These pages are dedicated to bondage, including a nearly forgotten art of Japanese Hojojutsu for tying up a person. The main purpose of shackling ever was, of course, to prevent captured criminals from escaping. Far from this, however, the playful variant of tying someone up, which is widespread nowadays, also existed in ancient times. Restraining someone's body and limbs with rope could lead to astonishing results when used correctly.
Far Eastern philosophical schools from past centuries dealing with meditation practices, mention an effect triggered by bound limbs, which is able to calm down body and soul. Erotic stimulation may have influenced the background of what we would call spiritual bondage today, but forced sexual manipulation cannot be proved by the old scripts. In the modern perception, tying up a person does not necessarily have to involve sex, although this variation has become very popular. The restriction of physical mobility unquestionably originates tactile stimuli which, depending on someone’s constitution, may well be felt euphorically and cause intense sexual reactions.
Psychologists, especially Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Wilhelm Reich, Sigmund Freud, and Alfred Adler, tried to comprehend, why people like to be tied up voluntarily, which implicates that they cede their physical self-control to others. Interpretations based on case studies are controversial. In the quintessence this phenomenon remains enigmatically. Like any vital longing, it could be conceived as a facet of happiness, unexplainable as life itself.
To meditate being tied up, certainly cannot be everybody’s business. Realistically put in practice, it requires some preparedness to endanger oneself, full health on body and soul, and last but not least the skilfulness of a chess player to manage situations that are going to be troublesome. Intelligence is as indispensable as high sensibility. It may sound snobby, but sitting around passively tied up does not fit with children’s yelling and dog’s barking. It is ultimately reserved for the happy few, to obtain by corporal immobilisation meditative quietness. For this purpose you do not need any teacher or guru. Just relax and let you fall. You will become your own guru in a very empathetic way.
The technical aspect of being tied up usually requires an assistant. There exist, however, various possibilities to tie yourself up in such a manner, that you can no longer get out. It will become impossible to free yourself with own strength from appropriately applied cuffs, cords and leather thongs unless you have keys, scissors, or other tools accessible.
As a little boy, Manuel from Salamanca, one protagonist from the Snakie novels, feels great pleasure being tied up. All his playfellows tap their forehead, if he touches upon this matter. So he tries more or less successfully to tie up himself. Later on, in his friendship and love to a German girl, he recognises that his predisposition is not only a playful desire, but one of the central themes in his life. On her part, Diana is enchanted by the timid and unmanly southerner, who does not show any display behaviour like the vain boys she normally has to bear.
After several summers in Germany, Manuel continues his linguistic school holidays in the United States. On a ranch in Wyoming he is confronted with Billy, son of his host family. In the beginning the Spaniard and the American do not harmonise, although they are fascinated of one another. And since they are genuine belligerent boys, they form a friendship by grappling and wrestling. In the immemorial never ending game between two strugglers resembling Uke and Tori it turns out, that Billy also likes profoundly to be tied up. At first, the central theme of their consubstantiality is enforced by tenacious thin leather straps. Billy knows, what they are good for, since he was hogtied therewith during a test of courage in a summer camp, offered by the Crow Indians. Later on, the boys mostly shall use handcuffs. They are securer fetters and quicker to apply. Furthermore, handcuffs protect wrists and ankles against abrasions.
Although initially the boys experiment with games which include dominance and submission, they are always aware of their responsibility towards the comrade. Billy’s major body strength is faced to Manuel’s leading mental power and his peace of mind. In their inclination both boys behave passively. So they obtain, as measured by two adolescents, a harmony out of the ordinary. When they run into danger to lose themselves in their passion, they wisely provoke a break, which do separate them for a couple of years. Grown up, they meet again. Now they analyse methodically the syndrome of voluntarily being tied up in the course of meditative self-reflection. Their girlfriends Diana and Virginia take care, that the young men in their eccentricities preserve a salubrious balance.
With the video clips should be tried to trace pictorially something of the boy’s knowledge and experience. Up from the fifties Amateurs could use eight-mm-film. I think, my protagonists, if they would have had this medium at their disposal, would not have used it. They would never have agreed to a documentation of their self-expression.
Besides preparing the novels in the seventies, through the years I took, inspired by
the protagonists of Snakiestory, several thousand pictures in black and white and in colour, whose style is extremely particular and inimitable. A selection of these pictures had
been exhibited 1978 in the Eivissa Ville gallery Secret Lives, this with a humble echo. Roughly the same choice will be shown now forty years later again publicly, as we will go along in
the videos. Samples are published in the clips Secret Lives 1 and 2. The (nearly) complete collection is shown here.
The texts in the clips, translated in the English language, are obtained word-for-word or in essential parts from the novels Snakie – Diana and Snakie – Billy. They are, such as the footage, protected by copyright. Any subsequent use requires my agreement. You may make a copy for yourself, but any further use, especially publication in other media, requires my consent.
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Meditative Bondage 01 had been rejected a long time ago by
Y due to explicitly shown nudity against the Community Guidelines. It is true that the clip shows the naked back
of a tied-up youngster.
And a scene with two naked boys grappling, copied from a Greek amphora.
I never would have thought that a black and white picture from the seventies or a piece of art from the British Museum, both completely harmless compared with other stuff on Y, would have moved censors to act with the scissors. Now I know more about Y's fully automatic acting filtering system. It's useless to issue a complaint. Y is for free. The company leaves users free to kneel before the vaguely formulated guidelines or to quit the community. Anyway, my whole series of 42 clips found a new home in a liberal ambience. Meditative Bondage 01 now serves as the pilot clip.
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