Fuwa Shinobu 芙羽忍
Tokyo-based kinbakushi who teaches regular rope classes, runs a women-only rope gathering, is known for horror-themed rope performance and co-created the photobooks Kinbaku Danshi (2015) and Kinbaku Danshi 2 (2018).
Fuwa Shinobu is a Japanese kinbakushi who, according to her official website, is mainly based in Tokyo, where she holds regular rope classes. The site and a 2021 interview with TV Tokyo’s web magazine TV Tokyo Plus both say she was drawn to rope as a world of its own, separate from SM play, and became a kinbakushi for that reason.
Coming to rope
In the TV Tokyo Plus interview she said she first took rope classes reluctantly. Until then she had thought of tying as a mere tool for restraining someone in order to beat or torment them. Within the first three hours of a class, she recalled, her view changed: her teacher handled rope as if it were a hand, and she wanted to understand how that worked. The interview does not name the teacher.
Classes and gatherings
Her official website, in a version archived in 2024, describes a safety-first group course held twice a month in Shinjuku, which teaches complete beginners from the start; suspension lessons are open only to students who have passed the basic ushirote (hands-behind-the-back) tie. She also offers one-to-one lessons, in which students learn tying sequences, how to handle, make and maintain rope, and the basics of safety. These lessons use hemp rope only, and she states that she may decline students depending on why they want to learn. The same site describes a women-only rope gathering in Shinjuku that she organized after learning that many women were uncomfortable being tied in front of men they did not know. It is an open practice session rather than a class, held twice a month, and the site says more than half of the participants are new to rope. Both the website and the interview add that she owns Lotus, an SM venue.
Books, performance and television
The National Diet Library lists two photobooks titled Kinbaku Danshi (“bound men”), credited to Fuwa Shinobu and kirin and published by Ichijinsha in December 2015 and August 2018. In the interview she said that releasing the first volume for all ages rather than as adult-only material was a first, and that her media appearances increased after it came out. Her website says she specializes in horror-themed rope performances that combine beauty, eroticism and madness, though the archived version also says she currently turns down almost all requests for rope shows. TV Tokyo Plus reports that she handled the rope scenes in the Paravi drama Raise de wa Chanto Shimasu and its sequel, and that in 2021 she appeared in a Paravi spin-off special built around the Kinbaku Danshi theme.
Approach
Her website says she loves BDSM but sees SM and kinbaku as related yet different, and treats kinbaku as a communication tool. In the 2021 interview she described rope as an extension of her hands and said she reads a partner’s body temperature, breathing and sweat through it; whether a tie hurts, she said, is up to the person tying. She also stressed that the person tying must consider the partner’s bone structure and muscles to avoid injury.