X

Kitan Club

May 1962

← Back to magazine archive

Cover of Kitan Club, May 1962

Issue Details

Volume
16
Issue
5
PDF pages
136

Summary

The May 1962 extra-large issue of Kitan Club combines an unusually long opening sequence of erotic and sadomasochistic imagery with fiction, confessional prose, psychological speculation, autobiographical writing, reader-oriented columns, and cultural commentary. Its editorial identity rests on the juxtaposition of staged kinbaku photography, illustrations of punishment and domination, and narratives in which desire is explored through captivity, humiliation, performance, disguise, voyeurism, and unequal power.

Read full summary Close full summary

The front matter begins with a formal illustrated table of contents and a succession of commissioned drawings. These plates depict rescue fantasies, outdoor bondage, public exposure, female dominance, criminal violence, mock sumo, and ritualized self-injury. A substantial photographic section follows, presenting close studies of rope placement, facial expression, gagging, female domination, submission beneath the feet, staged seppuku, constricting garments, and ebi-style binding. The photographs are organized as named portfolios with credited models, giving the issue a catalog-like visual rhythm before the main literary section begins.

The prose section opens with Kondo Hajime’s Akemi Writhing, a backstage narrative about a young actress subjected to violent theatrical discipline and exploitation. Sudo Ritsuo’s confessional essay Chronicle of a Woman: The Woman from Aizu shifts toward nocturnal encounter, biography, and sexual danger. Sawai Kazuo’s The Tongue Knew follows with a long account of erotic duplicity and interpersonal manipulation. Tsujimura Kaoru’s Thirty-Nine Nights of Strange Tales supplies an extended supernatural or grotesque narrative, while Hayakawa Susumu’s Women’s Subconscious Desires frames female sexuality in psychological terms.

Later contributions broaden the issue’s register. Fujio Tamotsu offers an autobiographical statement of his life and opinions; Higashimachi Saburo’s The Stairway to My Wife’s Depths returns to domestic and marital psychology; Mishima Yayoi’s My Life in Women’s Clothing documents cross-dressing and gendered self-presentation; and Saji Ozo’s serialized SM novel Somewhere in the Universe supplies the issue’s longest sustained fiction. The Kitan Salon section mixes criticism, correspondence, short observations, book and performance commentary, and community-facing material. The closing portion begins the illustrated series Decisive Battle, Utsumi Shoji’s second-self confession, and Higashiyama Eishi’s survey of cruel scenes in recent films. Across these forms, the issue presents SM not as a single genre but as a network of visual practices, theatrical fantasies, literary conventions, identities, and reader communities.

Loading PDF…
Table of Contents 33 items
  1. The Goddess of Salvation by Thirty-Nine Nights Group
    3
  2. Elegant Iroha Playing Cards by Takireiko
    5
  3. Beautiful Figure in Takate-Kote Ushirode Binding by Takireiko
    6
  4. Bonfire by Shiba Takashi
    7
  5. The Display in the Yard by Shiba Takashi
    8
  6. The Boss Woman and Three Slaves by Harukawa Namio
    9
  7. Mounted on a Startled Horse by Harukawa Namio
    10
  8. Yakuza Lynch by Kurokawa Fujio
    11
  9. Tatami-Ring Geisha Sumo by Yukizaki Kyojin
    12
  10. Seppuku in Ski-Wear Style by Takireiko
    13
  11. Expressions of Ecstatic Torment and Close-Ups of Rope by Kinukawa Fumiyo
    14
  12. My Pleasure by Takeno Hiroko
    15–16
  13. The Expressive Beauty of the Gag by Rika Yukiko
    17–18
  14. Fantasy of Torn Underwear by Otsuka Keiko
    19–20
  15. Prelude to Submission: Complete Submission by Kinukawa Fumiyo
    21
  16. The Trained Pet Dog by Rika Yukiko
    22
  17. Slave Beneath Her Feet by Rika Yukiko
    23–24
  18. Female Seppuku Pantomime and Close-Ups by Otsuka Keiko
    25–26
  19. The Feel of a Diaper Cover and Rubber
    27–28
  20. A Moment of Ebi Binding by Rika Yukiko
    29
  21. Akemi Writhing by Kondo Hajime
    36–45
  22. Chronicle of a Woman: The Woman from Aizu by Sudo Ritsuo
    46–49
  23. The Tongue Knew by Sawai Kazuo
    50–57
  24. Thirty-Nine Nights of Strange Tales by Tsujimura Kaoru
    58–71
  25. Women's Subconscious Desires by Hayakawa Susumu
    72–77
  26. Fujio Tamotsu's Life and Opinions by Fujio Tamotsu
    78–87
  27. The Stairway to My Wife's Depths by Higashimachi Saburo
    88–96
  28. My Life in Women's Clothing by Mishima Yayoi
    97–99
  29. Somewhere in the Universe by Saji Ozo
    100–114
  30. Kitan Salon
    115–130
  31. Decisive Battle by Yukizaki Kyojin
    131
  32. Another Me by Utsumi Shoji
    132–139
  33. Cruel Scenes in Recent Films by Higashiyama Eishi
    140–

Highlights

  • The formal illustrated table of contents establishes the issue's mixture of pictorial portfolios, fiction, confessions, psychology, autobiography, serialized writing, and community columns. (PDF p. 4).
  • The opening illustrated portfolio presents rescue fantasies, outdoor bondage, public exposure, female domination, criminal punishment, and staged violence by several credited artists. (PDF pp. 3–13).
  • A sixteen-page photographic sequence studies rope patterns, gags, facial expression, domination, staged self-injury, constrictive clothing, rubber materials, and ebi-style binding through individually titled portfolios. (PDF pp. 14–29).
  • Akemi Writhing uses the world of popular theater to depict coercion, exploitation, punishment, and the transformation of suffering into public performance. (PDF pp. 31–40).
  • Chronicle of a Woman: The Woman from Aizu combines confessional narration, an urban nocturnal encounter, personal history, and fantasies of danger and bodily violation. (PDF pp. 41–44).
  • The Tongue Knew develops a long narrative about infidelity, erotic role-playing, manipulation, and the uneasy circulation of desire within marriage and family relationships. (PDF pp. 45–52).
  • The paired contributions Women's Subconscious Desires and Fujio Tamotsu's Life and Opinions show the magazine alternating between quasi-psychological analysis and first-person intellectual autobiography. (PDF pp. 67–82).
  • My Life in Women's Clothing provides a rare first-person account centered on cross-dressing, feminine presentation, social encounters, and the construction of an alternate gendered identity. (PDF pp. 92–94).
  • The serialized SM novel Somewhere in the Universe occupies the largest continuous prose block and combines science-fiction framing with bondage, captivity, punishment, and hierarchical control. (PDF pp. 95–109).
  • The final pages introduce a survey of cruel scenes in contemporary cinema, connecting the magazine's erotic concerns with film criticism and popular visual culture. (PDF pp. 135–136).

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

©