When the time comes I want to be empty for You so that You can fill me in

I’ve been recently shedding off more and more of my expectations and (what I think are) my needs, in rope, in BDSM and in life in general. I began to realize that they are clouding my experience of what is right in front of me. Instead of living my life in the shape that it is having at this moment, and learning from it, I dream almost constantly about the things that might happen or about the things that I miss. The fact is, though, that no need or desire fulfilled in my dreams is better than the most mundane reality. Because nothing beats direct experience.

When you are having an intense D/s encounter with someone, it is easy to be in the moment. It is easy to forget yourself in the midst of the sensual flood that is descending upon you. It is easy to enjoy what is happening. To open up and be vulnerable. In such a case, it is easy to let go. To allow yourself to feel and to be. To experience all there is to experience. To reach the depths of your existence.

It is also easy to get used to these highs. To begin to crave and seek them. To begin to feel as if you can not live without them. And even to begin to seek the experience more than the person you are doing it with. To feel so much in need for that depth or intensity that you will jump on anyone who is willing to provide you with even a glimpse of it.

It used to be the case with me and rope. I used to feel as if I needed to do rope. I would nag my riggers to tie me because I felt that I just needed to feel the rope around my body. That I will die if I don’t get it. It didn’t matter so much what they would tie on me. It almost didn’t matter who was tying me. The only thing that mattered was the rope. Around my body. And if it was mixed with a hint of a D/s power exchange, I was in heaven.

But recently, I’ve decided that it is not the way that I want to approach my practice. I do not want to use my riggers as disposers of sensations. I do not want to put pressure on people to provide space for me to get rid of the tensions that are within me. I do not want to treat my partners as simply means to get my needs met. I do not want my well-being to be dependent on whether or not I find a person to satisfy me on short notice. And I do not want my decisions of whether or not to give my freedom and soul to someone else to toy with to be dictated by the fact that I haven’t done it in the last couple of days.

I want to get tied by people when I feel like I want to get tied by them. I want my ‘Yes’ to be a ‘yes’ to this person at this moment in time, not an ever sounding ‘yes’ to anything that is slightly resembling what I am desperately craving for.

For that, I had to dissect what rope provides me with and find other ways in which I can provide it to myself. Not so that I don’t want to do rope anymore, but rather so that when I decide to taste someone (again), it is not because I am dying of hunger and I would eat anything that is put in front of me but because they look delicious and I really really am curious to see how they taste in a combination with my own flavour. And I am satiated enough to be able to savour the experience instead of devouring it all in one go.

I believe that I managed to do that. I have found out the things that being in ropes was providing me with. Some of them I didn’t like at all and decided to try to get rid of the need for them all together. For others, I have found ways to give it to myself without the use of rope.

I found ways to allow myself to open up and be vulnerable without having my body be bound by rope. I found ways to surrender in my daily life. I can provide a physical challenge to my body, make myself feel every little muscle in it without the help of bondage. Finally, I can be in the moment, experience all there is to experience, without having someone else to push me into it.

That doesn’t mean that I do not want to be in ropes anymore. It doesn’t mean that I am not looking forward to having my freedom taken away from me by someone else again.

It means that now when I get to feel Your rope tightening around my body again, when I get to feel Your presence taking away all my power, I will be empty and unbarred, ready to take You in. I will be there for You whole, the empty cup of my perception ready to be filled with the emotions that Your touch on my skin (or the lack of it) evokes. I will be ready to receive You and dance with You as we are, without expectations, without need, without preconceived images of what this encounter should be. I will be ready to take what You give directly, without trying to mould it into the shape that I want it to be.

Because when the time comes and we will get to dance this dance of power and weakness, of beauty and ugliness, of love and hatred, of life and death together, when we get to explore the most delightful distance and the most unbearable closeness, when our bodies and our minds get to meet, I need to be there whole and pure to truly meet You. I need to be there certain that this is exactly where I want to be, and You are exactly the person who I want to be with. I need that certainty in order to feel ready to jump over the cliff of my understanding, into the unknown.

And then I want to be empty. So that You can fill me in.

On how Akane-san gave us everything she had

Recently, I had the pleasure to participate in an unique rope event, Onawa Asobi festival in Antwerp. Originally organised by Yoi Yoshida in Tokyo, Japan, this year it was brought to Europe as a joint effort of BeShibari, shibarista_jesss and Yoi-san.

The idea of the festival is to bring together amateur and professional Shibari enthusiasts and to allow them to present to the audience their way of practicing rope. In 2 days, 14 performances, 30 minutes each, were held during the day, while in the evenings free tying took place during ropejams. The diversity of performances was overwhelming and each of the participants showed us their own way of practicing shibari with heart and dedication. It was eye-opening and very inspiring to see how versatile a tool rope is, and how many different aspects are there to enjoy about it.

There was one performance that left a particular imprint on me and I would like to write about it here. To me it was a perfect illustration of something that I have felt strongly about for a while now and that I feel that is not necessarily talked about enough.

The power that the model has in moving the audience. And the effort and hard work that they put in to be able to do so.

The performance

The performance that I am going to write about was the one of BeShibari and Akane-san. BeShibari is a well known rope artist, teacher and event organiser from Antwerp. Akane-san is one of the most famous Japanese models, being a model of Yukimura-san and Naka-san among others. I'm embarrassed to say that despite this fact I haven't heard about her until this event. This proves my own ignorance of course. But it's also, I think, an illustration of the general tendency in our European community to be much better informed about the riggers than about the models.

It started with Akane-san lying on the floor on her side with her face towards the ground. Already this starting position was indicative to me of her readiness to give, to be sacrificed. Then the chest harness was tied on her not by BeShibari, but by his partner, Shibarista_jesss, which was an interesting and unexpected twist. It felt as if Akane-san was being prepared by Jess, like a prisoner is before their execution, to face her faith that was awaiting her at the hands of BeShibari.

During this first part of the session Akane-san had certain difficulties breathing, you could hear that she had a slightly runny nose and she was struggling to remain in the moment and not focus too much on this nuisance. It is possible, although this might just be my projection, that this actually caused her to go even deeper within herself because she needed to dig further in order to overcome this physical inconvenience and really allow the ropes to penetrate her. Whether that was really the case or not is beyond the point, though. What is the point is that she did go very deep and her total openness and surrender to the tie that came after left me speechless.

I can’t even recall the positions that she had been put in, I remember that they involved a futomomo and a chest harness but that is about it. Because the positions were not at the center of this performance to me. Her sharing with us her vulnerability was. It is hard to pinpoint what exactly gave me this feeling, but I could feel that she surrendered fully to the tie and her faith. She was not trying to escape the pain and struggle, she was not trying to deflect, fight or hide away from it. She was living it fully, to the last drop. And she was showing it all to us.
Some people admire the strength or physical beauty in the models, some people admire their calm or serene way of taking ropes.

I admire vulnerability. I admire the ability and willingness to submit to the hardship and being honest in your expression of it. I admire the ability to open up completely to the ropes, to allow yourself to be free in captivity, to express everything that is inside of you. Let every feeling and every sensation out in the open. I admire the willingness to admit your struggle, to admit your weakness, to allow the ropes to penetrate and transform you. And all this is to me what Akane-san has showed to us.

Seeing her opening up to us, seeing her bare and exposed in front of us, seeing how much she can give and her actually doing it has brought me to tears. With her catharsis in ropes, I went through my own small version of it.
She's moved me, she's made me feel and that to me is one of the main qualities of an artist. Make people go through something with you, take them on an emotional journey, make them feel or reflect. I think that there is no real art without vulnerability, without the willingness of the artist to expose themselves to the spectators. And while I don’t want to take away the importance of BeShibari in creating the space for this beauty and depth to unfold in front of our eyes, it would not happen without the readiness of Akane-san to give it all to us. In that sense Akane-san is definitely an artist to me and with this performance they proved that kinbaku is an art.

Afterthoughts

As a model myself I seek other models that could serve as a role model and inspiration to me. I seek proofs that, despite of what the perception of model's role in the bondage scene nowadays is, our role is essential, inevitable and important. That we are not interchangeable. That we contribute to the tie and to the scene. Because I believe that no matter how remarkable the rigger is, without an equally giving and remarkable model, the tie is not going to shine. And with a remarkable model even simple bondage holds depth and beauty. Because it's depth and beauty that fills it in.

You could say that I have no reason to complain because actually the role of the model in bondage seems to be gaining more and more recognition nowadays. It's important, however, to investigate what is that recognition given for. Is it because they're young, beautiful, flexible or physically strong? These are all admirable traits, but the problem with them is that they are all pretty much inborn and are not something that one can aspire to or can improve upon (at least not to a great degree). So their admiration is happening more in terms of awe than a source of inspiration and empowerment. But maybe there is something else that the models can be recognized for? Not something that they've been born with but something that they've worked on and developed and that can be a source of teaching and inspiration to other models? I believe there is.

I believe that there are many ways in which an experienced and skilled model contributes to bondage and I would love seeing more credit being given to them for it. Not only seeing their beauty and physical strength, but the power of their mind, their readiness to open up and be vulnerable, their ability to engage with the ropes and with their partner and their fluency in receiving and being in ropes.

These are all difficult to master and admirable qualities that any model can develop through hard work and practice. To me they are more praiseworthy than beauty or strength because they're something that takes perseverance and effort to master. And I think that that effort is really visible in the tie.

To me, watching Akane-san in ropes was a source of great inspiration and learning. Not only because she was beautiful but because what she showed to us was a display of her mastery. She showed me something that I, as a model, can aspire to. She made me want to practice modelling so that one day I can go on the stage and give as much as she did and maybe also make someone in the audience go through a journey with me. I hope that it's not only me who sees it that way and I hope that through events like that our sensibility and appreciation of kinbaku will grow not only in terms of rigging, but also modelling abilities.

This event was not only a display of different styles of tying, but also of different styles of being in ropes. Some might say that it's something obvious to say but I feel like it's not, and I feel like it's time to recognize the models for the effort that they're putting into being in ropes. Not simply praising each of them for showing up but recognizing and appreciating what they actually put in. And learn from the ones who inspire us the most.

Thank you to all the organizers, performers and the rest of the participants for this great event. Thank you for filling my weekend with unforgettable moments. Thank you for making me feel and reflect. I hope that we will all learn from this great experience.

Rope bottoming reflections after the EURIX Round Table - vol.2 The community

Disclaimer: All conclusions and thoughts that I share here are filtered through my interpretation of the words of the participants. Even when I quote the others, I do it based on my memory and understanding. The participants consented to me writing an account of our discussion, however they did not authorize this text. Therefore, I take full responsibility for what is written below. However, I want to acknowledge that it wouldn’t exist without the input of all the participants of the round table and I am really grateful to them for showing up and sharing so openly and richly.

This is the second article that resulted from a round table discussion which I moderated during the last EURIX in the Fall of ‘19 and in which Anna Bones and Saara Rei were my main interviewees. The first one was triggered by our discussion but also contained a lot of my own insights and was centred around the topics of empowerment and authenticity of rope bottoms. In this one, I gathered the topics that were circling around being part of a community and how it impacts our practice.

Rope bondage is an activity that is deeply personal and internal, but at the same time, it is often practised within a community. Many people tie with more than one person. We attend rope jams, workshops and rope festivals to meet and learn from fellow rope enthusiasts or to find new partners. We also connect virtually through discussion groups, forums and by following people who inspire us online.

Performing an intimate act of bondage in the presence (physical or conceptual) of other people is a delicate matter and it often leads to frictions. Some of them we talked about during our discussion and I describe here. We also touched upon how rapidly the rope community in Europe is growing and changing and how the roles of the bottom and the top are changing as well. Finally, we also mentioned how being a part of a community can be a source of strength and growth and how we can use this gift to our advantage.

There is a lot of unnecessary normativity in rope bottoming lately

There seem to be a lot of discussions about how to be a ‘better bottom’ recently. I must admit that I am probably one of the bottoms who contributes to perpetuating this notion. And while I don’t think that there is something essentially wrong in thinking about ways to get better at something, focusing on the improvement too much can lead to losing pleasure and meaning from the activity. And even worse than that, it can also lead to unnecessary competition and judgemental attitudes within a community.

I think that the most important thing to ask yourself when you notice an ambition for self-improvement is what your drive behind wanting to get better is? If your drive is internal, for example, you want to become more authentic in your bottoming, you want to deepen your and your rigger’s experiences in ropes or you want to internalize the activity for it to become more natural, then it should be safe to pursue your goal of improvement. Even then, though, you should keep yourself in check, because you might still get lost in the pursuit of the goal and miss out on the experiences that you’ve had on the path leading to it (been there, done that).

The real danger creeps in, however, when your drivers for self-improvement are external. For example, when you feel like you should become a ‘better bottom’ because all the other bottoms are improving. When you feel like you are not good enough already. Or when you want to improve because you think that only then you will get tied by a certain person or your pictures will get a lot of ‘likes’.

Basically, whenever instead of wanting to become a better version of yourself, you want to become better than somebody else, you run into trouble.

Because there will always be people around you who are better than you at each of the things that you are working on. And you can’t do anything about it. Usually, it won’t be one person who is better on all fronts, but separate people who are better at separate things, but that won’t make a difference for your well-being (it does make a difference, though, if you think about it). And this kind of thinking will lead to constant dissatisfaction and feeling of inadequacy (once again, been there, done that).

Competition can sometimes be beneficial, but I feel like especially in rope bottoming it is rather counterproductive. One of the very important threads during the round table was the fact that rope bottoming is an extremely individual and internal activity and how the core of it is being authentic to yourself and having an honest expression. If you keep on comparing yourself to others and competing with them, you begin to mould yourself in their image instead of focusing on finding your individual way of bottoming.

At some point, Saara Rei indicated that it seems to her like especially nowadays, because of the abundance of rope on social media and its growing popularity, we fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to other bottoms more often. When you only see people tying ‘live’ (as during the times when she was starting to get tied at Schwelle7), you only are confronted with other bottoming expressions during live rope events and even then not so much as you are mostly busy yourself.

Currently, we can be bombarded with beautiful bottoms hanging in impossible suspensions 24/7 if we wish. And it gets hard not to compare yourself with them. It gets hard to resist the wish to switch places with them. It gets hard to stop dreaming to be like them instead of developing being ourselves. But only the latter can bring us joy.

Let’s stop with the demeaning categorization of bottoms as simply ‘active’ or ‘passive’

There are many different ways to bottom for rope, as we’ve established already, but recently only two opposing camps in bottoming are being recognized, ‘active’ or ‘passive’. And there seems to be a lot of division between the two.

What was interesting to observe during the round table was the pressure to belong to one of the groups that many of the bottoms felt. And it was not because they necessarily identified with one of the notions, but simply because they couldn't escape being squeezed into one of the two boxes. And once you belong to one, you can’t help but resent the other, because each side feels oppressed by the opposite camp.

I, myself, got a label of a ‘passive’ bottom in my community, which for a long time I treated as offensive. Especially because my community consists mostly of ‘active’ bottoms, I ‘grew up’ in rope feeling like I was the less enlightened one, wanting to follow and surrender and not interested in learning how to manage my body actively in ropes. I was hearing all the time that a good bottom should be aware and active in managing their body in ropes and that the pinnacle of bottoming skills is being able to actively co-create the tie with the rigger and give them technical feedback on how to improve it.

How great was my surprise, when I heard from Anna Bones and other more ‘active’ bottoms (or at least the bottoms who are not that much into Naka-style or semenawa) that they, on the other hand, feel oppressed by the kinbaku modelling recently and that they feel like in the current narrative being able to let go and surrender in ropes is The Way in rope modelling and anything else is seen as simplistic and lacking spirit.

As it turns out, putting each other in boxes makes us all feel oppressed. And we failed to see any advantages of the ‘active’ and ‘passive’ division. It is too broad to benefit from belonging to either of the groups and too general for anyone to truly identify with it. So I think that it is time to drop it and find a better and closer to real way to define each other’s styles so that we can actually benefit from identifying with a certain style and sharing experiences with other bottoms who do.

There is no bottoming without the tops

The one thing that I was a bit sad about, was how little riggers have joined the round table discussion. I think that as much as models need to be considered and heard when talking about tying, riggers’ contribution is important when talking about getting tied as well.

And I think that as much as the importance of models' feedback in riggers' education is getting more recognition lately, hearing riggers’ voices during rope bottoming discussions is still a rarity. I hope that it is going to change soon because for me it is very important to know what riggers value in me as a model, and what they value in models in general. In the end, it is them who I want to get tied by.

Additionally, even if they wouldn’t want to give input into our discussion, simply hearing about modelling experiences is a huge learning for the riggers. When I teach in workshops and share my experiences after a demo, it is often riggers who come to me afterwards and thank me for the insight that I provided to them. And here, when given an opportunity to hear so much about modelling experiences, they did not show up.

At the same time, I also know that some people do not want riggers to participate in modelling discussions. And I understand. I understand why some people see a danger in inviting them in. I understand that they are seen as the ones who are often in positions of power and we don’t want them to dictate how we, ‘the weaker ones’, should feel and behave in ropes. Rope world is still dominated by men tying women and the history of men dictating women how they should be, and indoctrinating them, is long and painful. We do not want to repeat that in rope. We do not want to feel like others impose on us the behaviours that would make us desired. We want to be ourselves and be desired for that.

I, however, do not necessarily think that there is something wrong with wanting to give a pleasurable experience to your partner and hearing from them what would allow one to achieve that. As long as this want is not imposed on us and as long as it is reciprocal, listening to your partner and taking them into account is what makes for a great connection and beautiful scenes.

If we want the recognition for creating the scene together then we also need to acknowledge our impact on the experience of our partner and care for it to some degree. But we must care because we truly feel it and not because this is what other people (especially the more powerful ones) think we should be doing.

Being part of a community of real people is where the magic happens

Towards the end of our discussion, Saara Rei expressed how for her being a part of a community is very important. How it helped her to grow and develop. How it made her feel not alone in her ‘strange’ likings and how it can also help in going through difficult times. And in such emotionally charged activity as rope bondage, difficult times come sooner or later.

I completely agree with her. No matter how much I complain about the rope community sometimes, being able to talk with other people about our shared passion, exchange with rope bottoms about our experiences and share about how tying makes us feel, might be the most growth-inducing experiences that I’ve had.

Hearing other people’s perspectives opens my mind and heart. Knowing that there are more people like me makes me feel understood and as I belong somewhere. And in the face of a crisis, having a community of people around me who have been through similar struggles is an invaluable source of support and wisdom.

I feel like the internet is sometimes giving us a false sense of community. We feel like we can meet and share virtually, but I am not sure if such meetings are even a fraction as valuable as talking live. We feel like we can solve community problems through online discussions but I feel that such discussions are missing so much context that it is rarely leading to any real understanding.

I understand that what we do is rare and that it might be hard to meet like-minded people in our vicinity. The internet makes people far away seem close and accessible. But still, each time I spend some time doing rope in a group of real people, I come back inspired and feeling connected, even if the way that some of them do rope is different from mine. And after an online discussion, I don’t feel that. I don’t feel close to the others and like a part of something, even if it seems like we share a similar vision.

I do share a lot online and because of that, I can feel how imperfect tool that is. How easy it is to become misinterpreted or misunderstood. How easy it is for me to appear as someone who I am not.

I haven’t been discouraged by it so far, because for me writing about rope and BDSM is a way to put my thoughts in order and to extract knowledge or insights from them. But I’ve never felt like what I write can really make me understood by the readers. I do not feel like I can get close to someone who I know only virtually. Rather, consuming online content is for me a way to get inspired to conduct my own research. It is often a spark igniting a discussion but never a source of real understanding of another person.

I think that in rope bondage, the community is crucial, but we must beware of the traps of normativity and judgement. We are doing something unorthodox and risky. There is no established practice, no norms or textbooks. Sure, currently we begin to form some common practices, but they are still preliminary and a consensus about the merit of some of them is only beginning to form. The only true source of wisdom that we can have is our own experiences and the experiences of other people who are doing rope longer than ourselves.

I try to use the wisdom of the community as much as possible, but always in a combination with critical thinking. That is because I don’t feel like we’ve reached a critical mass of people tying to come to any definite conclusions. We are still in a period of research. And when it comes to rope bottoming, I feel like the research is only just starting.

That is why I think that it is crucial to talk about it and investigate. To share experiences and lessons learned. Not to find the ultimate truths, but to gather more points in the data set. We need more data and to get it we need space and willingness to share and collaborate with other rope bottoms. We need bottoms who are willing to join the investigation and to think critically about their experiences, who are open to hear opinions that are conflicting with their own and treat it not as a critique but just as a valid parallel view. We need a space in which people feel safe to share their experiences and not feel judged. But at the same time, we also need to be resilient to judgement because it inevitably comes sooner or later. Finally, we also need tops who won’t be afraid to share with us their views on modelling because there is a lot of wisdom to be learned from them. And by inviting them to the discussion we make space for them to think about our contribution.

Maybe it's just me but I feel like bottoming should be more appreciated and recognized, not just for the beauty of the models but also their depth, their resilience, the strength of their body and mind and anything for what the bottom can be appreciated. To find the things that we contribute we need to make a conscious effort to see them. To look at a rope scene with fresh eyes and notice what it is that the bottom brings to it. To not only look at what the rope brings out in the model but also at what the model allows it to bring out. And even more importantly, what does the model bring out of the rigger.

Meeting in a community of other bottoms and discussing it is one of the ways to see these things anew.

In my last article inspired by the round table, I will try to touch upon exactly this topic. What are some of the things that the bottoms can do to make the scene unforgettable? What can we do on our side to cater to our experiences? I've asked the participants what are the best scenes that they remember and what was their mindset during these scenes. And the answers that I got were more than intriguing.

Rope bottoming reflections after the EURIX Round Table - vol.1 Empowerment and authenticity

Disclaimer: All conclusions and thoughts that I share here are filtered through my interpretation of the words of the participants. Even when I quote someone, I do it based on my memory and understanding of what they’ve said. The participants consented to have me write an account of our discussion, however, they did not authorize this text. Therefore, I take full responsibility for what is written below. However, I do want to acknowledge that this text wouldn’t exist without the input of all the participants of the round table and I am really grateful to them for showing up and sharing so openly and richly.

During the last EURIX, in the Fall of ‘19, I selfishly organized a round table discussion on rope modelling. I say selfishly because I felt a need for better defining what rope bottoming is about, what are the different ways to approach it, and what are the skills that people see as valuable and worth practising as a rope model (if any), and I wanted to use that discussion to find the answers to at least some of these questions.

Thanks to Anna Bones and Saara Rei who agreed to be my main interviewees, and the enthusiastic participation of the entire group, we raised many interesting points and I partially succeeded in finding the answers to my questions.

This is the first from a series of articles in which I would like to share direct themes that came up in our discussion, as well as my private insights that followed, to the wider public, because I think that we will all benefit from more content about the ones being in ropes.

There are many reasons why we love to be in rope

It’s amazing in how many different ways people can experience rope. When asked about what kind of rope we like and why we get into ropes, the round table participants gave astonishingly many varied and valid answers.

Saara Rei loves the slow-and-full-of-suffering kind of scenes, where her body is contorted and fixed in impossible positions. For her, the emotional body and the physical body are one and she seeks to achieve emotional states through using her body.

Rope is also a tool to achieve the stage of submission, which happens to her when she feels that her body is fully controlled by the other.

Anna Bones loves many different kinds of ropes for different reasons. Her interests span from sensual sexy floor work through dynamic and active suspensions to a complete immobilization in crazy predicaments. It all depends on the dynamic that she has with the rigger as well as her mindset on that day.

In all styles of bondage, she appreciates the claustrophobic feeling of being restricted as well as the undivided attention of her partner and the sensual experience of being touched.

To me, rope is mostly about mental and emotional experiences. As Saara, I love slow torturous rope scenes that bring me a lot of suffering and I treat the body is a tool that I use to achieve psychological states. I love to be tied in a way that I find beautiful, therefore I love traditional Japanese ways of tying, but at the same time I also deeply enjoy rope that leaves me ugly and humiliated for the psychological effect of it. Like Anna, I enjoy very diverse styles of rope, depending on my dynamic with the rope top and my mood. However, I do seek to be tied mostly by people with whom I feel some sort of D/s power exchange.

Many of the other participants also indicated that they enjoy different styles of rope. For most of the participants, the connection with the rigger was extremely important. They did not want to restrict themselves by voicing a style preference. The main goal for being in rope was having a deep intimate exchange with their partner, the exact flavour of which was totally circumstances-, and partner- dependent.

Bottoming is a lot about following but following doesn’t mean having no contribution

It was clear that for virtually all the bottoms who spoke up, following the rigger was the essential thing in being a bottom. They enjoyed being led by the rigger and they were usually open to experience whatever their partner had in mind for them. If the rigger was able to create an intimate bubble of connection with them, they did not necessarily care about the style they were being tied in.

What they enjoyed about being in ropes was the exchange between them and the riggers and the intimacy and uniqueness of each of their rope encounters. The special way in which they could truly meet their partner in ropes. They were after the pure experience of being led by the rigger and they did not want to influence that feeling by having expectations or fixed ideas about the session.

I understand this kind of narrative and I find it appealing and beautiful. I also used to think about myself in ropes as a pure follower and/or receiver. I still don’t have fixed expectations about particular scenes and I do not give directions to my riggers before tying. I do know, however, that I have my preferences in ropes. I do know in which directions I like to go and I know that I often lead my riggers there, more or less consciously. Also, I do know what kind of experiences the people who decide to tie with me might expect. Maybe I do not voice my preferences to the riggers directly, but I do execute them by choosing particular people to tie with.

I am not saying that the participants of the round table did not have specific preferences and abilities that I recognized in myself. Everybody does. But what they didn't do is to voice them.

I can’t help but worry that looking at yourself as a pure follower without recognizing your input in the scene might lead to disempowerment and passivity. Not passivity in the sense of ‘active vs passive bottoming’ which is a popular nowadays but in my opinion rather useless way to define bottoming styles, but passivity in the sense of lack of initiative, energy and input.

And I missed hearing recognition of what many of the bottoms like and have to offer. I missed hearing that they know what kind of connection they are looking for in ropes.

Because I am sure that each bottom has a lot to contribute to a scene and that we have an active role in co-creating it. Following (more or less active) is about responding to the actions of your partner with an appropriate level of energy and can (or even should) involve giving your input as long as it doesn’t overpower, but complement, the lead.

Having the knowledge of what kind of bottom you are and what kind of experiences you can create with your rigger is a power. It gives you confidence and it makes you recognize your value. And I think that the value and the contribution of bottoms into tying, no matter what their bottoming style is, needs more understanding and recognition.

Let’s be honest, being in ropes is an extreme experience

Being in ropes, especially in a semi-suspension or a suspension is putting your body in a state of extreme stress and sometimes even panic. It seems to me, though, as if we tend to forget it sometimes. We are bombarded with pictures of serene models in extreme positions everywhere on social media nowadays. Even in videos, many seasoned models don’t make a sound even in the most difficult ties.

Of course, each model has their own unique way of expressing themselves, but I am afraid that the currently popular limited expression (or rather the difficulty to depict the full rope bondage experience honestly in photography) often results in misunderstandings about how rope bondage feels. And the fact is that it is often painful and difficult, as it is, or at least it was devised as, a way to torture people.

I loved it when Saara Rei mentioned that when she teaches in workshops, she always brings the models to an awareness about the difficulty of each position, and how the first time when you experience a position is always the hardest and that they should not shy away from expressing their struggle. I would take it even further and say that if you truly feel into your body in ropes, most of the kinbaku positions always put you in a state of struggle and bring you to the edge, no matter how many times you’ve been tied in them.

I do not want to undermine the reactions of any person to rope. They are all unique and valid. At the same time, I do feel like we need more emphasis on the fact that being bound by someone, having your freedom taken away or having your body suspended in the air from thin strings of rope without any way to protect yourself is not something casual. And it should not be taken as such.

I think that it should be something that one goes into with great awareness and care. It should be something that you truly desire and need. Otherwise, you might end up abusing your body or soul without even knowing what you are doing to yourself. For the sake of a pretty picture or a moment of internet fame? That is something that I do not wish on anybody.

The essential question of ‘Why’

During the round table, we were talking a lot about the authenticity in ropes and how important it is for a bottom to be able to feel and express in ropes. How our authentic expression and not getting into this or that position, or any other external achievement, should be our real goal.

Because when we are our authentic selves in ropes, we bring something to the table. We do not only want the riggers to serve us by giving us experience, but we also have something to give to them in return. We have something to offer and we know that. That knowledge gives us confidence and establishes our worth as co-creator of the tie. We become receivers but not absorbers of rigger's energy. Rather, we transform and multiply it by adding our own personality to it.

I truly believe that before you allow anybody to put ropes on you and take away your freedom, it is important to ask yourself why do you want to get tied. Only knowing that your personality can truly flourish in ropes. Only then you can truly ‘show up’ for the scene. At least in my case, knowing why I do ropes is a source of an infinite passion and energy for doing it, fueling my drive to experience each session deeply. On the other hand, if you are doing something, but you don’t feel strongly about the reasons why, especially if you are doing something so intense and on many levels risky, you are putting your well-being in danger.

Another, somehow less serious, danger is that the activity itself performed without proper ‘why’ will become empty, mechanic and lifeless. And that is the opposite of what I believe the rope bottom should bring into the tie. I think that our extremely important role in ropes is to be 100% present, to experience and express, to add our flavour to the tie and to inspire the rigger. If we are not sure why we are doing it, if we do not feel strongly about the reasons that put us in the position of being tied, we won’t be able to fill that role.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that finding your authentic self in rope is something immediate and easy. When I started getting tied, I had no idea why I enjoyed it so much. I wasn’t able to articulate what draws me to rope. And it is perfectly understandable. It takes experience and practice to gain that understanding. It isn’t something that you are born with. It is something that you find.

The ‘why’ neither needs to be fixed, nor it has to be single. I can name at least a couple of reasons why I love to be in ropes. And I don’t expect these reasons to stay unchanged. The same as my personality changes over time, my reasons for getting into ropes will change as well. But I know for sure that I would not want to get into ropes without a reason.

In my opinion, finding your ‘why’ might be one of the most important elements of your growth as a rope model. Because it gives a direction to all the rest of your development. You stop repeating the things that other people advise you to do and you start to follow your own intuition. You begin to develop in your own unique way.

I hope that the points that might have sounded as a critique in this writing will be inspiring rather than discouraging. I truly believe that rope bottoms have an important and equal contribution to tying. Without us, rope is only a lifeless piece of material. Only when we put our living bodies and souls into ropes, the ties become beautiful. We should recognize and cherish it. We should speak more about the ways in which each of us contributes to the ties. We should be aware of the unique experiences that we can provide to our riggers. We should do rope with passion and love for it because we know that being bound is what we truly desire.

And we should not shy away from indicating our value. We should not shy away from saying that being in bondage is something extreme that we put our bodies through and wanting the recognition for it that we deserve. We should not be afraid to say that not only leading but also following is an art that should be appreciated.

And to get the courage to do that, hearing from other bottoms about their experiences, sharing our victories and struggles can be truly transformative. We can learn a lot from each other and we can support each other as fellow bottoms.

But sometimes, we can also bring each other a lot of suffering. Especially when the contact that we have with other bottoms remains virtual and distant. In my next article, I am going to share more thoughts from the round table, which centre around what being part of a community brings us. It is going to be quite different from this one, but equally insightful, I hope.

Lessons on shame, objectification and humiliation in rope from Soptik and Door

Recently, I've been a model for an amazing workshop by Soptik on objectification and humiliation in rope. He asked me to be his partner because, as he says, I'm a 'perfect object'. I guess that what he means by that is that I let people do anything to me without fighting back. And I enjoy it. It was very interesting to be able to show and share with people the states in which I love to be, but also in which I am at my most vulnerable. 

I think that teaching objectification and humiliation is a difficult undertaking. Much more difficult than teaching techniques how to tie. It's all about playing the emotions of your model, and having a command of human emotions is so much more complicated than having a command of rope.

It was the first time that I've given a workshop like that and since it was emotionally very intense, it was quite hard for me to formulate my thoughts on the topics that we’ve taught real-time. I did my best, but still many interesting thoughts emerged in my head only when processing it later. So many that I will probably spend more than one writing on them. But here is a start. 

On objectification 

Objectification is the act of treating a person as an object or a thing. - Wikipedia

In theory, it's the most severe form of lowering someone's status. In practice though, it can be much easier to take than humiliation or degradation. That is because it can put you in this state of 'not being' in which you can detach from your feelings and experiences. When someone objectifies you, you can truly become an object in your mind as well and your ego doesn't get in the way anymore. You go to this quiet place where you just exist, and let things happen to you but without affecting you. 

This was also the experience of most of the models, which I find truly fascinating. Despite being so different we basically all went to the same place in our heads. 

Suffering as an object is suffering alone

The first exercise that we performed was tying the models into household objects. I was turned into a chair and left like that while the rest of the participants started tying, having someone occasionally sitting on me.

After a while, the position got really challenging and I began truly suffering. The experience though was very different from the typical suffering in semenawa ties. The traditional suffering in kinbaku is done for the rigger while he is there, witnessing you in it. And it makes things very different and in some ways easier (but in others not).

When your rigger is with you, you're staying more on the edge, I think. You are more aware of what is happening to you and you hope that he will put you out of your misery soon. He is seeing you and therefore you also see yourself through his eyes and are more aware of your suffering. At the same time, his presence makes it easier to go through the hardship because you know that you are doing it for him and you are being appreciated. 

Here, I was all alone with my suffering. It was a byproduct and not the aim. There was nobody who cared about what was happening to me (at least that is how I felt like, in reality, my partner was having me in his sight most of the time). In a way, my suffering was pointless. That made it harder to go through on one hand as I didn't have the energy of rigger's appreciation to lift me up. On the other hand, being left alone with it made it easier to accept and easier to surrender. There was no hope for me. I was a mere object and all that was left for me was to accept my faith. 

There are not many things that are more hurtful than not being seen

There are many ways to objectify someone, which was exactly what Soptik was trying to teach. We did exercises on turning people into actual usable objects, on sexual objectification and on turning models into living sculptures and objects of admiration. Those different states were also eliciting different reactions in different models. Some caused arousal, some sadness, some going quiet and some desperation.

In general, I love to be objectified. I love to be used for someone’s pleasure, in any capacity they see fit. It gives me a lot of satisfaction and at the same time frees me from worrying whether my actions are according to the other person's wishes. I have no initiative of my own, therefore no way of making mistakes. But there is one experience in the realm of objectification that can leave me truly shattered. And that is being looked at but not seen. Especially, when it's done by someone by whom I desperately want to be seen. 

In one of the exercises, Soptik was teaching the riggers how to look at your model as a mere object. We were standing in one place and the riggers were walking around us and observing each detail of our body like we were at an auction and they were about to buy us. This kind of look makes you embarrassed at first. The sheer fact that someone dares to look at you that way, and that you allow them to do that, makes you question your worth. As long as they don’t look into your face though, it is not painful. It makes you uncomfortable and slightly anxious, but not hurt. Everything changes when they look straight into your eyes, but don’t see you. 

The moment when they turn their look at your face, you become hopeful. You start wishing that they will finally look into your eyes and see the person that you are. That they will stop assessing you like a piece of meat and really look at you, your inside and not your outside. You can't help but expect and anticipate it in a glimpse of a second and when you meet their cold stare, your heart is shattered. 

It hurts so much to be denied something as fundamental as being looked into the eyes and be seen. Somehow, at that moment it is not possible to switch off the feeling mode and become only a body. Being so close, and yet so far away, from meeting someone’s sight makes you extremely aware of that little person inside you yearning to be elevated back to the status of a human being. And when it is not happening, it hurts. A lot.  

As a sucker for emotional pain, I can’t say how much I appreciate the ability of someone to treat me like that. I can imagine that it is not easy to look at someone this way, but the amount of suffering that such a simple skill can generate is truly remarkable, so it's worth practising. 

There is no shame in being an object

In one of the exercises, the task was to sexually objectify your model. The riggers had to tie us in a position that makes us as sexually available as possible, at the same time giving us the feeling of being objectified. I was basically turned into a sex doll with my arms in a TK, thighs tied together behind my back, legs spread as wide as possible and a fabric over my head on which Soptik drew a new face for me. He also cut a hole in the fabric for my mouth and put a ring gag in it so that it stayed open. Finally, he tied my breasts, so that they became prominent and swollen. Real sex doll. 

The interesting thing was that even though I was so exposed and in a way humiliated (at least to me being so explicitly sexual and ready for use is usually humiliating), I didn't feel that way. That is because I didn't feel like a person, I felt like a doll. And a doll is not ashamed of being looked at or used. That is what it is for. 

At the end of the exercise, everyone was untied and sharing their experiences and I was still sitting there with my wide-open mouth and a doll face on which Soptik drew tears. Those tears truly reflected how I felt, like an abandoned doll, sad that nobody is paying attention to it. But even though I was exposed in front of everyone and unable to speak, I didn't feel ashamed. 

Usually, I feel a lot of shame when being publicly exposed, especially with my breasts tied like that. But now it wasn't me who was in that position. By losing my face to a piece of fabric, I also lost my shame and dignity. It was my body they could see, but not me. There is no point in feeling shame when nobody expects you to act with decency when you have no agency. 

Shame can only be born out of situations that you have some influence over, when you feel personally responsible for it and when your dignity is at stake. You are doing something indecent, but at least you are ashamed of it. It saves your face in a way. Here, I didn't have a face to save.

On shame and humiliation 

Humiliation is the abasement of pride, which creates mortification or leads to a state of being humbled or reduced to lowliness or submission. It is an emotion felt by a person whose social status, either by force or willingly, has just decreased. - Wikipedia

Shame is an unpleasant self-conscious emotion typically associated with a negative evaluation of the self, withdrawal motivations, and feelings of distress, exposure, mistrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness. - Wikipedia

There is a thin line between shame and humiliation. What for some people is only shameful, for others might already be humiliating or even degrading. What shame and humiliation have in common is that they require an act from a position of someone being a person, in contrast to being an object. They also might be much more mentally impactful in the long term than objectification. 

I think that it's because while it's easy to contain the experience of being objectified within the scene and detach from it afterwards because of it being so far from how you usually feel about yourself, it's much more difficult to detach from what you've experienced in a humiliation scene. The reason for that is that humiliation play uses the image that you have of yourself as a person against you. Therefore, it's something that is much more personal and that you need to be much more cautious about. 

Humiliation play needs good negotiations, aftercare and sometimes even ‘precare’

We've spent a long time at the beginning of the second day of the workshop, discussing all kinds of precautions that you need to take before you get into a scene involving shaming, and even more so humiliation. As a top, you need to get a good understanding of where the feeling of self-worth of the bottom comes from and which parts of it can and can't be toyed with. If you as a bottom have any triggers or deep anxieties that you know shouldn't be messed with, this is the time to talk about it. 

You also need to make sure that you will have time and space for good aftercare and that it's clear for both of you what would such aftercare entail. While for some scenes it's ok to just hug and part your ways, here it's really important to make sure that you both leave the scene the way you started it, not feeling bad about yourself (both in case of tops as well as bottoms).

Finally, I mentioned before that there are certain things that are better not toyed with and sensitive topics are better left out of this kind play. But… Some people (like me) like to be kicked exactly in places where it hurts the most. And that's ok as long as both you and your partner are aware of the risks that you are taking. In such case it might also be a good idea to do some ‘precare’, to ensure the other person beforehand that their insecurities that are going to be dissected soon have no grounding in reality and to make ground for the aftercare that will come later. As a top, say some good things that you can come back to after the scene. This is what we did with Soptik for example, when we played with my intelligence (or lack thereof) which is one of the things that I can be insecure about and it worked great in restoring my feeling of self-worth after the scene.

Little things make all the difference

Bringing humiliation or shame (or objectification for that matter) into your tying is about small gestures. It's not about what you do, but how you do it. 

We started and ended the day with ties that were very similar in terms of the position of my body (partial suspension exposing my crotch), but which gave me very different experiences, because of small details. 

The first one was in a way more 'light'. I was tied with one leg up and open and one on the floor with a lot of possibilities for movement. It gave me a constant feeling that I could almost hide the parts of my body (crotch) that I didn't want to be exposed. I was on the verge of feeling decent, getting in and out of it, depending on whether I thought that my foot can hide my crotch or not. Soptik kept the mood of the scene playful. He toyed with my embarrassment. I felt like he put me in this shameful position to entertain him, but also so that I have fun myself, and not to put me down. I didn't feel humiliated at all, but I did feel embarrassed and ashamed about what people could see. Still, I felt ashamed about the position that I am in, but not of myself.

The mood of the second scene was very different, even though the tie itself was similar. From the start Soptik was constantly putting my head down, not letting me look at him. Apparently, putting someone’s head lower than their heart puts them almost automatically in a state of submission. It was the case for me. I immediately felt subdued to him and because of that less prone to try and change the position, even if it was leaving me exposed. At the same time, I felt like the fact that I wasn’t fighting him was depriving me of even more dignity. 

Also, the way he was interacting with me was different, he wasn’t playful anymore. He was intentionally showing me that I am less of a human than he is. That he can do to me what he wants, ridicule me in front of all the workshop participants and there is nothing I can do about it. The tie was also more and more constricting my movements, not only leaving me feeling humiliated, but also helpless. Like there is no escape for me from that state. 

I think that making someone feel helpless really helps with humiliation. Not necessarily physically helpless, but more so mentally. Making them feel less of themselves because they are not preventing what is happening to them, but at the same time overpowering them so much that they won’t. 

And the switch in the intention in order to do that is really not that big. It is in small details of how you treat the other person and not necessarily in tying different things. 

You can't humiliate an object 

The thing about humiliation is that it undermines one’s sense of worth. The concept of self-worth is only there if the person you play with feels like a person. If they went into the mental space of being an object, they won’t feel humiliated anymore.

It was very tangible for me when we did an exercise with tying face rope in a deforming way. Having your face deformed, being made ugly, is a very humiliating experience for most people. However, there is a very subtle difference between deforming one’s face, which is humiliating and taking away one’s face, which is more objectifying. 

For example, if you tie a lot of rope around somebody’s head, covering it entirely, you make them lose their face completely and become more like a puppet. Especially if you tie their eyes as well, it is very easy for them to go into an ‘object’ headspace. On the other hand, if you tie the rope in such a way that the attributes of the face, eyes, nose, mouth, are still present but distorted, it gives much more humiliating experience. They still have a face, but it is made ugly. What intensifies the feeling is being made aware of it over and over again, for example by being presented with one’s reflection or being touched where the rope is so that they can feel how distorted they are. 

So if you want to stay in the realm of humiliation, you need to stay focused on your partner and observe whether they are not hiding in ‘safe space’ of being an object. You have to keep reminding them that they are a human, but a lesser one.

It is all happening in the head of the model

Humiliation, shame, embarrassment are all highly personal and context-dependent feelings. To be able to control them, you need to be able to get into the head of the model. To observe him/her and learn what makes them tick. 

I also think that, contrary to objectification, tools for inducing which are quite objective, humiliation and shame are very subjective and dependent on the 'willingness' of the model to go with their mind where the rigger is suggesting them to go. Possibly there are certain things that are objectively humiliating. Usually, though, they are rather on the intense side which brings them more into the degradation realm, the next stage after humiliation. 

In general, a lot of what is happening during a shame or humiliation scene depends on a story that the model is telling herself/himself in their head. The actions of the rigger are only a catalyst for it. Therefore, the more the rigger knows the model, the better, as they can approximate more accurately what is happening in their heads. 

At the same time, the model also has quite a lot of power over whether they want to go the route of humiliation or shame or not. Do they believe that what is currently done to them is shameful or humiliating? Or can they talk themselves out of it? The more context of the model's story the rigger knows, the easier it is to make them believe. 

The rigger is also part of the context. For example, while I might not be ashamed of getting aroused when playing with my sexual partner (I basically always am, though), getting aroused during a scene with a stranger might be very shameful. So even observing the model playing with others might not provide you with the necessary information. 

Humiliation is one of those things where it's really about an intimate interaction between the two people and getting to know each other's darkest secrets. It might take time to build tools to execute it, but if it's your thing, it's definitely worth the effort.

I guess that from the length of this writing (and it is still not all) you can figure out how dear the topic of humiliation and objectification is to my heart and how amazing it was to be able to show it to other people together with Soptik (who definitely is an artist in the realm of inducing it on people). It is so personal that it was hard to define for myself what could be interesting to contribute as a model in such a workshop. There is still much more to tell on the subject, but I hope that we were able to show at least part of what it means to us and that I conveyed some of it here.