Starting In Bondage:
Many people have bondage fantasies in which they are tied up and helpless to the whims of someone else. They can’t move and they can’t get away, so they can be taken advantage in all sorts of devious ways – without any guilt or anything to do as repayment.
Or the opposite fantasy is that you tie your lover up in ways that render him or her helpless, leaving you able to touch, tease and torment your lover any way you choose.
Those are the fantasies. But what is the reality of bondage?
Types Of Bondage
Starting with the basics of bondage, there are many more ways to think about bondage. Perhaps the definition needs to be extended into restricting the movement of someone else so that they are ‘helpless.’
With this new definition, you can see that there are many more possibilities in terms of binding someone:
- Tying someone to something that is stationary – a chair, a pole, etc.
- Tying someone’s body parts closer – legs, arms, etc.
- Tying someone’s body parts further apart – tying arms and legs at different corners of a bed or room, spread eagle on a bed, etc.
- Tying someone to a stationary object and hanging them – also known as suspension
- Putting the person into restrictive clothing – hobble skirts, corsets, very high heels, etc.
- Wrapping up someone completely – mummification techniques, etc.
Of course, your imagination may be even more creative and think of new ways to tie someone to anything you have around the house. The options are limitless, that’s for sure.
But for the person who is tied securely up – they’re going to be limited. And that’s the point, after all.
Types of Rope to Use
Just as with any other hobby, bondage has its own set of equipment that you need to have on hand for binding someone. While everyone has their own preferences, there are some types of rope that seem to work better for both the ‘victim’ and the person who is using the rope.
Here are a few of the types of rope that are used most often as well as some things you should know about them:
- Hemp
All natural and works well with the body heat that will be created during a scene. Can be washed and reused for years.
- Cotton
If it’s a soft rope, this is good for the skin, but it will slightly stretch out as the body heats up, loosening the tight hold of the rope on the skin.
- Nylon
Though this rope will not change with the body’s heat, it can be quite sharp on the skin. Unless it’s well sealed, this can often not be a painful experience for the person being tied.
- Other materials that are less common
Rayon, jute, manila, coir, sisal, etc.
You will need to experiment with different kinds of rope to see what your particular victim will enjoy on their skin. It can be a process of trial and error, but that’s half the fun anyways.
Try to have several different lengths on hand – a long one for full body ties, short pieces for wrists and ankles, etc. You can always buy one large length of rope and then cut it into lengths you need.
Finish off the ends with electrical tape or medical tape to keep them from being sharp or jagged.
In the videos we have used two different sized ropes 1/4 inch (diameter size of rope) and 3/8 inch cotton rope. You don’t have to spend a fortune on rope at any adult store. All the rope used in this video was picked up for a fraction of the cost at home depot. The rope usually comes in 200 foot lengths.
To create your lengths for bondage cut the 200 foot length in half. To make sure you don’t have any frayed ends tape the rope with electrical tape first then cut it. The tape will keep the rope from unravelling. From your two 100 foot lenghts you want to create:
1) Two – 50 foot lengths
2) Three – 25 foot lengths
3) Two 12.5 foot lengths
You can either measure each cut out or divide the rope in half each time you make a cut until you have the lengths you want.
How to Care for Your Rope
If you’ve already started shopping and buying bondage rope, you’ll notice that it doesn’t come cheaply – especially when you want the high quality types of rope.
So, it makes sense that you will want to find ways to preserve it and keep it looking good and functioning well for years to come (if possible).
What you will want to realize is that the more you use rope, the weaker it will become. With each additional use, the rope becomes less and less structurally sound. When you’re simply tying someone to bedposts or to themselves, this might not be a big issue.
You can simply throw your used rope into a pillowcase and wash it in your regular laundry washer, allowing it to dry naturally for the best results.
But if you are suspending people from the ceiling, you need to be a bit more careful with your rope. You will want to make sure it is stored out of natural sunlight and in extreme weather conditions.
When you are regularly suspending people, you need to switch out your rope for new rope more often than you would in less extensive bondage scenes. The best rule of thumb is that when you begin to feel like it might be time for you to buy new rope soon – it’s already too late.
You don’t want to take a chance with someone getting hurt with your rope, so switch it out as soon as it starts to fray or become thinner than you’d like.
Safe, Sane, Consensual
There are three tenets that most people can agree to when it comes to bondage – safe, sane, and consensual.
This is actually a matter of hot debate in the bondage community. Some people think that everyone’s definitions of these terms differ, so there is no ONE way to define them and to practice with bondage.
Or better put, your bondage is YOUR bondage. Your kink is your kink.
But these tenets do help keep everyone safe, so they’re certainly worth following.
Safety First
Whenever you have someone else’s body and life in your hands, it makes sense to learn how to be safe – and to follow certain rules to make sure bondage time is fun time and not a scary time.
Bondage is an exploration of one’s sexual desires, and to support this exploration, it needs to be done in a safe manner.
This could include three simple rules:
- Learn about bondage first
- Start off slowly
- Create clear limits
You don’t just want to tie someone up and hope that you’re doing things right – if the situation were reversed, you wouldn’t want that to happen to you.
- You can practice safe bondage in a number of ways:
- Talking ahead of time to establish the rules of the scene
- Talking during a scene to make sure things are going safely
- Checking the safety of your rope and the contents of your emergency bag
- Starting with simple ties before moving to complicated suspensions
- Never doing something new without asking the victim first
- Making sure your play space is safe
- When you are the one doing the tying, you are responsible for the health and the safety of the victim. If you are not taking the time to watch out for the other person, this is simply not a good way to enter into bondage.
At the least, you will become known as someone that others shouldn’t trust to tie them up – at the worst, you could hurt this other person, even fatally.
Melodramatic? Not at all. Accidents happen, but many of them could have been prevented if safety concerns were made a priority.
Sanity Second
Sanity is the area that seems to be a little gray for some people who want to try bondage as a part of their lifestyle.
In the fantasy of the Master and the slave, the slave is tied to the wall in the basement and left there for days without food or water. Pretty hot, huh? While this scenario works really well in erotic novels, the truth is that this isn’t something that’s sane or healthy for bondage scenes.
When you leave someone alone, they can get hurt. When you do things that are going to hurt someone intentionally, you are taking advantage of their position.
You should not:
- Threaten true physical harm
- Tie someone up for days without food or water
- Put them into bondage that is painful or life threatening
In the end, if you wouldn’t like the things you are doing to the other person done to you, you probably shouldn’t be doing them at all.
Consensual Agreement Too
Ideally, when you are starting out with bondage with someone else, you want to make sure you are setting up a clear idea of what can and can not be done during a scene.
These sorts of negotiations take place long before the scene takes place. The tier and the victim will sit down and talk about what they want from the scene.
You might even write down:
1. The things you both want
2. The things you don’t want at ALL
3. A way to communicate needs and danger
This arrangement makes it very clear what you can expect from a scene. It also helps to begin to establish the trust between the two participating.
Of course, you will both need to hold up your ends of the bargain in order for the trust to continue from the beginning to the end of the scene.
It should also go without saying that the victim actually needs to be willing to do the scene in the first place. You can’t simply grab someone off the street and create a bondage scene – that’s called kidnapping. Not a kidnapping role play, but a real one.
If you don’t have someone’s expressed permission to tie them up – it’s not consensual.
Specific Safety Concerns
There are specific things you can do to make sure that your bondage fun is safe. Here are some of the key guidelines you should know long before you ever get out the rope and starting coming after your victim.
Safe Words and signals
Since bondage is not as hush-hush as it used to be, many people already know what safe words are.
These are words that help to communicate during the scene so that the energy and the flow of the scene isn’t interrupted, but so that the victim can tell the tier-upper if something is going wrong or if something needs to be changed.
For example, some people like to use a system of stoplight:
Green
= I’m doing great. Keep going.
Yellow
= What you’re doing right now is painful/uncomfortable, so please slow down or else we might need to stop altogether.
Red
= Stop right now, I’m not kidding. Something hurts or something is wrong. You’re pushing my limits.
This system works very well because it allows the victim to change the speed of the scene to their comfort levels. When you’re a beginner, it can be comforting to know that you have this option.
In more advanced couples, they might only use one word (i.e. alligator) to signal when something is wrong and all activities need to be stopped.
Of course, you could also just say “Stop” when things aren’t going well, but when you might be play acting that you’re resisting your partner, you might disrupt the scene if you choose to say that because then the partner won’t know if it’s real or not.
If you are using gags or if it’s difficult for the tied up person to speak, you can create other signals – pinching someone’s hand, dropping a bell that’s in the tied up person’s hand, etc.
You need to create a form of communication so that if things get unsafe, everyone can stop and readjust.
Your partner or you can say these safe words whenever you feel scared or hurt, but also when you start to have any troubles with breathing or when agreed upon limits are being crossed.
Warning Signs
While it’s up to the person who is tied up to tell the other when things are going wrong, there are other signs that the tier-upper might want to watch out for, just in case the victim is trying not to say anything.
1) Discoloration of the limbs
When you tie someone really tight or they struggle really hard against their binding, the circulation can be cut off. While this isn’t always a harmful thing, it can become permanent nerve damage if the circulation isn’t restored quickly. It’s best to loosen the ropes or cut them off entirely.
2) The tightness of the ropes
You should be able to fit a finger in between the skin and the rope. If not, the ropes are too tight.
3) Partner’s breathing
If you notice wheezing or breathing too fast, be sure to stop and ask the person if they are okay. If not, cut everything off and assess the situation.
4) Check with the partner
Ask regularly how they are doing and whether things are too tight or parts are going numb. You can do this in an erotic way that doesn’t break the scene.
5) The position of your partner
Be sure the person tied up gets to switch their positions at least once an hour to prevent circulation problems.
By constantly checking in with your partner, you will be able to prevent a lot of problems that go along with tying someone up.
And you will make it a lot hotter of a scene for being so attentive.
The Commandments Of Bondage
Just as there are a lot of things you CAN do with bondage, there are also many things that you should not do. Here are the commandments of bondage:
1) You shall not tie anyone up until you have learned some basics and practiced on inanimate objects. When you don’t know what you’re doing, your partner should not be a test subject.
2) You shall not tie anyone across their neck or their windpipe
Even the slightest bit of pressure on this area can cause the airway to collapse.
3) You shall always stop when your partner asks you to
The scene must stop when your partner asks you too.
4) You shall always talk about the limits before a scene
Setting up the scene ahead of time is not going to ruin the spontaneity. It is going to heighten the excitement because you will come up with a long list of what ‘could’ happen.
5) You should never do bondage with someone you don’t know or that you don’t completely trust. Too many people simply allow themselves to be tied up by strangers. This is not safe for anyone.
6) You shall never do bondage when you are drunk, high or under the influence of any medication. When you aren’t in full control of your sense and your decision-making abilities, you can harm someone.
7) You shall never tie yourself up by yourself
There have been cases of people who have tied themselves up and then lost the key, gotten stuck, and even hung themselves by accident. You should ALWAYS have someone else in the room when you are doing bondage.
8) You shall never leave your partner alone and tied up
Again, too many things can happen when you leave someone alone. You need to be available should the ropes shift or something become dangerous. Instead, try blindfolding the person and not talking to them, if they want the sensation of being left alone.
9) You shall never force someone to do a bondage scene with you
It’s supposed to be a consensual practice. If your partner says no, that’s okay. You should understand. And trying to push them into it isn’t going to encourage them to try again.
10) You shall never tie joints like the wrists and ankles too tight
These places (as well as the elbows and knees) have blood vessels and tiny bones that can all be harmed permanently if you’re not careful.
11) You shall always have a safe word or form of communication
Safe words are in place for a reason. They work to help a scene stop when it needs to.
Build an Emergency Release Kit
Things can go wrong when you are doing bondage with a partner, so that’s why it’s important to have an emergency release kit with you at all times.
Rope slips, knots become too tight, ties that looked good in a handbook hurt in real life.
To make sure you can get someone out of a tight tie in a hurry, you should stock these things in your rope bag or cabinet and ALWAYS have them within reach before you start a scene.
EMT scissors
These are used to cut clothing off of accident and injury victims without harming their skin. They are perfect for cutting through ropes and leather if you need to.
Extra keys
No matter how many handcuffs and locks you have, be certain that you have extra, clearly labeled keys for them all in your emergency kit.
Needle nose pliers
If you have tight knots that you can’t undo, be certain to have this tool on hand to help get into the knot to loosen it.
Arnica gel
This is a great crème to have in your bag for bruises and scrapes that might happen during a scene, or for rope burn.
Antibiotic ointment
Or you can add antibiotic ointment to apply to areas where rope burn has occurred.
Bactine or something similar
You will want to add an antiseptic to the bag as well as to help clean any open wounds that may have happened.
Ice pack
Just as with any first aid kit, the more you have on hand, the better. And even if you never have to use any of these items, you’ll be glad that you have them ready.
Bondage Introduction Video
Mistress Scarlett & Uncle M