Tasuki

What is tasuki?

Tasuki (襷) is a Japanese rope pattern that runs as a cross over your chest and shoulders. The name comes from the cord you once used to tie back the wide sleeves of a kimono, so you could work freely. In the West the same tie is simply called tasuki, sometimes tasuki chest harness. What you remember is the X on the front.

Where tasuki comes from

The word existed well before the rope scene. Wiktionary describes a tasuki as the cord you use to tie back the sleeves of Japanese clothing, and the Wikipedia description shows how: a band of cloth or cord that loops over each shoulder and crosses behind the back. Craftsmen wore it in the Edo period (1603-1867) to lift things without damaging their kimono. Bondage borrowed that geometry, and nothing else. The tasuki is then described as a chest harness that falls as an X or cross over the back and over the shoulders.

Why people find tasuki beautiful

The X does something simple and strong. It frames the chest and draws your shoulders slightly back, while with the classic tasuki your arms often stay free until the end. For you that feels like being folded up without everything being fixed at once, and that makes it a favorite as a first step: lovely on its own, and at the same time an anchor a rigger builds further on. The moment such a chest harness carries real weight or your arms get bound into it, the nerve paths come into play. Then placement counts for more than shape, and this is no longer a pattern to copy from a quick clip on your own.

Where this fits on this site

If you want to feel rope over your shoulders instead of reading about it, a BDSM date is the calm place for that. On that page you can read how I build such an evening and what we go over beforehand. I work with real hemp, and we start light.

Sources

• Tasuki (sash). Wikipedia. Provides the description of the tasuki as a band of cloth or cord that loops over each shoulder and crosses behind the back, the tying up of kimono sleeves, and the use by craftsmen in the Edo period (1603-1867).
• 襷 (tasuki). Wiktionary. Provides the meaning of 襷 as the cord used to tie back the sleeves of Japanese clothing.

Related terms

Tasuki is a chest tie within shibari, and leans on the terms below.

• Shibari. The Japanese rope art this pattern belongs to.
• Kinbaku. The more intimate, erotic side of the same rope work.
• Kannuki. The cinch that tightens the wraps of a tasuki.
• Asanawa. The natural-fiber rope you tie this with.
• Nawa. The Japanese root word for rope under all these terms.
• Sabaki. How smoothly someone handles the rope while the X takes shape.