(This is the second interview of the Shibari Talks series. You can find here more about what that is).
Talking with Kuss is refreshing and, it a lot of different ways, illuminating. During her years as shibari model (even if she’s not convinced by the use of the word “model”) she has reflected a lot about the active role that the person being tied up plays during a tie. We chat about the evolution on regards to the consideration of models that has taken place during the last decade, and we go through her career in an interview that starts with an important announcement…
How would you define yourself as a model and as a rigger, in your own words?
I’ll start saying that I’ve decided to retire and move away from ropes. Partly because of physical issues: I don’t feel comfortable with the ties and I’ve lost elasticity. Also I have other needs right now beyond that kind of exploration, I’m in a different personal phase. About my trajectory: I can talk about my process as a rope model, because I haven’t explored much as a rigger. It’s been always difficult for me “to give”. Because for me, tying someone is basically having the skill to give, to offer something. And I’ve always felt more comfortable, safe and capable with “receiving”. I’ve always felt better in the role of receiver and active participant of that reception. Incidentally, I don’t like the word “model” in the context of shibari, because it overshadows the role of the people being tied up. A model is someone showing herself… But a shibari model is something more, it’s an active part of that instant. I’ve been looking for a better name for years without success…
I guess that you won’t like rope bunny either.
That term is representative of the mentality of a time when the dominant male was the rigger and the bunny was a sexual female being who let the man do anything to her. When I started with shibari this was the norm, but it’s been changing, luckily. I’ve been part of this change as much as I’ve could… For me it’s unacceptable that the rigger is the maximum responsible of this game, of this experimentation moment. There must me communication and reception, it cannot be something unilateral towards a bunny. A suitable word should be found. “Tied” doesn’t sound well, “partner” has other implications… Let’s use “model” for now. But the person being tied has 50 % of responsibility; emotional, mental and physical positioning; all this is part of what’s being created during a session. And what the model can bring to the table will change each situation. I don’t like the understanding of shibari as something that one rigger creates and gives to another person. There is someone who knows how to give a particular kind of sensory, physical and emotional experience, and another person who is receiving it while giving active feedback modifying the situation in real time.
Clik here to view.
When and how did your interest in bondage appear?
My interest appeared when Alberto and myself met and fell in love some fifteen years ago, and we started exploring our sexuality. I was curious about being tied up, once I bought a dog collar… I had not explored fully those fantasies, and at the time it was difficult to get information on different ways of understanding sexuality. And one day I asked Alberto if he would like to tie me up. His eyes lit up with excitement, he confessed that it was something that he had wanted to do since a long time… And that’s when everything started. We bought some ropes from Decathlon, those things you do when you have absolutely no clue… We started playing with those fantasies and we realized that we both loved them. [Laughs] I loved the sensation of being completely restrained and exposed to whatever the other person had the intention to give you… We did lots of crazy things: it was very funny and exciting, every day a new idea came up. On weekends we looked for rope stores, we gathered different types of ropes… Every time a new rope appeared, everything turned into a party. Alberto is a bit… How should I say this… Obsessive. [Laughs] When something piques his interest he cannot stop, he needs to explore absolutely everything related to that interest. Ropes became an integral part of our relationship. A couple of years later we found ourselves with the need of accessing socially to other circles to share these kind of experiences, learn and diversify. We were a bit shy because we didn’t know anybody… Investigating about sadomasochism we found a club. Rosas 5, but we never went there because we did not know what to expect there! Then we went to Madrid to live there for some years… Alberto was there a bit before, and he met with a group organizing monthly parties.
Dark Sabbath?
Yes. Alberto started meeting people, and when I arrived there, I discovered a new world full of possibilities, much greater than we could have ever imagined. There was a lot of people there exploring alternative sexuality fields… But there were very few people tying, and the ones who did were difficult to reach. Rope groups in Barcelona and Madrid were very private and competitive territories. So we decided to learn by ourselves and we were very lucky, because soon there was a little opening-up thanks to Kurt, the owner of Rosas 5, when he brought Matthias Grimme.
Clik here to view.
So you travelled momentarily from Madrid to Barcelona for Grimme’s workshop.
Yes. Previously we had attended to a workshop given by Alfil, a disciple of Kurt… And after that Matthias came in 2008. That workshop was very important for me, because he gave it with a woman that didn’t have a submissive role, but an active and participant role in the workshop. I have a medium sized body, I’ve never been very physically fit and I was afraid of not being able to do suspensions because I wasn’t flexible or skinny. Then this wonderful German woman arrived, big in height and weight, and she was so pretty in ropes… With her beautiful corset on, she did self suspensions and looked so happy… I understood that I had to forget female stereotypes: shibari had to be enjoyed and experienced. From that moment on, everything was easier. Alberto was more and more thrilled, trying new things… And I started working with self suspensions: I didn’t even know before that workshop that I could tie myself like that. But one problem remained: I did not like to be tied up remaining static, with my feet firm in the floor to keep my balance while hearing that mantra of: “… if something does not go well, it’s because you as a model are failing in something”.
The model was blamed for the problems?
The capability to make a tie work is not in the hands of a single person, but how can you tell your rigger that he’s not doing it well? It’s you that is not adopting a good position, a good reception… It’s a complicated issue because it affects the egos, and it’s true that the rigger acquires total responsibility towards the model and works his own fears, having total power at that moment over the life of the other person, the responsibility of taking care and avoid hurting. This creates stressful moments, at least I’ve lived them this way… But this does not excuse unacceptable attitudes towards models.
Clik here to view.
Those attitudes of blaming the model… Did you find them at the time, or you still find them today?
They’re still found today… It’s difficult, because involves dynamics beyond shibari and related to social behaviour. They are less frequent now, because the women attitude is also changing… And I speak about women and men because, until fairly recently, normally the riggers were men and the models women.
Why do you think that this imbalance in male vs. female models exists?
Partly it’s because of acquired social conditioning, repeated and perpetuated: woman as receiver and man as giver. This is extrapolated even at the level of sexual relationships: a man who penetrates and a penetrated woman. Like if the person at the receiving end wasn’t having an active attitude: being a receiver does not mean having a passive attitude! Another reason is because a lot of men took the ropes as a flirting tool… Anyone doing a two hour workshop called himself a rigger and used that as a hunting tool. Moreover, as a general rule, men tend to feel uncomfortable with hugs and with the fact of being immobilized by someone. Women don’t tend to give much importance to being tied by a man or a woman, but to the experience being received from that rigger. They are more open to exploration, whereas men tend to be greatly conditioned by the gender of the rigger.
During your years in Madrid you opened the blog Mujer entre cáñamo (“Woman in hemp”), where you showed shibari drawings and small poems…
While I was in Madrid I left my job and spent some time revisiting graphic illustration. My most thrilling experiences during that time in Madrid were related to rope, BDSM, parties we attended to, everything was new and exciting… That became depicted in the blog.
Clik here to view.
When you came back to Barcelona, what differences did you see between the rope scene in Madrid and in Barcelona?
Our return to Barcelona was complicated. Madrid was an experimentation field. When we went to Dark Sabbath we did performances, even with our lack of experience and excess of vanity… But there was no one else doing rope performances, and it was exciting. Then we came back to Barcelona and we found differences of opinion regarding how to share experiences and collaborate with Kurt and Alfil. It seemed to me that they were not interested in socializing shibari. And then the Nido del Escorpión (“Scorpion’s Nest”) appeared. The Nido was another world, and with the benefit of hindsight, it was very different from any other venue in Barcelona. It was a unique space, partly because its owners and partly because of it gathered a group of very participative people with a high level of exploration… In the Nido there was a lot of tolerance with identities, a lot of respect for whatever anyone chooses to be. And that was something unique. Rosas 5 was a reference inside BDSM, but it was very conditioned with stereotypes about how to behave and relate. In the Nido all that was different, and with different I mean better. [Laughs] It was an open space where everyone could be, present itself and relate to other people as they wanted, and that seemed wonderful to me. People played a lot in there… There was no rules about codes, attitudes, protocols, behaviours: everybody had freedom to explore.
There in the Nido, Alberto and yourself organized the Nidos de Cuerdas (“Rope Nests”), monthly initiation workshops.
Learning was very difficult if you had no money for travelling to Japan, very few teachers came from abroad, the workshops were very expensive, there was a lack of information and materials… But in the Nido Françoise and Josep Lapidario created a space without economic burdens, where everybody could access without suffering. A little nest was created to socialize shibari, and from there lots of things started to emerge. A lot of interest was created, and also Josep was (and is) in love with everything japanese, and he was starting to tie. That space was very interesting. If something saddens me is the fact that, for whatever reasons, it was very difficult that people had continuity in the workshops…
Clik here to view.
Not a lot of people went beyond one or two workshops…
That was in part our responsibility. Everyone liked to play a bit, but we weren’t capable to inspire them that level of emotion that we had towards shibari. My feeling was that we conveyed that feeling, because of course we felt it… There’s something I’ve never liked in shibari, and that’s theatrics; lack of sincerity feels unacceptable to me.
Are you referring to sincerity during a tie?
Yes, during a tie. Everyone can do their shibari work from where they want. There’s people who just want to take a picture and that’s it, because of the aesthetic aspect. Others want to experiment with their physical limits, pain, reception, tolerance… But a social tie in a venue or a performance is a moment of introversion/extroversion, because it’s something very intimate but you are showing it to the people around you. When you expose and show yourself you must be sincere. You cannot be keeping an eye on the pose or in your looks… It must be sincere. And I miss this in a lot of riggers and models, I don’t get any emotion from them, I see more show than sincerity.
Something purely aesthetic.
Creating an Instagram picture… Something that doesn’t go further from photographic exhibitionism, while what I care about is emotional exhibitionism. I don’t see any problem in focusing only in the image, but I’d wish for more viscerality.
Clik here to view.
After 2010 you went to different workshops, amongst others the ones by Osada Steve, Kinoko Hajime and Haruki Yukimura. Three very different experiences as a model, right?
Osada Steve was enlightening and exciting, a man coming directly from Japan who was going to tell us the secret… But in there you, as a model, were nothing, just an object of desire for the rigger. My case was different because Alberto and I were a couple and we had another type of complicity, but that attitude existed: the only reference to models during the workshop was to call them bunnies and tell them to let go, show and flash themselves. But I didn’t hear him talk about communication. As a start it was OK, but something was missing.
Then we went to Kinoko’s workshop. It was very exciting, because we saw that there wasn’t a single way of tying, but a base structure over which every rigger develops a personal work. I’m very thankful for the abstraction capability of Alberto, he understands volumes and shapes, and from there explores and finds ways of expression. Kinoko told us that it’s important to work a lot and keep active. I asked him about the role of the models… And he almost laughed at my face, because his answer was: “relax and enjoy”. I couldn’t believe that he said that. There wasn’t any discussion about what was happening during every tie, only about how to do the tie technically, and how the rigger could provide more or less pain, more or less pleasure… But nothing about how the attitude of the person being tied up modified the experience.
Then we went to Yukimura… For me, he is the master. Every rigger is worthy, because each of them has taught us something, but Yukimura told us the important things. Are you tying a piece of furniture? No. You have a wonderful person in front of you and you have to listen. It’s nothing more than we usually do in daily life: listen. If you listen, that person is going to tell you things, and you’re going to tie that person up communicating in a different way. You have to see what that person can provide. Each one is different: you have to observe, hear and smell, because each one will take you exploring towards a different place. That’s the most important lesson I learned from Yukimura. He didn’t do almost any suspension… Everything was floor work, with a corporal relationship with the tied up person that I had never seen. Up to then I had seen the riggers approach the other person as an external element, without connection. Yukimura made abundantly clear that for him that interaction and connection during the tie was the important thing. Then I said “at last!” and just afterwards: “do you see, Alberto?” [Laughs] I was fed up of remaining in a static position, I’m not like that, I needed to move and express myself. Ropes were starting to annoy me, because I needed to explore with my expression and I wasn’t doing that. Moreover, when your significant other starts tying from zero, there are lots of boring moments as a model before you can start enjoying the ties. Having your skin sore from the ropes, minimal but constant discomforts, arriving home tired and without the urge for ropes… There are really tormenting moments, and they represent an important bet towards the rigger.
Clik here to view.
How do you get implicated in performances and their preparation?
We had been doing performances since the beginning, even when we were clueless. There were various reasons. One of them was that when tying in private we ended up getting angry, because we didn’t find the time among the daily distractions. But doing a performance during a party put us in a bubble… And we discovered that we liked doing ropes in front of other people. It’s difficult for me to speak in public or make friends at parties… But in performances I didn’t have to talk. I suddenly discovered the emotion that an actor probably feels when acting or dancing. Showing something so intimate, my body, an intense exhibition in front of other people while receiving their emotions, their silences… I haven’t had a similar experience with anything else. I wasn’t fully conscious of what was happening, because I was focused on feeling my emotions, but I received it somehow. And I knew when the performance was going well or when we didn’t reach the audience. You could notice it. It was a very subjective thing, because during perfos I reached moments of complete rope subspace.
Clik here to view.
How would you define this ropespace?
I entered in a bubble, absolutely lost and without any notion of time. For me the performances ended very quickly, but in reality they were half an hour minimum… For me they felt like five minutes. The passage of time and the intensity of what was happening were very different inside the scene. I didn’t have the feeling of actually seeing the audience, but I felt lost, wrapped in another place and doing things that I was incapable of achieving at home. Kinoko’s transitions are a very complicated ropework, that we never managed to do perfectly at home. But Alberto wanted to test them live, and what was a torture became a wonder! I thank Alberto a lot for his boldness in dragging me to the performances since day one, because I enjoy them immensely.
And going back to my role in the performances… It’s complicated. People think that we rehearsed them, but we didn’t. Alberto had they ready in his head, but I never knew beforehand what were we going to do. And not knowing was good, because it’s difficult for me to take my thoughts out of what I’m doing. As I didn’t know what was going to happen, I couldn’t think in what was I supposed to do, but simply let me go, receive and get something back to the rigger to change the session in real time. And after Yukimura the chains of static positions were finally broken… Because you can’t offer anything if you have to be thinking about your posture. Practice leads to habits: if you are suspended a thousand times in the same way, your body gets in a particular position in an unconscious and automatic way. The moment I felt that I was actually contributing with something important was during the Madrid show.
Clik here to view.
The shibari triangular in the Clamores Jazz venue, during Akira Naka’s Spanish visit… How did that experience change you?
That was my change as a mod… as a rope worker. [Laughs] It was not a premeditated change, but the sum of a lot of thoughts and little changes about what I wanted to do, that became crystallized in Madrid. It was the sum of wanting to have a different kind of participation on the stage, and the fact that Alberto and myself were in a complicated emotional moment, and I had the need of taking certain emotional distance to see myself in another way. When you have been doing ropes for years, it’s not only that we are attuned, but also that Alberto starts putting a rope and I know towards where are we going to go. That’s what living together and continuous work do. As I felt this need for distancing, when I appeared on the stage I was not Alberto’s model… I was myself! And if he wanted to tie me up, he should look for me and convince me first. In that moment I did not think that, I’ve been understanding that later. I was on the stage and at the first rope I adopted a proud attitude, a “you are going to have to get me like it was the first time”. Until he managed to do it, and then I experimented my greatest abandon in ropes. That different attitude at the start and that distance gave me an advantage, I liked that moment a lot.
Afterwards some people said: “what happened?”, “that wasn’t you”, and that made me think a lot. And Alberto must have experimented a different kind of feeling, because from that moment on a lot of things changed, everything was more close to a dance than to a simple letting yourself to be tied. These last years have been very beautiful, funny and exciting for me. I took decisions like not appearing naked again. It doesn’t matter if my ass or a breast were exposed, but I wanted to avoid the exhibition of the female body, I wanted to work with the emotion and beauty of shibari without that beauty having to come from the model’s body. Obviously I’m not thirty anymore: do I have to compete in flexibility, beauty or firmness of flesh? I was not interested in that competition, but I wanted to keep doing performances feeling well, regardless of what others did. I also wanted to start avoiding orientalization. I am not Asian, I’ve been dressed enough as a Japanese woman… I wanted to be myself, that’s what I’ve always wanted to be. Myself. With Alberto I’ve felt more a protagonist, and we include lately the duo stretchings we did at the beginning, “working without ropes”, as he says… The new elements started to appear in an easier and more natural way. One day Alberto shoved my face at mere inches of the audience grabbing my hair. Having the audience so close to me was wonderful, it was incredible to look them closely after so many years of closing my eyes after the first rope. I needed to enter into a situation, look at the audience, know what’s happening to move the situation towards another mood…
Clik here to view.
What relationship do you see between pain and shibari, what’s sometime called semenawa?
That’s very personal: whatever each person wants. There are very masochistic persons, interested in working with pain and the pleasure it gives, but I’ve never been particularly interested in extreme pain or in semenawa. I’ve got a little masochistic streak and a certain interest towards tensions and pain, but not towards torture with ropes.
Which qualities should an ideal rigger have?
A lot of empathy and assertivity… He or she should work a lot, be able to listen and have the capability to offer something, because if you can listen but you don’t have anything to say, just technique and twenty different takatekotes, the result isn’t interesting. And there was another thing that I just forgot…
I hope that it’s not because of the difficulty of getting it…
[Laughs] Every rigger should find a personal way of tying. Because what the Japanese have taught us in fundamental, but if you don’t explore further from that, if you don’t explore towards yourself, if you don’t find the true essence of what you want to do, you are only repeating. I find very interesting when riggers explore until finding their style. And maybe this doesn’t imply inventing new things, but developing personal actions, ways of working, how to show that work to others… Finding a personal style without repeating. It’s hard for me to get moved when I see some riggers, it seems that they are not working with the person being tied. I find now a lot of women who are tying and allowing to be tied, that are very eager to learn and that relate easily to each other, exchange knowledge… That’s wonderful, it’s going to be a big change, so everyone in the community should wake up and get a move on [Laughs].
Clik here to view.
Have you ever been in a Hitchin Bitches or similar meeting only for women?
No, never. Well, I was in a “girls only” party in Rosas 5 a very long time ago… But I haven’t attended any Hitchin Bitches. I’ve got some duality of thinking about those events. On one hand I think that we should break with the gender segregated spaces, both for women or men, that don’t really make sense nowadays. But on the other hand I see that there are women groups that need empowerment, and this is a way of getting it that may change later… I want to think that these meetings are a necessary but temporary step. I’ve never been there because I don’t like that feeling of space in which women take care of each other because we are better at caring… Well, no. We are as bad as bad guys, and as good as good guys… We are not better because of being female, and we should avoid falling in the same pitfalls than the other side.
How should the rigger/model communication be during a tie?
Non verbal. When you are having a deepening bodily experience, if you use words you’re breaking a workflow, turning it into something more cerebral. It’s easier to ask out loud to the model if something is hurting than observing if she’s clenching her teeth… Rigging is a difficult work: besides of technique and practice you have to observe the model’s reactions and avoid hurt. But it’s fundamental to observe the person you’re tying. If you want to get a response from the other person but you break her body dynamics every ten minutes asking things… Of course, if someone is getting very uncomfortable you must ask out loud, but I don’t find that interesting as a rule.
Clik here to view.
Do you practice any physical or mental activity that makes you a better model?
Can I lie? [Laughs] I really don’t. I’m not a physically fit person. During last years I’ve kept an eye on this because I need it, but I’ve always been more about pleasure and enjoyment than effort and exercise. When I was more active in shibari, the daily work with ropes improved my physical state. I did some dancing for a while to strengthen my legs… But not too much.
Do you think that it’s an advantage for the rigger to be tied up frequently, it’s enough to have experimented once, or it is not necessary at all?
If you live something firsthand, you will have more knowledge of what happens… But I don’t think it’s an obligation. It’s more important to be observant, empathize and having something to offer.
Clik here to view.
From certain sectors in feminism BDSM has come under attack, and also shibari as a way of putting women, visually at least, in a submissive position towards men. Have you found these kind of comments?
Yes, of course. Even I’ve wondered myself sometime if they are true, because there is some work to be done there with patriarchy and the typical male/female roles… But everything I’ve done has been with consent, because I’ve wanted to and enjoyed it immensely, that’s the big difference with a sexist role. I’ve never been in a situation I didn’t want to be in, and when I’ve been into a situation I’ve been reallly well with it. [Laughs] Most frequent question I’ve got during the years are “does this hurt?”, “are you crazy?” and “how do you let yourself do that?”. The last one bothers me: assuming that I’m “letting myself do something” is assuming that I’m being forced without having an active or conscious role.
You have always kept anonymous: has it something to do with shibari social acceptance?
And with the relationship between shibari and masochism. Things change very fast, the situation when we started and the current one have nothing to do regarding the acceptance of these practices. When we started there was zero public information, so I didn’t feel like explaining myself. My family knows partially about it, and in my social circles almost everyone knows, but… Some friendships have been lost, more because of fear than criticism. And when I told them to come see it, they answered that they were not going to be convinced. But I didn’t want to convince anyone of anything! In any case, we are talking about another generation.
Clik here to view.
When and how did your Kuss nickname appear?
I had a German boyfriend once… [Laughs] And I learnt German. I don’t speak well any language, but I have a facility for sounds. And there are words in some languages that I enjoy very much uttering. “Kuss” is one of them, it means “kiss” in german… The nickname has been a resource for being anonymous online and for the performances, but I don’t use it live.
Do you have the feeling that some models nowaday get burnt very fast or exceed their limits too much?
It’s the generational change, everything goes much faster. Everything must be achieved faster, twenty performances, fifty pictures… OK. Very well. But, for why? There’s a need for doing, doing, doing… I don’t know if it’s a feeling related to growing up, something generational or just the sign of the times, but everything seems to be done faster, maybe to start doing something else afterwards.
Which rope venues have you visited, and what did you think of them?
Besides from the Nido? [Laughs] I haven’t been in many places… We went to the Copenhague Dojo, and I thought it was a place for practice very nice and pleasant… But too normative, and I’m not interested in that because I’m not very normative myself. Schwelle 7, where EURIX took place, is the experimentation venue in which I’ve been more comfortable. Freedom of action, nice space, care… Exceptional work has been going on there, like a nido but bigger and with Germans who take it very seriously and try to expand it.
Clik here to view.
Your first official experience as a rigger was in Tentesion’s Tattooatados. Why did you start tying?
I thought about learning to be a rigger because I noticed that I would not be able physically to keep doing performances and suspensions forever. In the end it was too hard for me. And I thought that rigging would be a good way to keep my relationship with ropes. After so many years in the receiving end of the ropes I already knew some things, because I had always practiced a bit and I attended a lot of workshops. I found a victim and I started trying, but I had difficulties getting close, I didn’t find the way. I’m left handed, and I don’t retain the sequences… Moreover, I was always comparing myself, and that generated a lot of anxiety. I stopped thinking that rigging was a good path for me, although I thought it was the only one… In Tattooatados, I thought that if I couldn’t do sequences, I could at least do what my hands and brain asked from me. At the time we already knew Pilar LaOtra, who has worked with ropes in a very different way, a door towards a freestyle related with Dasniya Sommer’s. In Tattooatados I mixed this new door with what I knew and could do. I went there with some heart stones, and what I did was to put together the knots and do “burruños”, like I called them, big balls of rope. That way of tying interested me for a while… Tattooatados was very exciting. When you are not a regular rigger and someone allows you to tie him or her, it’s enjoyable and the result picture is beautiful, you get overwhelmed with pure emotion… I didn’t sleep that night, it was very beautiful. But I couldn’t keep that. It was gone. More time has passed, I’ve been drifting away from ropes, performances keep getting more difficult… After the last ones I had difficulties recovering, but I thought I had to keep doing them because I loved them… But I also notice that I have less interest towards exhibition, I have other needs.
Clik here to view.
You retire only from public performances?
No, I retire in general. I cannot isolate myself from ropes, because I have Alberto at my side, at home and surrounded by ropes. I live with that, but I’m not an active participant except sporadically, with my opinions or collaborating in Alberto’s conferences on shibari history, or if there is a minimal demonstration… But I don’t have much more interest. Also, there is a generational replacement going on, and when I go some place with people rigging, it’s not only that I don’t know the new players, but I also see a new relationship with ropes. And I don’t feel myself there… It’s all right. I don’t want to keep forcing the issue. I’m talking about this like a pondered decision, but it has been a very difficult one… But as a little summary: we have lived an exceptional moment in shibari, when it started flowering here in Barcelona. The Nido del Escorpión has disappeared, I don’t know if Kinoko is coming back, Yukimura obviously won’t, who knows if Osada will, Akira Naka maybe… But I have the feeling that something has stopped. It will go other ways, but… These years have been an exceptional moment that will never repeat… And we were there! That’s wonderful. It’s been wonderful to be able to live that.
Clik here to view.
