woman Turns into an Animal” shifts from history to personal and psychological reflection on pregnancy, instinct, sexuality, and the cultural comparison between women and animals. A reader’s “abnormal experience” titled “The Hot Whip” then offers an overseas encounter involving domination, restraint, whipping, and erotic performance. Ōkura Yasuo’s “Notes on Masochism” places individual testimony within a broader discussion of masochistic desire and its public expression.

The middle of the issue is dominated by fiction and case-oriented writing. Ōnaka Chū’s “Motomi’s Resistance” stages coercion within a group initiation ritual, while shorter essays consider sadism, bodily alteration, and women presented as figures of courage or transgression. Kawano Kyōsuke’s “Razor and Beauty” and Bukko Tōshirō’s “Rose Insect” develop violent and fetishistic imagery through illustrated prose. The concluding installment of “Toward the Distant Mountains and Rivers” offers an extended account of female seppuku and historical suffering. A reader contribution about a married couple’s SM photography connects private practice with the magazine’s participatory culture.

The later pages include the thirty-fifth night of the recurring “Tales of the Thirty-Ninth Night,” an essay on women’s wrestling, a conversational notebook on fetish art, Manda Fuji’s confessional “Kinuyo and I,” Kusamura Yoshiko’s melancholy female confession, and the long story “Tower of Sand.” The final portion is devoted to reader communications, classified exchanges, photograph and publication offers, product notices, club material, and editorial correspondence. Together these sections make the issue both a literary-visual anthology and a network connecting readers through shared terminology, personal histories, collecting practices, and specialized desires.

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Table of Contents 21 items
  1. Opening Gravure Portfolio
    6–13
  2. Frontispiece Illustration Portfolio by Shima Takashi, Taki Reiko, Kurokawa Fujio, and others
    14–21
  3. Second Gravure Portfolio
    22–29
  4. One Hundred Forms of Prostitution by Higuchi Itsuma
    34–39
  5. When a Woman Turns into an Animal by Hamura Kyōko
    40–41
  6. The Hot Whip by Karii Rei
    42–47
  7. Notes on Masochism by Ōkura Yasuo
    48–49
  8. Motomi’s Resistance by Ōnaka Chū
    50–62
  9. Sadism and Transformation by Chigusa Tadao
    63
  10. Tales of Contemporary Female Heroism by Morooka Tateo
    64–77
  11. Razor and Beauty by Kawano Kyōsuke
    78–83
  12. Rose Insect by Bukkō Tōshirō
    84–99
  13. Toward the Distant Mountains and Rivers, Final Part by Iimori Kiyoshi
    100–119
  14. Concerning a Married Couple’s SM Photographs by Shingū Akio
    120–121
  15. Tales of the Thirty-Ninth Night: Thirty-Fifth Night by Tsujimura Takashi
    122–135
  16. Notes on Women’s Wrestling by Okahira Yoshio
    136–138
  17. Notes of a Fetish-Art Maniac by Yoshino Mayumi
    139–141
  18. Kinuyo and I: A Confession of Masochistic Love by Manda Fuji
    142–149
  19. The Sad Wish of a Dreaming Maiden by Kusamura Yoshiko
    150–155
  20. Tower of Sand: An Account of My Wife Natsuko by Kasagi Hisaji
    156–177
  21. Reader Communications
    178–191

Highlights

  • The opening photographic portfolios present a broad repertoire of rope positions, gags, kneeling and recumbent restraint, bodily compression, and close studies of the bound body. (PDF pp. 6–13, 22–29).
  • A full-page illustrated portfolio depicts bathing punishment, cigarette torture, disembowelment, historical female cruelty, and same-sex erotic scenes by several recurring Kitan Club artists. (PDF pp. 14–21).
  • Higuchi Itsuma’s “One Hundred Forms of Prostitution” surveys historical prostitution, pleasure districts, policing, terminology, and urban sexual commerce. (PDF pp. 31–36).
  • Hamura Kyōko’s “When a Woman Turns into an Animal” reflects on pregnancy, bodily instinct, femininity, and cultural comparisons between women and animals. (PDF pp. 37–38).
  • The reader experience “The Hot Whip” describes an overseas encounter structured around domination, restraint, whipping, and theatrical erotic performance. (PDF pp. 39–44).
  • Ōkura Yasuo’s “Notes on Masochism” places individual confession within a broader account of masochistic desire, public expression, and modern fetish culture. (PDF pp. 45–46).
  • “Motomi’s Resistance” depicts coercion and punishment within a female group initiation, combining institutional ritual with illustrated erotic fiction. (PDF pp. 47–59).
  • The issue’s central essays and stories move through sadism, bodily alteration, women’s heroism, razor imagery, and fantastical bodily torment. (PDF pp. 60–96).
  • The concluding installment of “Toward the Distant Mountains and Rivers” develops a historical narrative centered on women, seppuku, endurance, and memory. (PDF pp. 97–116).
  • The closing sections combine reader SM photography, serialized fiction, women’s wrestling, confession, long-form fiction, correspondence, classified exchanges, and editorial notices. (PDF pp. 117–189).
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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