Jul 02 (thedailybeast.com) - There’s a saying in Japan, Nama byoho wa kega no moto. That is, Half-baked knowledge of the martial arts is the cause of great injury.
It turns out the same is true in the realm of Japan's fetish subculture. Half-baked knowledge of BDSM is also the cause of great injury---especially with ropes.
Japan's fetish scene has blossomed in recent years and become part of the popular culture. A member of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet appears to have frequented S&M bars, and even the HBO series Girls had an episode set in a Tokyo bondage club.
However, as the fetish scene has grown, so have the number of injuries, and in a culture of shame many go unreported.
For decades there has been one man in Japan's BDSM underground who has acted as the "Doctor House" of dungeonland, offering treatment to the masters, slaves, and dabblers who have done damage to themselves or their partners: Golden-san, also known as Golden Rule S.M. or Doctor Golden, is calling for a "gentler, wiser, and kinder BDSM."
Doctor Golden, who is an S&M practitioner and also a chiropractor, has been taking care of people, mainly women, injured in the pursuit of their pleasure for over two decades. Next month, the book he lovingly edited and oversaw, The Illustrated Manual Of (Japanese) Bondage: Avoiding Risk Edition, should finally be available in bookstores.
In a mere 129 pages, the safety essentials for binding your partner or client with rope are explained in great detail, with easy to understand illustrations. The sexy cover and comic book nudity inside don't exactly make it a great coffee table book, unless that coffee table is located inside a shady bar frequented by Japanese politicians or your own home dungeon. But it's a volume that is long overdue.
