This two picture set comes from a longer photo spread in which a sweet Japanese girl is gradually striped of her kimono while tied in a variety of bondage poses. The overall tone is extremely reverent, as though the women were a beautiful garden and the artist was loathe to trample the flowers. Her demure, submissive demeanor is typical of such photo spreads, but this one is unusual in that in some of the frames her rapture breaks through the traditional mask of detachment.
At first I was puzzled by this kind of photo spread. It begins with a fully clothed woman all trussed up in tightly fitting ropes. Step by step we see a little more of her outfit removed, but each time she is intricately bound in a new position. I could not imagine why anyone would untie her enough to remove one small item of clothing, then go to all that trouble to tie her up again. The only logical explanation I could think of was that the artist could not know how much nudity each viewer wanted, so he tried to provide something for everyone.
Only after I had the opportunity to explore this kind of bondage play did the truth become clear. The process of being tied up, or of tying someone up, is just as arousing if not more so than the end state. All those years that I fantasized about tickling bound girls I focused on the end state. The girl loved to be tickled but just could not hold still long enough to enjoy it, I tied her up and Presto! the tickling was underway. If you think about it, that sounds a lot like what women complain about when they talk about having sex with men. We do not take enough time, we rush right to fucking and get it over with as soon as possible. To someone who's greatest thrill comes from bondage, what could be better at building desire than an hour or two spent performing a leisurely striptease while being trussed up into a half-dozen different poses?
In this first picture the girl has had all of her kimono removed, but is still wearing her white tabi (socks) and a formal hair ornament. Think of it as a traditional Japanese equivalent to sheer black stockings and a string of pearls, very feminine and elegant. Her pink kimono is just visible in the background, and its inclusion is anything but an accident. A young woman in a beautiful kimono is still a highly charged image of feminine allure to many Japanese males, made all the more so by its total absence from everyday life.
The table she is sitting on is called a kotatsu. This one is not an antique, and is in fact very commonplace in Japanese homes, but I think it is used here to help convey the feeling of a traditional Japanese girl engaged in traditional Japanese bondage play. This kind of table is set up in winter. It has a heater inside, now nothing more than a small heat lamp, and a comforter is spread over the top followed by a second table top. The family sits around this table with their legs tucked under the blanket for warmth. In really cold weather they stick their hands inside, too.
Sitting on the table to the left of the girl is a vibrator, which is shown more clearly in the next picture. To her right is a writing brush. To someone with elementary knowledge of Japanese erotica the vibrator should help convey the fact that sex is definitely on the menu, but the significance of the brush may elude them.
In many similar photo spreads a writing brush is displayed, but not shown in use. Why this is so I have no idea, but it could be that to the Japanese erotic tickling is so taken for granted that there is no compelling reason to show it. Or, it could be a Japanese preference for creating a visual setting that invites the viewer to play.
In this series we are fortunate in that the artist left nothing to our imagination. In the next picture the girl, now laying on her back, is being tickled by the brush. The artist could have used a better angle, as the brush merely seems to float over her cunt without touching it, but it may be that he did not want to obscure her cunt. In any case, the censors have etched the area of her cunt, as this picture was taken back when depiction of genitalia was strictly forbidden.
Notice the girl's expression in the second picture. It is subtle, but when you consider how inscrutable the women appear in most Japanese erotica hers is remarkably expressive. It appears to me to be the perfect blend of pleasure and suffering.
Sandy Beach
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