To me, rope is about exploring the limits of the mind

I am currently trying to define what drives me in rope bondage so that I can understand better where I stand in the realm of rope bottoming and (hopefully) make it easier for people who hear my thoughts on it to interpret them and find a place for them within their own definitions. 

By no means is what I write about here set in stone. I am ever-evolving and it might be that in half a year my thoughts on the topic will change completely. Also, it is not an exhaustive definition of who I am in ropes. I only touch upon some aspects of my modelling here. Some others I talk about in my other posts and there might be more to come on things that I've realised recently and haven’t shared yet. Also, it is not that I am living what I describe here at all times. Some things that I talk about are more prominent in my modelling than others, but still, I am sure that there are scenes in which nothing of what I write about in this post applies to me. 

I do think, however, that what I am touching upon are some of the driving forces that drew me towards, and keep me with, rope and kinbaku. What I describe is like a compass that steers my rope journey. I don’t always follow the route that it indicates, but in the end, I always come back to it. It is what inspires me and partly what makes me in rope me. I am writing about it as a way for me to make sense out of it, but also to possibly inspire other people to think differently about their bondage. I am not trying to convince anyone that this is the way to do it (even if I sound like it at times), so please refrain from asking me to put disclaimers that it is a personal account and not a prescription on rope bottoming in general.

Disclaimer: This is a personal account and not a prescription on rope bottoming in general.

These are some of my reasons for doing rope bondage and my personal approach to it. I hope that you will have some pleasure from reading it and take from it what you feel like.

I want to explore my mental limits, but not cross them

The intensity of the experience in ropes for me often comes from dancing on the verge of my limits. And the limits that I'm talking about here are psychological rather than physical. I think that the difference between mental and physical limits is that the first ones are way more fluid and situation dependent. Also, for me, the latter is often driven by the former. I can only push myself so far for the sake of a physical challenge, but when pleasing my Dominant comes into play, or simply suffering without any control over it, I turn out to be capable of way more than I thought I am. 

Pushing one’s mental limits is a very delicate matter. It is quite easy to realise that you’ve damaged yourself physically, but when it comes to psychological damage, things get murkier and much more complex. That is why for this kind of exploration you need to be able to feel very well what is happening within you and you need to be able to communicate it to your rigger so that they know what they are doing.

Going slow and constant communication is the key if you want your rigger to be aware of how much they can push you at all times. If you act tough for the bigger part of the scene and push away the psychological reactions that they are causing in you, there is a big risk that once you finally react, you will already be too far, because your reaction will be a result of passing your limits and things spilling out of you uncontrollably. And that is what you want to avoid. If you both go slow, however, and if you are both attuned to each other, you can get to really amazing places without using extreme tools for that. Sometimes less is more and the deeper you both are immersed in the scene, the less you need to do externally to make the other feel. It is more a matter of depth of immersion than the strength of the act itself.

I often observe riggers in workshops going very far very quick with their models. For example, in Soptik’s and mine recent workshop on Humiliation during the Prague Shibari Festival, there was a simple exercise of tying an upper chest harness that had a humiliating aspect to it. That was all that Soptik did on me (tied the chest harness), and because of his clear intention and small details in his behaviour, my reaction to the tie was quite strong. When the participants’ turn came, they went (as Wildties would say) byzantine. They started tying models faces, hanging things on them, exposing them and going into verbal humiliation. All because they wanted to get a reaction. However, the reactions of most of the models were not as strong as mine.

In my opinion, the reason for that was twofold. First, the models did not allow their feelings to flow through them freely. They were blocking the feelings of humiliation or were simply distracted, waiting for the rigger to do something that will put them in the right mindset. Secondly, the riggers were doing too much without the right intention. Sometimes, doing less and slowing down is a much better tool for making the model tuned in than overwhelming them with experiences. It is like with tenderising the meat (My partner, Asiana likes to use that comparison when she talks about semenawa), if you progress slowly, it’s like marinating the model. You don’t need much to make her ‘tender’ (read: get a reaction) if you prepared her well. If you haven’t prepared her beforehand, though, you need to strike really hard to get the same result, additionally substantially increasing the risk of causing damage in the process. 

As a model, I can’t do anything about the intentionality and intensity of what my rigger is giving me. I can, however, work on my own mindset to make it easier for them to work with me. Therefore, in a rope scene, I am usually trying to give the rigger all the information possible for them to be able to push me in the right way.

For that, I first focus on receiving the information from within myself, sensitizing myself to be able to read it and then I try to communicate what I am feeling to the rigger. Of course, I don’t only do these things to make the life of the rigger easier. For the bigger part, I do it because it allows me to reach the states that I am looking for. 

First and foremost, I want to feel

The most important reason for me to do rope is that it makes me feel. And the feelings that it can elicit are exactly the ones that I am looking for in BDSM: misery, helplessness, lack of control, surrender, submission, resignation, arousal, humiliation, objectification, fear. A skilled rigger can make me feel all these in a rope scene. And much more. 

I have an impression that because the progression in a rope scene is much slower than, for example, in an impact play scene, and there are many times when I am in a way left to myself, there is a lot of time for my mind to process what is happening to me and build its own story around it. I believe that that is the reason why I can get to as complex emotions with rope as I do with verbal play (which I really really love exactly for the level of emotional complexity one can achieve with it). In rope, instead of my partner enchanting me with their words, my head is doing it for them, manipulating my emotions and creating complex scenarios based on the actions of the rigger. So far, I haven’t found any other form of play that would allow for such emotional complexity as these two.

I want to feel as intensely as possible in my play. And the way to achieve the intensity for me is either by the level of the emotion itself (as in, intense fear or intense pleasure) or by its complexity. The latter often being more interesting for me. And because I am specifically looking for feelings and emotions, I try to make myself especially sensitive to anything that might elicit them. During a scene, I tune in into my bodily sensations and my feelings, all my attention focused on reading and interpreting what the rigger is doing to me and how it affects me. It happens not in the sense of actively analysing it in my head, but rather letting their actions affect my body and through that speak subconsciously to my mind and my heart. 

Finally, I don’t only want to feel strong emotions, I am not waiting for the fireworks. I want to experience everything there is to experience. I want to squeeze all the possible feelings that I might out of the scene. I don't only want to experience the end state, but the entire process that brings me there. I want to feel every little crack in my surface.

Also for that, I sensitize myself. Again, I tune in into my body so that I don’t miss any possible shift that might provide me with a new reason to feel, however small it is. I don't push away any emotion, I let them all in. The good and the bad, the strong and the weak, the overwhelming and the subtle. 

I let my feelings out

I tend to be very expressive and I think that there are a couple of reasons for it. One is that because I'm so focused on receiving and interpreting, all my attention and energy goes there and I have no energy left to hide what is happening inside of me. All of it is consciously directed somewhere else. Also, when you feel so much without pushing it away, it becomes in a way natural to also express it. If you open up so much to what you are feeling, it can be overwhelming at times and sometimes the only way to stay sane within this experience is to let it out. Otherwise, you'll end up like a pot that's about to boil over. It's better to lift the lead up early on and let the steam out gradually, as it comes. 

During the Prague Shibari Festival, I listened to a great lecture of Bergborg about Akechi Denki in which he mentioned an article that Akechi' s model, Katsuragi Ayano, wrote after performing with the Master in the Netherlands. In the article, you can read how surprised she was about the European virtue of stoicism in models. She commented on the model in a show preceding theirs taking a heavy whipping without any reaction, and how the audience seemed to appreciate it, while after their performance where she was screaming and crying, the organiser had to calm down the public and remind them that what they’ve seen was consensual. I think that things haven't changed that much since then. Stoicism and even a certain kind of serenity in ropes are still very appreciated in Europe. We value people who can take difficulties calmly and with composure. We value quiet models who endure silently.

Unfortunately, I am not like that. I let out everything that I feel inside of me. I tend to be very expressive. When something hurts me, I scream, when I'm aroused, I moan and when I'm desperate, I wail. And for that, I have been criticised in different communities. That I am too loud, too dramatic or that I invade other people's spaces at rope jams with my expression. 

I understand the critique. I definitely stand out often and my reactions are frequently not compatible with what other people around me are looking for in ropes. The thing is, though, that what I do is simply not overwriting my natural reactions with politically correct ones. Being in ropes (especially in a suspension) is an extreme experience. You put your body in a state of heavy distress, sometimes even terror. I don't want to shut down my feelings to appear more graceful or more strong. I am not going to diminish my natural reactions in order for my rigger and the audience to be comfortable with pushing me further. I want to feel what I feel and I want the rigger to be able to witness what they are doing to me. I don't look for pride in swallowing my reactions and in appearing tough. In fact, I don’t look for pride in bondage at all. My goal is to be moved, to feel as deeply as possible, the expression of it being just a side effect.

Finally, I want my rigger to be able to understand what they are doing to me. We are playing a delicate and risky game and I don’t want to mislead them in anything. Even though it seems like they are the culprit and I am the victim, to me it is more as if we are partners in crime. We both want to bring me to my limits and we both want me to experience intense emotions. In order to do it in a conscious and informed way, I want to cooperate with them. 

I think that if one looks at modelling qualities, the context is extremely important. While there might be some general objectively desired skills that every rigger should have (being able to tie with the right even tension, having muscle memory of certain ties or at least some passages of a tie etc.), I recently grow more and more convinced that for models it’s not the case (with the exception maybe of being able to monitor the most basic safety indicators). However, it doesn’t mean that the models have no input in rope bondage. Quite the contrary. 

In my opinion, I have an enormous impact on the scene as a model (and if some riggers would like to challenge me in this statement, please bring it on). Depending on what I want to get out of the tie, I can facilitate myself in it or make it more difficult for myself and for the rigger. That is not to say that I direct my rope scenes in any way (I think that the people who have seen me being tied would agree that trying to direct my rigger in any way is the last thing that I do), rather I try to remove all the obstacles from my side that might hinder the rigger in bringing me to where I want to be (and where they want me to be). 

And because for me the mental challenge and the emotional aspects of rope bondage are very important, I do everything in order to make it easier for the rigger to give them to me. I do my part and I hope that they will do their part as well. What I do doesn’t necessarily make sense in absolute terms, but it certainly does in the context of what I am looking for. 

Because if you want to feel, you should let yourself feel. If you want to share your emotions with someone else, you need to let them in and allow them to witness you. And finally, if you want to explore your limits, doing so gradually and with awareness is the way to go if you don't want to get hurt (too much) in the process.