Hayakawa Yoshikazu 早川佳克
Magazine editor and writer known as Hige, who edited S&M Sniper from May 1980 to June 1982 and organized the Hige Salon in Tokyo.
Hayakawa Yoshikazu (早川佳克), known as Hige, is a magazine editor and writer who edited S&M Sniper in the early 1980s and organized the Hige Salon in Tokyo. In a 2020 interview with Kinbaku Today, Hayakawa said the nickname was self-chosen and came from a beard grown at a time when few editors, and SM editors least of all, wore one.
Editing
Hayakawa told Kinbaku Today that Hayakawa edited the first issue of Gensō to Kaiki (幻想と怪奇). Japanese Wikipedia’s article on that magazine names Hayakawa as its editor in charge up to issue 11 and records twelve issues between April 1973 and October 1974, the first from Misaki Shobō and the rest from Saigetsusha. Hayakawa told Kinbaku Today that Misaki Shobō went bankrupt as the first issue came out.
Kinbaku Today records that Hayakawa edited S&M Sniper from May 1980 to June 1982; Hayakawa also recalled an earlier editorship at Takeshobo. Kinbaku Today adds that Hayakawa did the rope for many of the magazine’s photo shoots; it describes S&M Sniper, published from September 1979 to January 2009, as a title whose editor handled the bondage instead of hiring a professional kinbakushi. Kinbaku Today says Hayakawa became an editorial director at Million Publishing and went freelance a year later.
Writing
Hayakawa also used the name Yumemura, according to the Kinbaku Today interview.
Hayakawa rejected the title of kinbakushi in the 2020 interview. Japanese kinbaku, Hayakawa said, had grown up as stage performance in strip theaters and become hard on the body in pursuit of spectacle, whereas Hayakawa tied amateur partners and had to leave no marks.
Hige Salon and Mugen
Hayakawa opened the SM lounge Mugen in Roppongi in 2001; in the interview Hayakawa explained that the Hige Salon had been for couples and Mugen was intended as a place where people could come alone to talk about SM. Kinbaku Today records that Hayakawa revived the salon at Snack Nakamura in Shinjuku in 2006, continued it at another Shinjuku venue until 2012, and revived it again in early 2019. In the 2020 interview Hayakawa described the revived monthly salon as a place for conversation about SM, open to everyone, including visitors from abroad who could cope with the language.