Rope bottoming reflections after the EURIX Round Table - vol.3 The most important question

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 third and the last of the articles 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 centred around the topics of empowerment and authenticity of rope bottoms. The second one circled around being part of a community and how it impacts our practice. In this one, I summarize the insights from asking the participants a question that to me was the clue of the entire discussion and the one that I was leading towards. 

“What was your mindset and prerequisites for the best rope scenes that you’ve had?”

It was so important to me to ask this question because I believed that it will shift our discussion from theorizing about what is and isn’t important in bottoming to an empirical analysis that will be based on tangible experiences. In the end, the goal of both partners in rope is to have an amazing session. I wanted us to realize how much we as bottoms contribute to that outcome because I believe that we do. I believe that it is not only the rigger who is giving us amazing experiences but it is also us who can facilitate it. And that our good experience impacts our partners as it translates into the beauty of the tie and their involvement and enjoyment. I was hoping that the answers of the participants will give more substance to my beliefs in this regard. And they did.

First and foremost, embrace all the experience

What turned out to be the most important mindset that can make or break our scenes according to the round table participants was the readiness to embrace all the experiences in ropes, and especially the negative ones. It should not have come as a surprise to me as it was perfectly aligned with my intuition about what makes for the best scenes, but it did just because of how strong and unanimous this observation was among the participants. 

Both Anna Bones and Saara Rei (and I join them here) indicated that the most important bottoming attitude that brought the best scenes to them was being open to all the experience, not only looking for and expecting positive emotions but embracing and welcoming everything that comes.

Rope bondage by its nature evokes a lot of negative feelings, fear, pain, panic, helplessness, resignation, sadness, loneliness and rejection, just to name a few. If you close yourself to these, you close off to most of the experience that might be awaiting you in a session and your scene can become quite superficial. On the other hand, if you open up to the negative feelings, if you allow them to fill you up, to speak through your body, it can be a transformative and even cathartic experience.

It is easier said than done, though. You need a lot of courage to show up for all the emotions and bodily sensations that a rope scene might ignite in you. To not shut off your feelings but to take them on and truly experience them. Being able to do that does not come easily. It requires conscious practice and an open and investigative approach. And there are certain conditions that we touched upon in our discussion that can make it easier for that openness to happen.

The importance of trust

Time and again the notion of trust was coming up. Rope bondage is an activity in which the bottom hands over the power over their body and their safety to the rigger. It seems obvious that trusting the person who you give such power is essential. However, this common-sense notion is not always practised among the bottoms, especially among beginners. 

And it is understandable. When I began getting tied, I wanted to do it as much as possible. Just getting into ropes was way more important to me than who's ropes they were. I simply wanted to feel the ropes squeezing emotions out of me as often as I could. Over time it has changed, though. From my own experience, and as I’ve learned during the round table also from the experiences of others, the longer you tie, the smaller the frequency and amount of people that you want to get tied by. And that is not because over time we become elitist and only want to tie with the best or the most famous riggers. Rather, we learn to tie only with people whom we truly trust. And unfortunately, they are not so easy to encounter.

Reasons for trust can be multiple. It can come from knowing the person well, it can come from their skills, from recommendations of other people who you trust, or simply from having a good feeling about the person.

Different people have different means to decide whether they trust to get tied by someone or not. Saara Rei, for example, mentioned among others that she never gets tied by a new person prior to seeing them tie and being able to assess whether they are tying safely according to her standards (for example, locking the tsuri lines properly). I usually don’t consider tying with a new person unless I have spoken with them a couple of times and I feel like I have a good feeling of what kind of person they are. 

No matter what your way to make up your mind about trusting a person is, one thing is certain, getting tied by someone who you don’t trust is a recipe for a bad scene. In the most optimistic scenario.

The importance of clear communication

A statement that clear communication is important in rope bondage sounds like a terrible cliche. Despite that, I am still not sure if we are fully aware of how many aspects of a scene are influenced by the quality of the communication between the partners. 

It is often the case that the crucial part of the communication is taking place before the actual scene. Many participants indicated that having a feeling that their partner is seeing and hearing them prior tying was indicative of how good the scene was going to be. Two things are important to achieve that. First, it is important to be able to communicate your needs clearly and assertively. Second, we need to have trust towards the partner that these needs will be listened to.

To be able to communicate our needs, we need first to know what these needs are. Seems trivial but it is far from that. Communicating one’s needs does not necessarily mean giving a specific scenario that you want your scene to follow. It might also mean expressing that you want your partner to take you anywhere they want and that you are aware of the risks involved. That you are aware that they might accidentally cross your boundaries and you are willing to deal with the consequences. Without the latter statement, you should not count on your partner to truly let go and give you the experience that you desire. As long as they are a decent human being, they will be too afraid to hurt you unintentionally. 

It is also important to communicate your expectations in terms of the emotional intensity that you are looking for. one of the participants indicated that for her being attuned in these terms is one of the most important ingredients for a great scene. For example, I usually go quite deep in my scenes and I also usually get sexually aroused in rope. As great as it might sound, it might not match with what my partner is looking for. It is better to communicate it beforehand and if your expectations don’t match, simply don’t do rope or do it another day when your moods are more aligned. 

Getting to know your body is essential to go deeper

A very important point was raised by another participant who indicated that for her, getting to know her body in ropes, understanding it, is a key to be able to go deeper. This remark was a good wake up call for all of us after we’ve spent a lot of time talking about the emotional experiences, mindsets and feelings in ropes and it seemed like we almost forgot that rope bondage is a bodily activity.

Any mental state that we achieve, we achieve through our bodies. Forgetting about the physical experience in ropes and focusing solely on the mind, misses a bigger part of the practice.

There are many different ways to learn your body in ropes, I believe. For example, you can learn the theory of anatomy and body mechanics. You can try to understand what is happening in ropes to your body and base your feeling of safety on your knowledge and understanding. You can learn to actively protect different parts of your body depending on your conscious actions and execute that protection whenever you feel you should. 

You can also learn your body in ropes more intuitively, not by analysing what is happening to your body on an anatomical level but rather trying to simply feel whether what is happening is right or wrong. I believe that by progressively putting yourself in slightly more difficult positions or observing how different ties of different people feel, and by trying to remember what felt good and safe without necessarily analysing it in detail in your head, you can also learn your body in ropes pretty well. You won’t be able to describe exactly what is happening to you, but you will be able to tell whether you are safe. 

One way or another, treating rope as a bodily practice and learning your body in ropes is essential if you want to go deep. 

Some things come with experience

All skills that I've listed above are very important and maybe even essential if you want deep and satisfying experiences in ropes. And like any skill, they require time and practice to develop. That does not mean that you can’t have great scenes at the beginning of your journey, but simply that the better you get at the things mentioned, the deeper your experiences will become. And there is nothing wrong with that. This actually is where the beauty of rope bottoming is for me and the reason why I feel that I will never get tired of it.

In the beginning, everything is new and exciting. You want to tie with everyone, you want to experience every style. You do not have much understanding of what you are doing, though. You do not truly understand the risks. You do not know why you want to be in ropes. You do not feel comfortable in ropes. You experience a lot of excitement, fear, panic, pain or arousal but you can’t go much deeper. Your body and mind are too alarmed for that.  

With time you develop depth in your bottoming. You become a more aware and full persona in bondage. You build a repertoire of experiences that you can provide to you and your rigger. You are comfortable enough in ropes to begin to experience deeper and more complex emotions. Your mind is not in a state of constant panic anymore and you learn how to manipulate your mental states in ropes, how to play with them and how to express yourself. 

Also, with your growing experience, your partners can push you more and more. They can tie you more intensely because they know that you are aware enough to take part of the responsibility. They can trust that both of you have the same level of knowledge to be able to understand the risks involved and therefore the responsibility for your experiences is more equally distributed. 

With practice, you also learn how to deal with things when they go wrong. You learn what you need before and after the scene, for it to go well, you learn to make informed decisions about your partners and the circumstances for doing bondage. And you can inform your partners better on how to take care of you and provide both of you with a great experience. Over time, you also learn what you can and can’t do. You learn your body, its ability, its strong and weak points, and you are able to communicate them to your rigger. 

Experience makes you also become calmer in ropes. More composed. You learn how to express and communicate without words. You learn to recognize what is and isn’t safe. Thanks to that, your scenes can become longer and more fluent and you and your partner can start to experiment more. As Anna Bones said, at the beginning of your bottoming education you need to learn how to communicate verbally in ropes. How to talk about your experiences to your rigger. 

As you grow in your bottoming, you learn how to communicate less with words and more with your body and facial expressions. You begin to fill ropes with your expression and speak to your rigger with your reactions. You stop talking because you begin to feel and express the unspeakable. It is not anymore about safe or unsafe, painful or comfortable. It becomes a matter of whispers, murmurs and subtleties. The depth of your breath and twitch of your feet. The expressions of emotions that can’t be named.

I hope that reading this article makes you at least partly as inspired as listening to and discussing with the participants made me. I believe that we came to beautiful conclusions about what it is that we do in ropes as bottoms, why we love it and how can we facilitate ourselves and our partners in having even better and more enriching experiences.

Rope bondage provides us with a special space where we can explore the areas of our body and mind which are usually unexplored. It allows us to go to places which people don’t visit in their everyday lives. These places are often dark and scary but facing them with a mature mind, heart and body and with a trustworthy partner by your side can lead to truly cathartic experiences. 

And as much as becoming a good rigger takes years of relentless practice, I believe that becoming a fully developed bottom can take years of practice as well. Not technical empirical practice as it is in case of tying, but working with your mind and body to open up and to persevere, grappling with oneself and one’s fears and teaching your body to accept and adjust to the extreme conditions that you put it through. Finally, being a good bottom also means knowing oneself extremely well and being able to communicate about it. It means knowing how to recognize the people who are worthy to put your life in their hands and being able to let go and truly give it to them when they are.

I am not saying that every bottom should take on this path and I am not saying that those who don’t are not worthy of admiration. The sheer fact that you show up for a scene should be enough as long as its enough for your partner. There is no better or worse here. But what I am trying to say is that there are things in bottoming practice that are truly difficult and require mastery. And that the results that one gets from working on them are tangible and worth putting in the effort. 

To me, rope is about eroticism

Disclaimer: This writing is an attempt at explaining part of what being in ropes is to me and what I get out of it. Because I am so passionate about it, I might at times sound like I think that this is the only way to do it or at least the best way. It is the best way for me, but I definitely don’t feel entitled in any way to tell other people what they should do in their bondage. What I will try to explain is why my practice of rope might not match with the practice of other people, why it might be difficult or even impossible to fit all rope practitioners into one community and why trying to do so creates friction that I think we are observing today. If you feel offended or attacked by me speaking my truth, I apologize. It is not my intention to offend anyone.

How ropes are erotic to me

I feel like I've been circling around this topic a lot, but I've never directly expressed it. So here I say it, to me rope bondage is an erotic activity. It can be more or less sexual depending on the circumstances but an element of eroticism is always there. 

I do find being bound by ropes erotic to the degree that I used to warn riggers who would tie me for the first time that I will most probably get sexually aroused during our session. I stopped doing that at some point because, somehow, I started assuming that before people approach me, they have already seen me being tied and have figured it out for themselves. But, to be honest, I think that I should continue to warn people about it because it is not a given (especially in the current circumstances). 

The eroticism of being in ropes is not something that I would admit easily, though. I am not proudly sexual in ropes. Rather, I usually feel like my arousal is torn out of me. Because the things that turn me on are not natural. And the fact that I am turned on by them does not make me feel proud.

Sometimes, I feel like I would rather not show this side of me at all, but in ropes, I can’t help it. Because being helpless and abused is sexy to me. I get aroused when I feel that I am at the mercy of the person who has tied me up. And the more things they do to me that I don't want, the more arousing I find it. I get excited when being degraded and humiliated. Being used and treated badly is what I find hot. At the same time, it makes me ashamed that by my reactions I might be giving evidence to how twisted I am. I find it disturbing that someone might discover my perverted sexuality. And, at the same time, it arouses me even more.

Many of these things are specific to me, though. Not everyone sees eroticism in ropes this way, and I also don’t tap into these states with just anybody.

There is also, in my opinion, a more fundamentally erotic side to ropes, which is in big part tied to the D/s or SM nature of it, as well as the visceral experience of being touched. 

I think that power imbalance in its essence is erotic. Being led is usually a charged experience. I can imagine that having power over someone is arousing and I can certainly say that someone else having power over me, is. Power imbalance creates erotic friction and what creates more imbalance than being bound and restricted by someone who can now control your body and through that possibly your mind? 

And then there is touch, which is an inevitable part of a rope bondage scene. The touch does not only come from the person who is tying you, but also from the rope itself. To me, the feeling of rope pressing on my skin is extremely sensual. I also find the pain that rope can cause erotically pleasurable. I am definitely a masochist, but I don’t necessarily enjoy the pain of impact play. The pain coming from rope bondage, on the other hand, is extremely enjoyable and often arousing to me. It is because of the closeness of rope to my flesh and the continuous embrace that it provides when applied on my body.

It is like a painful hug. It provides so much sensory and emotional input that it becomes a mixture of pain and pleasure, difficult to separate one from the other, and in its mixture, intoxicating.

How I find the eroticism of rope bondage its inevitable part

In my opinion, rope bondage is at its core an erotic activity. And although one can perform it in a non-erotic way, it requires an effort and a conscious decision to not go that route.

In hojojutsu, which is often considered one of the origins of Japanese rope bondage, as we know it today, being bound was an abuse carried out as an act of violence either to take away someone’s freedom or to torture them. Subsequently, the power imbalance and torture in the act of bondage was recognized to have a potential of being erotic by the SM practitioners and it started to be practised as an intimate act where one person binds the other, taking away their freedom, causing them pain or discomfort in a sensual way, and using their helplessness to perform erotic activities. 

Of course, the fact that in the past rope was used for the purposes mentioned by me above does not mean that it cannot be used for any other purpose. Nowadays there are people who practise rope bondage using tools and techniques coming from the erotic rope bondage but without the eroticism. I observe a similar phenomenon in tango. In its nature, it is a very sensual dance. It evokes intense emotions which are experienced intimately between you and your partner. You hug each other closely and one person (the follower) is in the power of the other (leader) in the sense that the leader dictates the actions of the follower. 

There are people, however, who do not dance in a sensual way and enjoy their dance that way. Looking at them you might still say that they dance the tango, as in, they use the same or similar patterns and they dance to tango music. They use the tools of tango, but they strip away its sensuality and potential eroticism. My question is, is it still tango or has it become something else?

The fact that you can take the sensual part out of this dance and still get something tango-like does not mean that tango does perfectly well without it. The fact that it seems like it is possible to practice tango without sensuality does not mean that it is not a necessary ingredient to really make it work.

Because when I see a tango dance like that, I feel like something is missing there. There is no ‘fire’ between the partners, the essence of the dance is gone.

Of course, that's my view as the sensuality of this dance is what draws me to it. I rarely enjoy my dances without it, but I don’t mind other couples dancing their way. I think that it is perfectly fine for them to dance the way they enjoy it. I do think, however, that it becomes problematic when people with different definitions of the dance meet together in one couple. Or when people start to demand from you to take that element out of your practice, because if they can do without it, it must not be its essential part. When people start to define the activity in a different way, but still call it with the same name. When the activity that used to be erotic and sadomasochistic by definition becomes many different things for different people and before you engage in it, you need to spend hours explaining to each other what your understanding of the activity is. 

I feel like rope bondage became so open and broad nowadays that that is what happened. Everybody has their own definition of what rope is for them. Everybody does it their own way but we are all part of the same community. It seems inclusive and open, but what it often ends up being for me is blurry and frustrating. 

How I see a rope community that I would feel a part of

To me, the advantage of being a part of a rope community would be to be among like-minded people where I don’t have to hide and pretend anymore. That we all ‘get it’ and I don’t need to censor myself when participating in rope events. But I don’t really feel that way.

Because when rope community is not anymore contrived only of a small group of perverts and SM and D/s enthusiasts, but artists, contortionists, yogis and all kinds of other people who do rope for their own reasons, the ones who belong to that small group of perverts will end up being too extreme to the others. They will end up having to, again, water down their needs and likes if they want to belong. They will have to hide and play themselves down the same way as they had to do in the wider society. 

You could say that it is fine. That they can leave their pervy erotic bondage to their bedrooms and private encounters and enjoy a more publicly acceptable practice when they are among fellow rope people. I, however, do not entirely agree. 

To me, a big part of the enjoyment of being bound is in being observed in that situation. One thing is being observed by the person who is tying you, which is an element of every rope session. Another is to be observed by perverted onlookers to whom you gave no direct consent for it. I find being in such situation extremely erotic and my impression is that in the old Japan (and maybe new as well, since rope there is still much more underground and perverted) it was often the experience of the model who would get tied in public.

The thrill was not only in her interaction with the rigger but also in having an audience who would watch the spectacle of her submission and torment. For whom she would play out their dark fantasies. And whose presence would allow her to play out her’s.

I can imagine that for a model it is an extremely intense and arousing experience. An experience that I dream of having. And although I’ve been tied in public many times, I have never felt like that. There have always been witnesses to my scenes that I felt like I was making uncomfortable or even shocked (in a non-positive way) by what was happening between me and my rigger. That they did not really understand what is being done to me and treated me like a poor victim or a circus attraction. 

Of course, that situation could provide me with another thrill. The thrill of being the centre of unwanted attention, the humiliation of being a weirdo. And as much as I can enjoy it at times, it is not what I am ultimately looking for. At least not each time when I’m being watched in ropes. 

How having people calling different things with the same name leads to trouble

I think that because the terms Shibari and kinbaku became so popular nowadays and because so many people are curious about it and so many people want to try it, we are losing the essence of what they really are (especially kinbaku as it is usually understood). We want to get accepted with our kinks and in order to get accepted, we try to make them more acceptable. We organize workshops on Shibari and kinbaku and not for a second mention the eroticism in them. We focus on patterns and techniques and forget about the spirit. 

And sure, we could say that the workshops are for practice and learning and later you can apply the techniques privately in an erotic way if you want to. But can you really learn kinbaku ties properly without having a kinbaku mindset while you tie them (or are tied in them)? Can you first learn the clean technique and only later season it with the eroticism? Will it be the same dish as the one that you would season right from the start? 

Should rope workshops be only about practising patterns and (maybe) talking about the philosophy? Don’t get me wrong, I do think that these things are important, but could we go back to perving a bit more and hiding a bit less? To using rope bondage for what it was made for and not trying to find new cleaner ways to practice it? Or at least give the people who do want to practice it this way some space and not call them snobs or elitists for not wanting to tie with anyone who asks or for refusing to tie at certain events? Some forms of bondage are for everybody, some aren’t. And I do think that it is important to get that clarification if we want to prevent accidents from happening and if we want to keep the community (or communities) healthy. 

The way I do rope is dark, erotic and sadomasochistic. I want to practice it on my own terms and I wish to find a community where this way is not only accepted, but also understood and encouraged. Where we can share our darkness and not hide behind another mask the same way as society demands us to do. 

It might mean that we need to go deeper into the underground, it might mean that we have to partly separate ourselves from the wider rope community. But if it also means that I might feel among (a subset of) rope people like I truly belong. That they will enjoy seeing my torment without feeling sorry for me. That they will not see me as a victim of abuse or a tourist attraction, but a conscious pervert acting out her fantasies and will be able to truly appreciate the beauty and the depth of my suffering, then maybe it is time to start calling the things that we do for what they are and stop putting everything into one basket? Without assigning value to any of them but simply acknowledging the differences and letting them flourish? 

Lessons on pain, suffering and humiliation from Soptik and EisEve

Last weekend, Soptik and EisEve gave a performance followed by a 2-day intensive workshop at Ellipsis in Rotterdam. I attended both with high hopes and was not disappointed. In fact, I've learned way more than I expected.

The performance

Their performance left me speechless. I’ve heard that Soptik is a real sadist and I was prepared for an hour of enjoyment mixed with embarrassment while watching EisEve being tortured in his ropes. What I have seen was nothing like what I have expected. True, she was suffering for most of the performance, but mostly it was a spectacle of humiliation and objectification and a show of an intense D/s dynamic. And it was beautiful.

He started strongly by cutting open EisEve clothes and putting her in a partial involving only a neck rope, causing her to tiptoe and struggle for her life while he was tying a TK. He then put her in a series of transitions, each one slightly more difficult and exposing than the previous. She took them all gracefully. What was amazing to me was how intensely Soptik was focused on his model. He barely watched his ropes. His eyes were almost constantly fixated on her. And he was taking his time. He wasn’t hurrying from one position to another. Each position was a feast on its own and he was delighting in every little drop of EisEve suffering.

And she does suffer beautifully. From the first till the last moment of the performance, she was completely surrendered to him. You could feel that she would let him do anything to her. She was there at his disposal, surrendering completely to his ropes, with her eyes closed and her body relaxed. At the same time, she wasn’t lifeless. She was truly present and you could feel the intense emotions that she is going through.

At some point of the performance, Soptik gagged her with her own panties, which he previously cut open, and tied a white cloth around her mouth and eyes. Then he proceeded to draw a smile and a pair of eyes on the fabric. This was a powerful message of objectification. For me, it was like saying ‘Look at her, she is all mine. She will let me do anything to her. And I will execute this power.’ That really touched me. I rarely see such expressions of submission in rope performances, and at the same time, they are something that I really look for in kinbaku.

On top of everything, Soptik is an extremely skilled rigger. His moves were confident and fluent and each position that he put his model in was executed with great care and seemed simple, but was actually very complex. He was deliberate in creating shapes from EisEve body. And the shapes that he was creating were not always making his model beautiful. She was a material that he was forming according to his desires. And his desires were often to expose and objectify her. He ended the performance with a single point TK suspension, which was a very dramatic position, making the model resemble a hanged person. Another powerful message.

For me, the entire performance was comparable to that of Bingo, that I’ve seen in Paris, in terms of the intensity, skill and the qualities of kinbaku and D/s that it displayed. It left me extremely excited for the workshop.

The workshop

And the workshop didn’t disappoint. There was lots of pain and suffering, but most necessary, it was not without a reason. I think that the most important lesson that I have learned from it is that as a model you want to suffer in ropes for someone. If you see your rigger paying attention to you and enjoying what he is creating, it really makes it worthwhile to go through all the pain and discomfort.

Soptik kept repeating that for him every moment of the scene is important and that he wants to enjoy the model in his ropes as much as possible. Therefore, it is really crucial to pay attention to your model by learning how to minimize the amount of time that you look at your ropes when tying. You want to enjoy the model and the feelings that you evoke in her and for that, you need to pay attention to her, not the ropes that are on her body. They are just an object, they don’t have feelings. But your model does. And that is what you are after.

For me, it really does make a difference, because I treat my scenes as an emotional journey. I go through a spectrum of emotions when being tied and if the rigger does not appreciate them then I miss the point of doing it. I know that there are different reasons why people tie and this is not the only ultimate one, but it is for me. That’s why Soptik teaching resonated so much with me.

Another thing is that as a model, once I decide to tie with someone, I should be willing to suffer for them. That also means that I should try to overcome small nuisances, like a pinching rope, as long as they are not dangerous. In that way, I make sure that we can enjoy the scene and its flow with minimal disturbances. I learned that any time that I communicate to the rigger, I take us out of our headspace and we have to make a big effort afterwards to get back in. Therefore, it makes for a way better scene if I suffer through small discomforts, even unintentional, and only communicate things that I really important.

Finally, watching Soptik tie and interact with EisEve completely changed my views on D/s relationships. Throughout the workshop, he kept exposing and humiliating her, by for example casually exposing her breasts and crotch. Not for a moment though it made me think of her as weak or less a person than he is. (And that is how I usually feel when someone does something like that to me.) On the contrary, I thought that she is very strong and brave for being so vulnerable to him in front of us. I could also see how much she means to him and how much he appreciates her and I understood that even though there is a power imbalance in their relation, it does not mean that either of them is less valuable.

Some of you might say, ‘Duh...’, but for me, it was quite an eye-opener. So far, I’ve rather seen myself as showing weakness when expressing my submission to my boyfriend in front of other people. And now, when I saw how it might look from the outside, I don’t think of it as appearing weak anymore. I think that it is touching and beautiful. And both sides show strength by expressing it.

Our scene

As a culmination of this weekend, I experienced Soptik’s tying myself. And it was again both different and better than I expected. He asked me to tie because he really liked my expressions of suffering in ropes and I agreed because I could see that we have many common kinks and I expected that he would put me through an amazing journey. And he did.

I think that I have never experienced so much pain and humiliation at once given with so much intention and enjoyment. Especially by someone who I barely know. The way he was hurting me and the emotions that he was able to evoke in me by giving me pain made me re-evaluate how I see myself as a masochist. For a while now I have thought that I prefer emotional masochism over the physical one. And partially it is still true. Soptik made me realize what you can achieve when you combine the two. A mind-blowing experience.

I guess that there are not so many things that can make one as panicky and vulnerable as experiencing pain from which there is no escape. I am a masochist and I like pain, but only to a certain degree, and I am not even sure if my pain tolerance is that high. I can take quite a bit, but not without strong reactions and I only experience mild levels of very specific kinds of pain as pleasurable. The pain that he was giving me was definitely above my limits. But he overpowered me mentally and physically and made me feel like there is nowhere to go from it. He made me submit to the pain and to him and accept whatever he is giving to me. And that really changed my perception.

At some point, I started enjoying way more than I usually do. It seemed like because there was no escape, my mind decided that it is better for me to think that it is what I truly want. And then, for a submissive, there is something really special about letting someone torture your body and seeing them enjoying it. And he definitely was enjoying torturing me. It made me very confused because, on the one hand, I wanted the pain to stop, but on the other, you wanted to keep pleasing him. Also, he kept humiliating me. He twisted my body and exposed me. He tied my face and made me drool on myself and then smeared the saliva over my face. He slapped me and beat me and stepped on me. At some point, it turned me into a needy wimp and I just wanted him to be nice to me and caress me, but he kept only hurting and degrading me. That made me only more miserable and more submissive.

I was truly amazed by how much I can take from a complete stranger. He was my teacher for two days, I have seen him tie and we talked a bit, but there was not much more that I knew about him. I have always thought that degradation and humiliation are something that I can only do with someone that I have a deep relation with. But it turns out that it is not necessarily the case. I think that because I could see very clearly that it is something that he enjoys, I felt safe to enjoy it as well. To show my real self to him and let him take us on this journey.

At the same time, it was very different from what I experience with my partners that I have a deeper relationship with. I think that there was not so much emotional depth behind it and because of that, it was less (emotionally) dangerous. It was a very strong and pure D/s power exchange, but at the same time did not have the emotional loading of humiliation play that I have with my boyfriend for example. Having a deep relationship with someone definitely changes the angle of play, because he can hit you in more emotionally vulnerable places. And that requires way more aftercare that I felt like I need after this scene.

Here, I felt like a victim, first caught and overpowered and then slowly, by means of torture, turned into an obedient pet. It was really amazing and intense and at the same time very contained within the scene. I feel like rope is a great tool to create this kind of emotions. It makes you powerless and vulnerable and can cause a lot of pain. At the same time, it's not like cuffs or straps that only immobilize you. Your partner keeps on making you move, reminding you of the power that he has and at the same time putting you in a kind of trance. It's also very theatrical in a way which for me works great in putting my mind on an emotional journey. Since it is a non-verbal tool, the flow of energy is in a way purer and therefore might be stronger than when you use words, even though the exchange might be less intricate, as I feel like only more basic dynamics can be expressed without verbal communication. Still, you can achieve the intensity and experience emotional journey that is really special and hard to come across otherwise with such minimal tools.

My lessons

I can already see my boyfriend laughing at this one, but I think that I can safely say that this weekend was a life-changing experience for me. Or at least, it changed the way I look at many things.

First of all, I strengthened my conviction that what I am looking for and want to experience in rope is an intense D/s dynamic. I want to see suffering and submission. I want to see humiliation and eroticism. And finally, I want to see simplicity and beauty created by using the model as a canvas. And that is exactly what Soptik and EisEve showed in their performance.

Secondly, I’ve learned that the intention of both the rigger and the model can make or break the scene. On the rigger side, it is extremely important that he enjoys what he is doing to the model. And for that, he needs to pay attention to her. He should maximize the time that he looks and reads the model and minimize the time that his attention is on the rope. From the model side, she needs to have the intention to suffer for the rigger, to give herself to him for his enjoyment. That also means that she should try to not break the scene with every little pinch of rope on her skin. Sometimes it might be better to suffer through the discomfort, also unintentional, and see where the scene goes than to break the flow.

Thirdly, I learned to appreciate and respect the submissive role way more. I realized that it requires strength and vulnerability to be able to submit, but that the same goes for the dominant. Even though there is a power imbalance in a D/s relation, there is no value assigned to either of the sides. They are both equally strong and brave and beautiful. And there is something truly magnetic in observing a couple with a strong D/s dynamic. Like watching two elements both fighting and needing each other to exist.

Finally, I’ve learned that rope is a perfect tool for creating intense and complex D/s scenes, even between people who don’t know each other that well. You can degrade, scare, torture, humiliate, give and take hope, caress and evoke many more feelings, using only rope. At the same time, the dynamic is very contained within the context of the scene and the strong power exchange that you experience does not have to exist outside of it. This made me appreciate rope even more and it might have made me more open to tie with new people.

Thank you Soptik and EisEve for teaching me so much about rope, D/s and myself. It was a truly deep experience and I can’t wait to learn from you again.