The psychological effects of Shibari are huge. Your partner will not only feel totally exposed and at your mercy, but she is also constantly and increasingly aroused by the erotic effects of the ropes. This can be absolutely great, but shameful at the same time because she cannot stop it and the excitement is just not enough to satisfy her completely so she will need – and probably beg for – more. Since you can quite easily use the basic bondages in public places the arousal is even bigger and the length of the average Shibari session is another factor that will confuse her.
It is not unusual for submissives to go into full subspace as a result of the bondage only and frequently that does not even have to be a very complicated or advanced bondage.
The other thing is that rope – as opposed to leather or steel cuffs – will always give your partner the idea she can escape. If your bondage is good, she can wriggle but she cannot escape. However she will try nonetheless. This leaves most women wrestling with the question whether she will submit or put more effort into attempts to escape. That is very frustrating. Plus, the more she wriggles, the more intense the erotic stimulation will be.
Integration of goals
Shibari strives towards the integration of several different goals at the same time.
1. erotic stimulation by concentrating Ki into erotic zones;
2. seek for beauty and perfection;
3. immobilise your partner, thus achieving better concentration since nothing else matters;
4. expose the partner to the giver;
5. stimulate the mind of the partner by introducing immobility, instability, exposure, erotic cruelty, uncertainty and unreleaved erotic stimulation or combinations of these factors (whatever appeals to you most).
Not every individual bondage will deal with all goals at the same time, but every bondage is always a combination of two or more of these goals
Respecting your partner
To understand Shibari it is important to understand the way Japanese people think and to understand what a Shibari dominant wants to get out of the bondage.
First of all, in the Japanese culture a group is always more important than the individuals that constitute the group. In this case the group is you and your partner and the bondage is a group-effort.
The success of the session is determined by the value, the two of you together get out of it.
It is not there to individually please either one of you (although of course it will).
Next, it is not so much the individual that counts, it is about what the individual can achieve and as a result can contribute to the group effort. Towards the bondage this is the skill of the bondage giver and the ability to cope with it by his partner. Important aspects here are: striving for perfection by both partners;
striving for beauty. Not only the bondage itself should be perfect and beautiful, the bondage should also express or underline the total beauty of the bound partner and the beauty of the whole environment and the moment;
striving for long and intense erotic stimulation (to the bondage giver the beauty, the perfection and the sight, to his partner the physical and mental stimulation of the ropes and to both the interaction between the “group members”).
This is where you can draw a direct parallel to Ikebana, the Japanese way of presenting the beauty of one single flower in a free space. No wonder suspension is often an essential part of advanced forms of Shibari, because this will literally lift your partner into free space.
It is of paramount importance to understand that Japanese partners have great respect for each other. This respects grows as a result of the interaction between the two partners and the way they grow towards each other, thus as a “group” rising to a level above that, what each individual can achieve. This is one of the major topics of Zen.
The above article is a reprint from our information/educational site Kink Culture.
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