Large Fierce Mammal

This image was put here by me as a shameless attention grabber, and is NOT the work of our Artist du jour.

WARNING: Images and links contained in this article are of an EXTREMELY ADULT nature that may be disturbing to some readers.

If your sentiments run against subjects that include bondage, nudity, and torment in a sexual context, then please leave this page now and come back tomorrow when we’ve moved on to a different topic; But if you’re good with it all, then please feel free to wade into the wonderful artistic world of Yoji Muku, AKA Jito.

The sudden upswing in popularity of such books as Fifty Shades of Grey is at once unsurprising and inexplicable to me. Unsurprising because the dark side of desire has always had, and always will have its allure, and only leads to a bad end when unstable personalities or Hollywood movie producers become involved. Inexplicable because I can’t see why anyone would find the concept of a relationship of sexual torture at the hands of someone who is admittedly symbolically punishing his mother to be anything appealing, let alone erotic. Anyway, this is not to judge those who may find something of value in that body of work. I’ve always had extensive interests in the genre that don’t require the introduction of mommy issues or any other form of sexual maladjustment to explain them.

In truth, not all in life, nor in art, need be explained – for what is wrong with accepting that a situation just is and telling the story from there? In short, the subject matter has been treated better, and I can send you a reading list if you’d like. Should you ask for that though, be advised that there will a time limit on completion and an examination at the end. ~ Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 28: Force Continuum

There’s a movie scheduled for release on  St. Valentine’s Day, 2015. It’s called Fifty Shades of Grey, and I expect that if you’re reading this, you have probably heard about it and/or read at least some of the books in the trilogy it’s based on. If you read the article and associated poem from DS2012 that the excerpt above was drawn from, you will know how I feel about stories that dabble in such subject matter, and how those that seek a more, dare I say “mainstream” audience, seem to inevitably come packaged with a back story explaining what psychological aberration is prompting the action. In that spirit then, let’s move on with the subject of today’s Dark Sentiment.

Little is found when one searches for biographical information on the life and times of Joji Muko; also spelled Youji or Yoji Muku, depending on the source; and unless one of my Esteemed Readers would be forthcoming in providing something more detailed, what I’ve found myself amounts to this:

Yoji Muku (1928 – 2001) – Japanese railroader and salesman from Osaka who was also a self-taught artist and editor of a Japanese BDSM magazine. He wrote and drew comics under the name Toyonaka Yumeo, and is the illustrator who created many of the Japanese bondage drawings found online with “Hunt” or “JBD” file names. ~ Fetish Artists “Who’s Who”

And this:

Self-taught Illustrator and editor of the Japanese BDSM magazine, Uramado. Produced drawings of women in rope bondage scenes. ~ Dictionary of erotic artists: painters, sculptors, printmakers, graphic designers and illustrators

As with all things Japanese, the ocean from which that nation’s bondage traditions spring is a deep one. Referred to interchangeably in Japan as Kinbaku or Shibari, both terms refer to an intricate and highly stylized method of binding a human body with rope. In a Kinbaku session, the one being tied is the canvas, and is transformed into a work of art by the ropes that are applied by the one doing the tying – the Kinbakushi or, more commonly in English, the Rigger.

Shibari literally means “to bind” and Kinbaku means “tight binding”. The word Shibari came into common language more recently, and outside the erotic world it does not necessarily identify a form of Bondage.

In Shibari the emphasis is not placed on the binding itself, but on how the rope is placed from the Rigger (in japanese kinbakushi), so as to become an extension of his hands, and on the relationship of intimacy so created. In short, the Japanese bondage concerns more the path that leads to the final result, than the result itself.

Kinbaku, unlike the Western bondage, is not a practice, but a real discipline, which involves what the Japanese call “kokoro”, i.e. “the heart, spirit and mind”, things can not be acquired through the mere knowledge of techniques and knots.

Today Japanese Bondage is not only a form of sadomasochistic constraint, but has become a real artistic expression, where the Rigger creates a sculpture by shaping the human body through ropes. ~ Kinbaku Luxuria

Working under the nom de guerre  of Jito, Yoji Muku produced a body of work that stands as a stark reminder at how wrong headed it is to look down upon the self-taught. Working from photographs of posed scenes, each of Jito’s paintings capture more than  a mere moment in erotic torment. While some of his renderings are not to my taste, what I present below decidedly is, and so I present the travails of a ravishingly voluptuous, often tattooed beauty, captured in her ordeals as only Jito could. Naturally, clicking a picture will enlarge it.