Summoning a Succubus: A Meditation on Pain through Semenawa

Quiet incantations and restless prayers preceded this scene. I don’t believe in gods or in magic, but the energy raised on that day had a power I can’t describe. I’m learning to.

I invite you to see them, here.

Looking back at these photos, I wonder. What brings someone to seek this? Maybe, presence. This particular scene of suspending became a meditation on pains and their relationship to pleasure.

She binds my foot in a beautiful criss-crossing tie, and she binds my other leg tightly with a futomomo. That’s what I fear, but she doesn’t tough it, she pulls me up by my foot alone. Pressure, so much pressure. A torturous rope constricts my foot as it holds my weight in a way much different from usual. I roll the flavor across my tongue as I wiggle my toes and feel the little delicate muscles and tendons in my foot rub each other. I feels like the pain of trying to fight to make what feels insecure into something I can trust is secure. The pain of having to let go because you’re scared you aren’t strong enough to keep things in place. It tastes like fear and frustration. She lets me down once I’ve sampled it long enough to decide to move on. I love feeling the rope loosening and sliding across my feet.

As I’m freed, I sit up, awakened to the challenges of the present moment. She sits behind me, wrapping my torso in her art. Slender fingers pulling rope across my chest, then intertwining it, and pulling it tight. I’m up again soon, from the torso first. I’m unsteady, but I steel myself as she anchors upline rope to my upper thigh. Fucking futomomos. This is a pain I know already and hate. She pulls it up to make me balance and stretch to her demands. I knew it was coming and it didn't make it better. The pressure on my shin tests my mental fortitude that I take so much pride in. I push myself to balance and strain to take it. I argue with myself, assessing it’s not pain that causes damage, but the discomfort of my shin bone baring tightly tied jute. When I break, I’m salved as she listens and chooses to remove the futomomo while I hold my balance. 

Once I’m on both feet again, she releases my harness. A reprieve. I roll out the pentagram lyra and unwrap it, she ties it up and we swing and play for a moment. The sunlight is beautiful, it’s a beautiful day to be spinning spells of sensation. A snapshot of a cozy autumn.

Before long, I lay on my stomach and she lowers the metal bar onto me. Her fingers dance across my body, making the most intricate cage she has yet, then the joy of being lifted and feeling so light. Freedom and…comfort? An intricate balance of ties for me to dance against, fully supported. Enjoying the beauty of it, I toy with my flexibility, testing and challenging myself, then relaxing into it. She uses her refined skill to bring me down. Upon landing, my muscles ache as the weight of a pentagram both crushes and constricts me. Oh. That is the price of pleasure, a little ache. The pain of a good stretch finally showing itself. I surrender fully to the floor every time she releases a tie. I know these sensations intimately from gymnastics and a summer of backbend contortion training. I know how to tend to it, it comforts me. Once she lifts the pentagram away, I curl into a ball to breath into my back. Every little muscle expands with a sensation. I breathe into the pain, breathing into recovery. It feels like I’m breathing into life cycles. Loss gives way to gain, knowing again we will lose. I recognize the ghost memory of Ayumi sharing these moments with me. There’s a twinge of pain in my stomach and a tightening into my throat. I breathe into the pain. May we be fortunate enough to gain and lose again. 

I roll onto my back, lucky enough to receive more ropes. She’s weaving across my body, her last craft piece of our incantation. She wants me to levitate, a pose inspired by a scene in The Craft. I haven’t seen it, hopefully we will watch it together sometime. 

Searing pain stings my upper thigh, and a jolt of tension takes hold of me. Oh! The wax is ready. I force my tight muscles to relax just in time for the next splat of fire to set them off in a synchronized chain of tension again. I fight for control, and each drop rips it from me. I focus with the intensity I channel when I balance. The heat will not be ignored, even as I feel her hand cupping the increasingly gory mess. I have to accept I’ve lost control. Not just of my muscles, my breath is rapid. There’s no helping it, and that’d be fine if not for the fact someone is watching me carefully through the lost war. I let go of caring. It’s the hardest pain, it’s a psychological one that far exceeds any of the others sampled, but I give in to her easily, now. A web of support cocoons me, holds me together. I won’t dissipate. I should’ve known when I started weaving our tale that she had control the moment I agreed to the exchange of power. This is my moment of acceptance.

I’m levitating.

The spell that was mine becomes her’s. Her summoner becomes a table for her reading. I summoned her to teach me about pain, in exchange I became a canvas for her art.

I met this tying companion at a semenawa performance. The semenawa performance disturbed me, and I thought I’d stay away from that style. Little did I know the next person I’d tie with would be much closer to sharing intentions with semenawa than any other shibari style I've experienced! I’m proud I can withstand semenawa and I will pick it up as a tool for my repertoire, but I’m eager to explore styles that more closely resemble what I want to express and share.

While reading up on semenawa, I found this article (https://www.kinbakutoday.com/aibunawa-and-semenawa-pleasure-and-endurance/ - warning, concepts of sexualized power exchange are explored in the article) contrasting semenawa with another Japanese shibari style: aibunawa. Aibunawa as a concept appeals to me, and I look forward to exploring different styles of shibari. 

I do want to note that I’m glad I got past the disturbing element of semenawa for myself and got to experience it’s beauty and use it as a space for meditating on pain. It came to me when I needed it this season. I’m coming out of these experiences feeling stronger and more capable to face pain and struggle against it. I feel like I know more intimately the practice of letting it conclude, processing it, and creating a genuine comforting, joyful safety afterwards. Life is pain. Life is also recovery, beauty, and pleasure.