There seems to be a lot of conversations buzzing around on how to be a “better” bottom. I guess these conversations have always been around, but I get the feeling at the moment that it is a serious question a lot of people are asking themselves, particularly those who are fairly new to ropes and the rope scene. With that, I thought I would share some thoughts on this subject.
Let’s start with a story: I have been doing rope, or shibari, or whatever you would like to call it since 2014. So as far as I am concerned, not such a long time... but I have been playing classical flute for 22 years and consider myself an intermediate player, so it’s all relative to the discipline and the practice, I suppose, and the rope scene seems to be a fast paced, fast changing one. So with all that, I realize that perhaps I have been bottoming for a fairly long time in rope years. As well, I have tied with a lot of people who collectively paint a very diverse picture of rope bondage. I am lucky enough to have tied with so many people because I lived in Berlin when Schwelle7 existed and I was lucky enough to be part of that community, where every six months there were only a mere 60ish of us rope perverts gathering in a room together for a week to collaborate, socialize, and play with each other.... with emphasis on the play. In this space, before rope bondage could be considered a viable career option, people really met each other. The same group (more or less) would really meet every six months to be in a room together for a week. And as you might imagine, a tangled and beautiful web of relationships and dynamics formed between these 60ish people from this intense time spent together. Many of these 60ish people have become my closest friends, lovers, partners, and rope family.
In this Berlin studio, I was guided by my attraction. At first, I observed the way others moved and interacted with the space and those inside of it. How they expressed their own desires in rope and how that made me feel. And as the week slowly slowly passed, my observations would turn into interactions, conversations, and if some kind of attraction and interest was felt, then the question, “would you like to tie with me?”. The reasons would vary: sexual desire, a well-synchronized dance, a deep conversation, an unexpected moment together in a workshop. But there would always be a culmination of moments together that would lead to the feeling of “I am interested in being intimate with you”, “I am interested in spending time with you”, “I am interested in getting to know you better through this intense practice we share together”. I always felt like tying once with somebody was, like, the equivalent of spending several months together. Every rope is an investment in my relationship with that person. A relationship I want to explore and build, even if I do not know what form it will take: a friendship, a romance, a partnership. If I ask you to tie, what I am really saying is that I am interested in getting to know what is there between us. This is the intention of my tying and what has been my primary compass when it comes to bottoming.
With that story, I would like to break down some guidelines I follow that I recommend to others in order to be a “better” bottom:
Tie with people you have observed tying in person. As I have hopefully made clear in my story, tying for me is about my relationship to another person, and in particular, my attraction to that person. Attraction in relation to rope is often sexual for me, or relating to my sexuality, but it could also take many other forms as well, like the attraction that brings two friends together... but how can I possibly feel another person and get an impression of my attraction, if it exists at all, if I do not meet them in person? Let alone, if I am interested in giving my freedom to them!? One of the most intimate and deeply trusting things you could ever do? I know I want to really observe and feel into a person before I decide if there is something there between us I want to explore with them, and if I can feel that the trust is there between us (or lust, in the least). As well, on the technical side of things, it is good to observe how a person ties to see if you feel you can trust their tying (like, you can see that they can make proper lock offs... everybody doing rope bondage in my opinion should know what a proper lock off looks like... after all, it is your neck that will break if a rope is not secured properly... everybody needs to take responsibility for that reality) and to get an impression of how they like to tie, play, and interact in rope. Somebody could be the best rigger in the world, but that does not necessarily mean that you will get along in or out of ropes, and that you have the same intention and desires when tying.
Remember that bondage is intimate. Everybody I tie with is somebody I want to be intimate with. I am literally giving my freedom over to the other person and going into a dynamic where, ultimately, they have the control (because at the end of the day my hands are tied, not their’s). Once I am tied up, if I feel I have any control over the situation it is really because the person tying me up is allowing me to have that control. And, of course, when we are playing consensually, this give and take is there and ultimately forming the complex dynamic between the two people tying. But still, when I am allowing somebody to tie me, I am saying that I trust you with my freedom. And with that, we are ultimately playing with power. And then what I am saying is that I trust you to have power over me, physically and emotionally. The definition of intimate is “private and personal” and what is more private and personal than ones freedom of movement, balance, breath, and emotional state of being? If I am not certain I would like to be intimate with another person, then I do not tie with them. Because I won’t be able to tie with them. Even if the ropes go on, I will not be able to trust, and if I can’t trust, then I cannot relax my body and I cannot emotionally feel safe. And, in my experience, the session will not last very long and it will not leave a very good feeling inside of me or my partner.
Understand your intention for wanting to tie with somebody. There is no right or wrong intention. I have tied with another for every intention under the sun - as long as my intention is clear, then I can approach somebody with a good understanding of myself and my desire in relation to them. Perhaps my intention is simply that I want to see what will happen, or that the person is really sexy, or that I liked how it felt when we hugged. Or I want to practice or experience something they also want to practice or know how to do really well. Or that we seem to have a good creative flow together. Whatever it is, when I understand my own intention, I also understand my motivation, and I can express it to the other person so that we can determine if our intentions align, and we can go into the session with some clarity as to what we are doing, even if what we are doing is “seeing what happens”.
Only tie if you really feel like tying. Sometimes my mind says, “but you love rope”, “but you really want to tie with that person”, “but you haven’t done rope in so long, now is the chance”, etc. but my body says “NO”. In my experience, whenever I have not listened to that “no” from my body, no matter how much my mind says “yes”, I have had to end the session quickly or was not even able to start the session in the first place. The same goes when it’s the other way around (the body says “yes”, but the mind says “no”). When my body and mind are not aligned with each other and there is a part of me that just cannot manage doing rope, then I just don’t do it. And when I don’t listen to my own advice I quickly remember why I make this a rule. Tying is mentally and physically intense and requires my full presence to manage the intensity. If I cannot give that for whatever reason, if there is a “no” inside of me for whatever reason (the “no” could also have to do with the person or the situation I am in), then the rope session is a no... even if it is hard for me to say that no. Because when I am in that intense situation, that no inside of me is there, screaming, and causing my body to tense up and my mind to panic and I just can’t stay in the ropes for very long to have an exchange. Instead, I am fighting my “no”, likely failing, and the session instead becomes about my struggle with my “no” rather than my relationship with the person I am tying with. And that is just not very fun for anybody.
Stay present with your body and the experience you are having. This is a big one and a complicated one, because of course it is easier said than done. It takes time to get to know your body, how it moves, what feels good, and what doesn’t... and to cope with the fact that your body and its reactions are changing constantly, so when you think you understand, you don’t again! This is why presence is so important. Learning to feel how you feel NOW. Not how you have felt before or how you would like to feel - this only builds expectations that will inevitably fail with time. Learning to stay present has helped me in particular with pain management; if I can be in the pain I am presently feeling and not in the comparison of how I was in the past (“ah it wasn’t painful before”) or how I could be in the future (“if only this happened then the pain would go away”), then I have found that I simply do not feel the pain - I simply am in one moment that is fleeting to another. As well when I am present with myself in the experience I am having, and I really allow myself to feel whatever comes up in that presence, then I am able to have more genuine reactions which help to provide valuable information to me and my partner about what is going on in the session and what direction to take next.
Please notice that none of these five points have anything to do with flexibility, physical training, practicing, or tying with people who are popular on instagram. At the end of the day, rope bondage is about you having an intimate experience with another person that is mutually desired. Of course, taking care of your body and it’s fitness is an important thing to do for yourself, but that has nothing necessarily to do with being “good” at rope bottoming because there are as many ways of being a good rope bottom as there are people in this world: be present with yourself. Be responsible for your experience. And do what feels right in the moment for yourself. I have found that if I only tie with people I have at least seen tie, who I am attracted to for whatever reason (sexual or not), who I trust, and feel that I want to tie with, and I feel that I am able to tie with them when the time comes, and am able to be present in our tying experience together, then I am able to be the best bottom I can be, allowing myself to have the experiences I truly want to have with the people I want to have them with. And that is what life is all about.
P.S. Switch every reference to being tied with tying, and every reference of somebody tying to somebody being tied, and this article could be called “Better” Topping.