Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage - book discontinued by Greenery Press - review by Darkness Withinus

When I first opened the box with this book in it I noticed the full color image on the front with a beautiful model partially suspended by Midori the books author. I opened the book to the initial shock of seeing a great deal of text. I had initially thought that it would be a step by step picture book on how to tie people up. However, not to be put off I started reading the text. This book is a really nice introduction to the art of Japanese Rope bondage. The first chapter of the book is about the culture of Japan and where rope bondage originated it in. There is also plenty of discussion about types of materials you should use and set up for a nice scene. It includes how to check your ropes for damage etc and reminds you to do this often. There is a section on the safety things that need to be considered before a rope bondage scene and a short narrative of the questions that both the Top and bottom should be asking about the scene. After these largely text components the book comes into the meat of why most people would purchase it, simple shibari ties and the instructions on how to complete them. This section includes usually one full page color photograph of a model in the bondage followed by illustrated pictures and text on each step of the tie. The ties presented will easily become the base for anything that you might want to do with shibari. The book includes several basic chest harnesses and ways to secure both arms and legs and as an added bonus touches briefly on suspension at the end.

After reading through the book I set up a session with a submissive I was at the time dating and we went to work trying out some of the ties in the book. Many of them were fun to do and I could easily follow them from the descriptions offered in the text. There were some that seemed a little more complicated but with some time we even got those to work out correctly. Since then I have had a great deal of fun with this book and have learned many of the theories that are inside of its pages and use them still to this day.

That said there are some issues with the descriptions and sometimes there are sections where they show you a really cool variant on a harness or something and then fail to explain how to tie it all. This is further exacerbated by the fact that some of these ties cannot be done simply by applying the basics they discussed earlier to them. For instance a full body tortoise shell harness is a lot more difficult to tie than simply following the pattern down the body since when you hit the legs the body changes and the tie must change slightly too. This is not something that you can’t get around, nor does it ruin the beauty of the book itself but it could have used a little more description in these areas.