Midori's "Knotty" Work To Make Shibari and Kink Inclusive

Lark’s head, overhand on a bite, double coin knot, cross hitch friction — These are just a few of the knots that make up the basics of shibari, a form of Japanese rope bondage, of which Midori is a master. She’s spent her career normalizing the fact that interest in shibari and other BDSM practices is natural while helping people honor said desire safely.

“Sex-positive education can make the world better,” Midori said. “And if I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be in this career for 30 years, and this is not an easy career.”

As a third-culture kid with one foot in the United States and one in Japan, Midori has a unique understanding of how shibari is seen in Japan, its country of origin, and in the U.S., a country that Midori believes has a more modern view of sexuality and sexual desire but still has a long way to go in achieving true sex-positivity.

Shibari has a sometimes confusing and difficult role within its roots of Japanese culture, Midori said, and the shibari origin story is often romanticized.

“So goes the myth that Japanese rope bondage was developed by samurai warriors in ancient Japan who honored their enemies, and when they captured their enemies they would tie them into elaborate forms, respecting their rank,” Midori explained.

Midori said this narrative is preferred because it's comfortable. She discussed how in a society like ours, one that prioritizes straight white men, the narrative that they love is the one that gets perpetuated. Even though the roots of shibari are more complicated and convoluted, that romanticized story is what sticks.

Midori actively works to avoid this romanticized narrative in her teaching and rid shibari of the stereotype that straight white guys have to be in control and that bondage requires a dominant man and subordinate woman. She wants shibari to be accessible to everyone, to create spaces where all individuals can participate in this art. And she wants this engagement to be without pressure to follow traditional gender and sexuality norms of power and dominance, specifically and especially queer folks.

This goal of inclusivity has been present since the very beginning of her career. Midori is the author of multiple books, one of which, The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage, being credited as the first English instruction book on shibari. She noted that in that 2001 book, she included a diverse collection of people engaging in shibari. She flipped through the book over a recent Zoom call with Honeysuckle, pointing out the people in the instructional images.

“Asian American woman followed by nonbinary Black American [...] girl of central European heritage with a lovely nonmodel body, skinny white guy bottoming, older gay male,” Midori said. “So we’ve got age, size, ethnicities, gender. I was only allowed six color panels because that’s all the publisher could afford, so I spent the six panels on real friends, real humans and specifically chose for diversity.”

Since she penned that book twenty years ago, Midori has noticed great changes within the industry. She specifically cited the culture that existed around BDSM in the 1990s and the early 2000s.

“The orientalist narrative is one that used to get perpetuated much more than it does now,” Midori noted. “Back in the ‘90s and the ‘00s, I would show up to rope events or BDSM social gatherings that had elements of rope. Even the ones that tended to have the more racist and problematic representation, I would still show up. I felt like I was the only person, like I was shouting into a hurricane; but I felt like I had to show up to be at least one person giving an unpopular perspective, and [then] I might find others similar.”

She said that though there is unfortunately a lot of this problematic narrative being promoted, times have changed and the culture around bondage and shibari specifically has improved.

And this is in line with the shift BDSM has been seeing in terms of its overall popularity. In an interview with OZY, Dr. Justin Lehmiller, the author of Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life, said, “Many of the things that we’ve long considered to be paraphilic are actually pretty common sexual interests.” He said that so many of these sexual interests were classified as strange purely because they were unusual, but “once we started to really systematically explore them, we found that a lot of these are quite common.”

As people begin to realize how common interest in BDSM is and see kink communities represented in mainstream media (think the wildly successful Fifty Shades of Grey franchise), it’s becoming increasingly normalized.

Even with all of these changes around her, what hasn’t changed for Midori is her approach to education and her emphasis on respect and diversity. She applies this approach to companies and collectives she’s considering working with.

“When it comes to being approached by or working with websites, events, entities, I am now in a position where I can look at what they’ve got and understand if they are willing to be culturally cognizant or if they are going to flatten my culture,” Midori said.

Shibari Study, a groundbreaking company that makes shibari instruction and education available via online live classes, is one that passed the Midori test.

“I was straightforward [with Shibari Study] about my concerns: ‘how do you represent Japan and Japanese bondage?’” Midori said. “And instead of telling me what I should feel, think, or believe, which is the predominant cultural way, they were very obviously wanting to listen and learn and to be right by people.”

In other words, as an established educator who offers coaching and private lessons, classes and presentations and two and three-day deep dive intensives, Midori has the ability and the flexibility to vet organizations before deciding to work with them. She said Shibari Study echoes her views about shibari and its accessibility, which is apparent through its mission statement.

“We wish to support the individual and collective growth of rope enthusiasts by providing expert guidance to riggers and models of all levels, backgrounds and identities,” Shibari Study’s website says. “Respect, consent and inclusiveness are at the core of everything we do at Shibari Study.”

Companies like Shibari Study and educators like Midori are contributing directly to the kink community’s slow but steady entrance into mainstream society. Despite the progress she’s seen, though, Midori doesn’t shy away from what still needs to be done.

“I think kink has gotten destigmatized, which is nice, but kink folks being considered as a liability to equalization, that still exists,” Midori said. “As kink becomes less stigmatized in general culture, I hope that fear of political liability is also decreasing.”