Doyama Tessin 堂山鉄心

Doyama Tessin is a Japanese rope performer and the owner of ARCADIA TOKYO, an SM bar in Kabukicho, Shinjuku. His profile dates his first rope show to 2005 and says that he has since performed in more shows than he can count and has worked as the rope artist on many adult videos. It also mentions a rock band and photography among his other activities.

ARCADIA TOKYO

In a 2018 article for Kodansha’s Gendai Business, the nonfiction writer Kanno Kumiko described ARCADIA as a long-established SM bar whose Osaka branch, run by Aotsuki Nagare, came first; the Tokyo bar opened about nine years before the article. Doyama’s portfolio records that he and Aotsuki organized the bar’s anniversary event TOKYO ULTIMANIA in Shinjuku on August 7, 2010, and held it every year after that. Kanno presented ARCADIA as a social bar where SM enthusiasts of any gender and preference meet, as opposed to the more common mistress bars where staff in dominatrix costume serve guests, and wrote that it had helped drive a recent, quiet boom in SM bars. Doyama told her that the bar’s one rule is not to deny anyone else’s preferences, and that he sees its main role as a place where people can talk about sexuality without shame.

The bar’s website describes drop-in rope classes for beginners, held on three fixed days a month under a schedule introduced in 2024. They start with a wrist tie and center on the basic ushirote (hands-behind-the-back) tie, and are taught by Doyama and several other instructors, including women. The page says the classes are kept small enough for a teacher to watch every student, that tying as play is not allowed during class, and that students and models are asked not to drink alcohol. The home page lists the monthly rope gathering 縛心会, which his profile says he leads, on the first Sunday of each month.

Performances

His portfolio lists regular appearances at the DX Kabukicho SM show from spring 2010, a fetish festival in Sapporo in June 2013 and annual guest events in Sapporo from August 2014, the 笑縄 series at Shinjuku’s Nagaya Hall from 2015 to 2017, a workshop in Zurich in August 2016 and an event in Shinjuku in February 2017 billed as an all-Japan kinbaku exposition. It also names the book Corde de Prune among his book work.

Approach

His profile explains his view of rope and SM with an image of armor. People are born without protection and learn to dress, it says, and as they grow they also armor their hearts against hurtful words; some carry so much that its weight threatens to crush them. He describes the basis of his rope as telling such people that, for the moment, they may set the armor down. For strict people who cannot forgive themselves he offers punishment, and for those who cannot accept pleasure he uses restraint to open them up.