I’m going for some educational guessing here, but I think you should not even try to describe the name of a Japanese bondage in any language. You should use the original Japanese name to avoid confusion.

The reason for this is that the Japanese language and writing is based on 3 character sets katakana, hiragana and kanji. Theses character sets are used to either express sounds (katakana and hiragana) or express ideas with possibly the same sound (kanji).

When you try to Romanize the sounds (katakana, hiragana) and ideas (kanji) for a commonly accepted name of a Japanese bondage you lose information and the name that you are left with does not equal the full meaning of the original anymore.

This is where our Western confusion begins. Take 10 people able to read (a little) Japanese and you get 10 (slightly) different translations for a Japanese sound/idea/expression. The translation is picked up by other Westerners and they give it their own (usually wrong) meaning/interpretation. This is placed on the internet and the world picks up on it… hey it’s written down, so it must be correct… right?

So, if you are truly serious about shibari, a thing from another culture that is about as different from your own as it gets (East/West), go for the original naming to maintain the original context and respect for the culture and its people.

Bob
June 2005

 

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