On being tied in ‘Naka style’ by Naka-san

Photo by anonymous.

Have you ever been in the middle of something when you realised that it’s your dream coming true, only you didn’t even know you had such a dream? It happened to me. And it made me cry in ropes for the first time. 

The pandemic dust was settling slowly and more rope events were happening in Europe again, including visits by foreign teachers. One of them (considered by many to be the one) was Naka Akira-sensei whom Kinbaku Lounge in Copenhagen invited to give a workshop in October last year. On an evening before the workshop there was a ‘Semenawa kinbaku kenyukai’, modelling those that Naka-san organises in Japan. I decided to go even though I could not participate in the workshop (it was meant for people who have not learned from Naka-san before). In fact, seeing Naka-san tie Iroha-san and another model live seemed even more interesting than the workshop. I bought the ticket and waited impatiently for the day of the event.

To my surprise, a couple of weeks later I got a call from Namarie from Kinbaku Lounge asking me to be the other model at the event. At first, I could not believe it. “Me? A model of Naka-san?” He was one of my most important teachers and a Master completely out of reach. “Could this be true? Do I have anything to offer to him as a model?” It seemed that Namarie and Scott believed I did (and I will be forever grateful for it). I needed a day to sober up and to think about it but in the end I said “yes”. I don't think I could live with a peace of mind if I had given a different answer. Even though the thought of being tied by Naka-san in front of a crowd of strangers made me slightly nauseous. 

The day of the event was hectic. In the morning I flew from Berlin to Copenhagen (straight from another rope event, Eurix), picked up the keys to my weekend apartment, dropped the bags and rushed to the Kinbaku Lounge. And after a short city train ride, I stood eye to eye with living legends of kinbaku, Naka Akira sensei and Iroha-san (I know they don’t like to be called that but the truth is they are living legends). We exchanged pleasantries and were supposed to talk about the upcoming session but, I think, we both didn’t know where to start. There was so much to say and so little time that we both decided not to say much, stick to the basics, and see what would happen. He asked me if I was aware that his style of rope was erotic and how flexible I was. I said I was aware and alright with it and that I was relatively flexible. I showed him the dress I was planning to wear and he said he liked it because it had buttons going all the way down. He asked me if I would wear panties and I said yes, black ones. He said I could wear any colour I wanted. 

The moment he invited me on stage to kneel in front of him, I finally understood what was happening. I also realised that no matter how many pictures and videos of his rope I’ve seen and no matter that I did a workshop with him and Iroha-san and had seen them perform, he was a stranger to me. And there was no reason why I should submit to him. I didn’t know if I wanted to ‘be his’. And to me this is what happens when you let someone tie you. You belong to that person, even if for a short while. 

I was not sure how this session was going to go. The truth was that in the last months, or even years, I’d been going through a transformation and that transformation was not finished yet. If this session was happening a couple of months ago, I’d sit down in front of him, ready to give him everything right from the start. But not anymore. Yes, I was going to do what was necessary to make it worthwhile for the people who bought the tickets because I was a professional in some way, but would I give him all I had? That was undecided.

The first rope of the TK was uncertain, searching. I was sweaty and uncomfortable and the swarm of thoughts in my head was not helping. ”Am I behaving the way he thought I would? Will I be able to survive what he’ll tie? What am I doing here? Am I going to deliver an experience that Namarie and Scott were hoping for?” I think that Naka-san felt this uncertainty too. We were both a bit shy, insecure. The question “Is the other going to like what I have to offer?” was going through both our heads, it seemed. And we didn’t know the answers yet. One thing was sure, though, I liked him being close to me. I didn’t feel uncomfortable when he sat right behind me and extended his ropes around me, almost like an embrace. It felt good.

He tied the first rope, broke my seiza and displayed me to the audience talking about how for him each rope was a finished image. Each rope mattered. I was not sure what I was supposed to do at that time so I decided to just be there and react to what was happening with as much honesty as I could muster. In fact, it was the least and the only thing I could do. 

Photo by anonymous.

From then on my memories get a bit blurry. There was a second rope of a TK and being displayed again. There was a slow unbuttoning of my dress and Naka-san saying he enjoyed it because there were so many buttons. He did not want to reach his goal as soon as possible. He savoured the process, peeling my layers off slowly. The unbuttoning made me feel wanted which made me feel shy which made me turn my head away as I often do. Was it real shame or was I flirting with him? I still don’t know until today. The mysteries of my unconscious are mysteries to me as well. 

Then there was a moment, still on the floor but after an upline already supported me from above, when he opened my legs and started tying a harness around my thighs and hips, the one in which you put the rope very high around the thighs, almost in the groin, and which was always painful to me because the insides of my legs are hyper-sensitive. I remember thinking that it was going to be difficult if he was going to use it in a suspension, even though he probably thought it would make things easier because it provided additional support. But I didn't say anything. I was there to experience what was there to experience and the only shadow of influence I allowed myself was to express how I was affected by it. But whether he would be able to read and respond to it, we could not know yet.

But then he attached the hip rope to the TK in such a way that I arched my back and sat up straight and that was the first surprise. I was trying to hide by arching my back and hanging into the TK and he made me display myself. I didn’t expect that. I felt exposed but also seen. I felt toyed with and I liked it. Up until now, the session was rather objectifying but this was the first time I felt that it was not about objectification at all. Naka-san was trying to get to know me. And it seemed like he was starting to get at something. 

Things continue to be blurry from that moment on. There was a futomomo and at some point I was up in the air. There was also a third rope on my chest. And another futomomo. And a lot of rope around my wrists which was biting into my lower arm and reminding me that what we were doing was dangerous. I was 60% certain I wouldn’t get injured so I went with it because I didn’t want his torture to stop. There was a moment when I was hanging upside down from two futomomos and a waistline with my legs spread open and I felt like I was about to be sacrificed or like I was being punished for something horrible I’d done, my breasts revealed bare, my image must have been a mixture of erotic and miserable, one enhanced by the other. 

Photo by anonymous.

As I was hanging there, I thought it was about to be over. I thought that it was the final dramatic position and I was about to go down and get that sweet feeling of “it’s all over now” and “you are ok now” and to bask in the memories of what I went through. Only it wasn’t. In fact, what happened at that moment felt more like a beginning. And that was a second surprise. I can’t tell why but I think that it was only then when Naka-san started to tie me for real. I don’t know if it was because I became completely open and bare or because he got out of his patterns and his creativity began to really flow. 

All I know is that when he pulled my TK up and when I ended up in something like a gyaku-ebi (only it was not a gyaku-ebi because the rope around my lower back was preventing me from bending so I was basically just spread open in all directions), something left me and something entered me. And when he lay down under me to have a look at what he did, I couldn’t help the tears falling. I still don’t know why. I never cry in ropes but with this man I did. And it’s not because he was the meanest or the most ruthless of them all. There was not one thing he did to me that somewhere deep inside of me I didn’t want. And it was so vulnerable to know that he knows. 

I’m not trying to make this experience spiritual. Let’s face it, I was exposed and erotically tortured in front of a crowd of people by a perverted older man. And I liked it. It was not about god but about sex. But it was exactly the realisation that this perverted sexual experience was what I wanted and he could see it that made me feel so vulnerable. There was no escape from it because there I was, hanging exposed, with one of my arms losing feeling and yet I didn’t say stop. I didn’t say I wanted out. I let him go on, past anything I’d thought was reasonable, because this was exactly who I was. And he was in it with me.

In the past I wrote about Japanese rope being objectifying and I must say I might have been wrong. Yes, what Naka-san did to me was objectifying but only if I imagined how it must have looked from the outside. Apart from the first part of the scene when he was tying me and talking to the audience I did not feel objectified. Yes, he was exposing and enjoying my body but, somehow, the entire time I felt we were in this together. I didn’t feel like I wasn’t human to him. On the contrary, my humanity seemed to be the most interesting part of me to him. 

A friend of mine who saw this session said that it was like watching our first couple of dates unfold fast-forward right in front of their eyes. And I believe it. It certainly felt like we got to know each other even though we barely talked. I guess the way you get to know someone when they put you through misery which they know you crave creates an understanding that is deeper than words. 

One thing we know for sure after that evening. We are both perverts. And we are not afraid to show it.