I Like to Be Tied Up

It’s not that I thought the transition from fantasy kink to real life kink would be easy, it’s that I didn’t think about it at all. After years of hoovering novels about kink and thinking about it all the time, it was a big deal for me to show up in person to real events. That seemed like the big hurdle.

At the time, I identified as a submissive. I didn’t really know the difference between submissive and bottom. I didn’t know a lot of other words. I knew I was into bondage and pain. I didn’t know that it was possible to be into only one of those, or both, or neither, or other things altogether.

I think part of the problem was the novels I’d read. In those books, the narrative focus was often on making a woman admit she was submissive. That seemed to mean gets-wet-when-ordered-around. I don’t recall coming across novels that told a story about a submissive woman painstakingly defining the nuances of her identity, though perhaps they exist. In most of what I read, tops defined the identities of submissives for them.

I could write a long, long essay, and probably also a novel, about my relationship to the word submissive alone.

The Many Note Challenge got me thinking about something that seems much simpler than that on the surface: trying to tell people you’re into rope.

For the challenge, I showed a variety of moods, a lot of different ways rope might feel to two people who are playing with it. That points to a problem I experienced when trying to move from fantasy kink to real life kink. At first, I thought all I needed to tell people was, “I want to be tied up.”

It felt that way at first, especially when I was bursting with enthusiasm and it seemed like any way of being tied up would be great with me. I just had a bottomless (haha) urge to have someone put rope on me.

Over time, though, I started to notice dissonances when I talked to other people who liked to be tied up.

***

Here are some examples of questions that point to possible distinctions:

Do you like to be tied up to look pretty?

Do you like to be tied up to feel athletic?

Do you like to be tied up in a way that’s uncomfortable?

Do you like for sexual things to happen after you’re tied up?

Do you like for painful things to happen after you’re tied up?

Are painful things sexual to you?

Does being tied up put you into a particular mood? (Do you feel helpless, silly, excited, sleepy, etc?)

Do you like to be tied up in a way that challenges you?

Do you like to be tied up in a way that comforts you?

Are there shapes/ties that feel particularly good to your body? That feel particularly bad to your body?

***

I could go on and on.

Of course, the questions I just wrote are from a bottom’s perspective. I have much less experience topping, but I do have a little. Here are some top-perspective questions I can think of, even with that limited background, that reveal similar shades in what’s interesting to different people:

Do you like to tie people up as an end in itself?

Do you like to tie people up as a means to some other end?

Do you like to tie up someone who is very obedient about it?

Do you enjoy a battle of wills with the person you’re tying up?

Do you focus on creating particular designs with your rope?

Do you enjoy when the person you’re tying up reacts in particular ways?

Do you like to institute protocol around tying someone up?

Does tying someone up put you in a particular mood? (Do you feel powerful, nervous, serious, giggly, etc?)

***

I’m sure people could add to either set of questions.

The point I’m making is that even if people’s interests sound similar on the surface (i.e. “We both like to be tied up!”), there can be a lot of difference in what that means to them, or what they like about those activities.

In the kink community, it took me years before I could articulate that, and before I learned to ask questions like what I listed above and have discussions around them. (Otherwise, it’s possible to end up in situations when you’re wondering when the hell the sexy part is going to start as a top painstakingly ties decorative rope all over your body, while for them the experience is about giving you a gift and crafting a lovely piece for you to wear… Or thousands of other mismatched situations.)

As a writer, I think this incredible multiplicity is really good news. One of the main things I took away from the Many Note Challenge was that I could probably have kept going for weeks, writing dozens of vastly different vignettes around the same simple box tie. Even of the six I wrote, two grabbed me enough that they made me want to expand them into larger stories.

If I introduced just a shade more variation—say, putting three characters there instead of two—I could write dozens more. There’s so much to explore.

And every time we, as writers, get into subtleties about who the people we’re writing about are and why they’re engaging in these particular acts, we’re creating more ways that people can possibly identify with our work. One of my favorite things as an erotica reader is finding a description of a mood I’ve felt but never quite articulated, or of a mood I’d like to try to feel.

So, here’s to many notes!

The Most Dangerous Pet

More catching up on news.

I've got a story, "The Most Dangerous Pet," coming out in First Bite, an anthology from Ravenous of vampire first times. Due to the vagaries of publishing, this is actually one of the first erotic stories I wrote. I remember that I wanted to subvert the common vampire tropes, and so I made the vampire the submissive. He's a dangerous pet for his domme, no lie, but she outclasses him through martial arts and expert application of rope.

Reading over the story again, there's an undercurrent of anger that I really like—it feeds the eroticism, but it's born of resistance to common ideas about who's sexy, who's on top, who's valuable, all of that. I've been thinking lately that I like when that emotion appears in my erotica, and it's nice to see that it was present even at the beginning.

Best Bondage Erotica 2013 Is Out!

This week, I got my contributor's copies of Best Bondage Erotica 2013, which is now available. It includes my story, "This Is Me Holding You."

Here's an excerpt:

"I made this for you while you were gone this last time," Jun said. "Sometimes, I missed you so much I had to clear my head. I'd take Kendra to my parents' house and then go for long hikes. I'd walk and wish I could have tied you up and never let you go. I started gathering milkweed and bringing it home."

He slipped his index finger through the bracelet and tugged. "I cleaned it. I tenderized it. I twisted it into this rope." He pulled hard enough to make the rope bite her skin. "You're mine," he said, his tone much fiercer than his still-stroking hands. He circled her ankle with his fingers, mirroring the sensation of the rope. "I'm binding you to me. Do you feel how I'm holding you?"

Carin nodded.

Jun relaxed his encircling fingers, but yanked the delicate rope once more, making his point. "Do you feel how I'm still holding you?"

"Yes."

"That rope is just a little grip, like me holding your hand. But you never have to be without it." He slid up the bed and wrapped his arms around her torso again. "Now this is a big hug. This is me holding you."

Soon, his hands slipped into her clothes, loosening, unfastening, groping. The familiar sexual rhythm lightened the moment for Carin. "Just holding, huh?" She raised an eyebrow.

Jun smiled and kissed her on the tip of her nose. "OK, maybe this is me holding you and then copping a feel, undressing you, and trying to get into your pants."

"Oh. Makes sense." She spread her legs, grinning when he reached between her thighs.

"So long as we're being accurate."

Jun patted her cunt and peeled off her clothes. Carin closed her eyes and melted into his hands. The touch of his flesh soon became the kiss of more rope, the transition seamless, effortless, lovely. The new length of rope, thicker than before, lay so warm and soft against her skin that it seemed to live and breathe. "I made this one, too," Jun said. "This is me holding you."

The rope buzzed lightly against itself as he wound it around her torso, the vibrations passing into her body even as the strands pinned Carin's arms to her sides. Jun kissed her cheek, then caressed the side of her neck with a loop of soft material. "These are my fingers."

He bound her loosely, but the knowledge of what he'd put into the rope made its restraint seem more complete and secure than anything she'd felt before. Jun wove his fingers through the coil of rope around her torso. "They can send you to Afghanistan, or they can send you to Mars. I don't care which. I'll be holding you there."

A couple of the early reviews have mentioned this story along with "Steadfast," another military-themed story in the anthology.

You can pick up the full anthology here.

Beginnerʻs Luck

Iʻm pleased to announce that my femdom bondage story, "Beginnerʻs Luck," will appear in the Bound and Bonded collection forthcoming from Mischief Books. This publisher has one of the most beautiful websites Iʻve seen, and I highly recommend you spend some time clicking around.

"Beginnerʻs Luck" is a story about a woman out to take control of her sex life. Rachel has always been a rope bottom, but the delicious Jeremy tempts her to make a special exception and try acting as a top. Once she starts, Rachel canʻt stop -- she displays Jeremy in an effort to catch the attention of a statuesque blonde across the room.

Bound and Bonded isnʻt out yet, but if you canʻt wait, I highly recommend you check out the other collections Mischief has published. You can browse them here. As a tip for U.S. readers, U.S. editions of Mischief Books can be had from Kobo, and you can read them using Adobe Digital Editions, which is free to download.