Karada

What is a karada?

Karada (Japanese 体, “body”) is the Western name for a rope harness laid around the torso like a web, from about ten to fifteen meters of rope. A karada ties nothing down: it spreads pressure across the torso and provides attachment points for other ropework. The pattern in it is called hishi or kikkou.

How a karada is laid

That same source draws the comparison with the leather harness and concludes that the effect is the same. Tie you down, a web like this does not. What it does do is smear out pressure and yield anchor points for further ropework, up to and including a suspension. If the arms have to come along, the bands go over them instead of under.

Why the name misleads

Karada means nothing in Japanese other than “body.” It’s a word that stuck to this tie in the West; the encyclopedia on Japanese bondage literally calls it a Japanese word used in the West for the body harness. In Japan it’s about the pattern: the Japanese entry on kikkou shibari reserves kikkou strictly for hexagons and hishinawa shibari for diamonds, and notes that the two often get lumped together because of the turtle-shell look. So order a karada from a Japanese rope teacher and you might well get a puzzled look back.

What to watch for

• Treat a karada as clothing, not as a restraint. Anyone who really shouldn’t be able to get out of it needs wrists or ankles tied off separately.
• Look at the armpits again when someone sits, stands, or hangs. That’s where the most vulnerable tissue of the whole tie lies, and a change of posture shifts the pressure toward it.
• Check that two fingers fit under every band, even on a harness that only needs to look good.
• Talk about the rope between the legs before you lay it, not once it’s already there.

Where this fits on this site

A karada is one of the calmest ways to notice what rope does to you: you can just walk around in it, and you’re not fixed to anything. The page about the BDSM date explains how we discuss beforehand how far the rope goes.

Sources

• Japanese bondage. Wikipedia. Provides that karada is a Japanese word for “body” used in the West for the body harness, and the descriptions of kikkou as a tie that comes out as a turtle-shell motif and of hishi as a tie with diamond shapes.
• 亀甲縛り (kikkou shibari). Japanese-language Wikipedia. Used here only for the naming in Japan itself: that the term kikkou shibari strictly belongs to hexagonal ties, that diamond-shaped ties are called hishinawa shibari there, and that both names run together in practice because the whole thing resembles a turtle shell. This article rests on two book titles and nothing else.

Related terms

• Hishi. The diamond pattern inside a karada; the karada is the harness, hishi is the drawing in it.
• Harness. The leather counterpart, with the same working principle and a different pressure profile.
• Shibari. The Japanese ropework this tie comes out of, with the history and the risk figures.
• Breast bondage. The ropework right above it, which does close around the chest.
• Jute and hemp rope. The two materials a karada is usually laid in.
• Bondage. The wider frame, with the rules of thumb that apply everywhere.
• Shinju. The chest piece often combined with a karada, and where that word comes from.