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TITLE: The Birth of the Abnormal Magazine “Kitan Club”
SERIES:  
AUTHOR:Masami Akita, Akio Fuji and Chimuo Nureki
SOURCE:Japanese Kinbaku Photo History 1
DATE: 1996
PAGES: p178-180.
NOTES: This is an excerpt from the section.

Translator's notes regarding fact checking is added to the end.




  Translator's notes: Ten Forms of Nude Bound Women

 On page 35 of “The Beauty of Kinbaku” (2008), there is a claim that “Ten Forms of Nude Bound Women” was the catalyst for setting Kitan Club firmly in the direction of erotic SM. To support this claim, the author gives a quoted statement from the book "Japanese Kinbaku Photo History." Here is that quote:

 

As you can see, The Beauty of Kinbaku’s quote does not match what the Japanese Kinbaku Photo History says in the translation above.

"Ten Forms of Nude Bound Women" appeared in the July 1952 issue. If the Japanese Kinbaku Photo History is correct, then Kitan Club was reborn as an abnormal magazine from the June 1952 issue. That is one issue before "Ten Forms of Nude Bound Women" was published. Also, the change in cover styles between the April 1952 and June 1952 issues might also be a sign of that perverted rebirth. Therefore, this illustration could not be the "trigger that set the magazine on a specialized course of bondage."

Secondly, “Ten Forms of Nude Bound Women” appears beside an illustrated article that includes illustrations of nude bound men. (full issue here)

 

On top of that, Reiko Kita had already been publishing erotic illustrations of nude bound women in previous issues of Kitan Club for more than a year. Here are a few examples:

 

So a claim that "Ten Forms of Nude Bound Women" is “without doubt Japan’s first (publicly printed) modern illustration of blatantly sexual seme-e” is a severely limited view of what counts as blatantly sexual seme-e.

I don’t know whether these mistakes are innocent misrememberings or an attempt by the author to create his own story about early SM magazines, but such errors are a good reminder to not accept everything that a book or educator tells you. It is important to fact-check before sharing information.

-Faviola

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