Shinju

What is shinju?

Shinju (真珠) is the Japanese word for pearl, used in the Western rope world for a chest harness: rope above, below, and between the breasts, usually with a halter over the shoulders. The pearl is a figure for the breasts themselves. In Japan the word names no tie.

Where the word comes from

From a gemstone, and from very far back.

The Digital Daijisen describes 真珠 as the spherical material that forms inside the body of shellfish such as the akoya pearl oyster: around an intruding object the animal lays down secretion, layer by layer. The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten adds two things you would not expect. Pearls once counted as a remedy for heart and eye complaints, and the oldest attestation of the word stands in an Izumo document from the year 734, in which thirty pearls are offered.

What is not mentioned is rope. In Japanese, shinju is simply the gemstone; the meaning “chest harness” arose in the West, as a figure for what the rope frames.

Why rope people prefer to say munenawa

Because that word does describe what happens.

The glossary of the rope school Shibari Study translates shinju briefly as pearl, notes that it is often used for chest harnesses that accentuate the breasts, and adds that it is linguistically more fitting to say munenawa (胸縄). That word is made of mune, chest, and nawa, rope, and by that same list covers any chest tie that leaves the arms free.

Where this fits on this site

Rope around the torso is one of the calmest ways to notice what a tie does to you, and you do not have to leave the ground for it. How such an evening is set up and what we agree beforehand is on the page about the BDSM date.

Sources

• 真珠（しんじゅ）. Kotobank, with the entries from the Digital Daijisen, the Seisenban Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (both Shogakukan), and the Nippon Dai Hyakka Zensho (Nipponica), entry id 81887 looked up through Kotobank’s search. Provides the reading しんじゅ, the description as the spherical material that forms inside the body of, among others, the akoya pearl oyster as secretion is laid down in layers around an intruding object, the use as a gemstone, the note that pearls once also counted as a remedy for heart and eye complaints, and the oldest attestation in an Izumo document from 734 in which thirty pearls are offered.
• 心中（しんじゅう）. Kotobank. Provides the reading しんじゅう for 心中, which establishes that in Japanese that word has a long u and so does not coincide with 真珠; only in Western spelling without the macron do the two look alike.

Related terms

• Breast bondage. The practice a shinju is one form of, with the patterns laid out.
• Breast bondage, also filed under its Dutch name, covers the anatomy and the risks.
• Karada. The torso harness a shinju is often combined with.
• Hishi. The diamond pattern that ends up in such a harness.
• Shibari. The tradition this vocabulary comes from, where most of these words are older than this one.
• Harness. The same shape in leather or webbing instead of rope.