Summary: | This essay explored gendered embodiement within the practice of kinbaku, also called shibari or Japanese rope bondage. The research has been done within the Swedish kinbaku community using ethnographic methods consisting of interviews with practitioners of kinbaku and complete participation observations. By using phenomenology of touch as a methodological and theoretical approach together with theories of somatechnics the intimate experiences and relationships practitioners have to kinbaku, the practice of rope bondage can be understood as processes of embodiement through affect, sensation and technology. By using this understanding of kinbaku questions are asked about how these embodied positions are gendered and further what possibilities, restrictions and potential of renegotiating these positions are embedded within the practice.
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