With all of the discussions around the #MeToo movement, our president’s disgusting misogyny, and now the Ford/Kavanaugh hearings, the topics of sexual violence and trauma are on many people’s minds. As a survivor of sexual assault as well as a dominatrix who makes her living off of consensual sexual violence, this has made life very complex and confusing as of late. Thankfully, I just finished writing my first book, The Ultimate Guide to Bondage, that delves into not only the “hows” but the “whys” of bondage, and that has given me a unique lens through which to view these current events. It is my impression that trauma is bondage.
The ways that trauma is stored not only in the psyche but also in the physical body make it very hard to process and escape. You just need to recall Dr. Ford’s haunting quote from the hearing to realize that this is true: “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.” Thirty-six years later, and she can still recall vivid memories from her assault. For many people it takes years to process their assault and abuse, if they’re able to at all.
Thankfully, I have been able to begin working through my own trauma using a variety of methods. In addition to traditional therapy, I have found that engaging in consensual bondage practices with partners that I trust has been healing for me, kind of a “hair of the dog that bit you” scenario. During my assault, I was restrained against my will. This was something that haunted me for a very long time. How was I able to write a book about something that had initially been so traumatizing for me? Engaging in bondage scenes with partners who I can trust has allowed me to revisit the emotions about what happened to me but change the outcome, so that I have positive associations with bondage rather than traumatic associations. In psychology, this process is called sublimation.
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In fact, I believe that a bondage scene has many similarities with some of the trauma-recovery approaches that I’ve experimented with. There’s a planning and boundary-setting stage, which in BDSM is the negotiation. Next comes exploration of the traumatic event and the accessing of repressed memories. In the Japanese rope bondage community there is a concept called “Urami” that speaks to the ability of restraint to access emotions and memories that are buried deep within and bring them to the surface. The final step of trauma recovery involves integrating what has been learned during the exploration of the trauma in a way that is constructive rather than destructive, and creating a plan to move forward. Sometimes, the aftercare portion of a bondage scene can look like this, although oftentimes it simply involves holding space or creating a comforting space for the bondage participant to process their emotions. Depending on how deep someone goes during a bondage experience processing can take anywhere from a minute to a few weeks, so bondage practitioners make check-ins a regular practice. It’s important to remember that most of us are not trained therapists and that there’s a big difference between re-living a trauma and re-visiting it in a controlled manner, so I would not recommend doing this without the consultation of a therapist or someone experienced with trauma recovery.
Bondage doesn’t always need to be about trauma though. The reason that restraint is so successful at accessing trauma is because of the vulnerability that it creates. I will never forget when a psychologist-client of mine finally had an epiphany about why his wife wanted him to tie her up. “All of this time I’ve been looking for the pathology behind her desires, but now I realize that she just wanted to be vulnerable with me, and in doing so establish trust and strengthen our bond!” It is no secret that vulnerability leads to trust and better-functioning teams. When you are vulnerable, it encourages those around you to be open about their questions, concerns, fears, desires, and so on. There is research that shows that people who practice BDSM are less neurotic, more extroverted, more open to new experiences, more conscientious, less rejection-sensitive, and have higher overall well-being than those who do not practice BDSM. Many of these outcomes are affected by the practice of and engagement in vulnerability.
Let me give you an example. As the Head Mistress of a Bed and Dungeon (like a B&B but kinkier), I have the privilege of helping couples from all over the globe explore bondage with each other. Recently, there was a woman who called and said that she wanted to surprise her boyfriend with an overnight stay for his birthday. She explained that he had hinted to her about his bondage interests a few times by showing her our website, and she knew that he was going to be ecstatic about the surprise. The problem was that she was petrified about what she was getting herself into. This is often the case when people call me, so I answered her questions and tried to put her at ease. She, like many other women, had been groped without her consent at a college party, and she wanted to make sure that nobody here would do that to her. I reassured her that there are strict boundaries here, explained our consent policy to her. I also reminded her, “Even if you get here, panic, and need to go to another hotel, you’ll have at least stepped one foot in the door, and that is a really big step.” That seemed to resonate with her.
A few weeks later, she bravely took the step through our front door, proudly holding her boyfriend’s hand and announcing to him where they were. “Are you serious? You’re kidding me. Baby… Are you for real? You did this for me?” he stumbled over his words, clearly touched by the gesture. I let them get settled in before giving them a dungeon tour and the bondage lesson that she had signed them up for. Once we were in the dungeon I let them ask me questions. We talked about the psychology behind bondage, why people are into it, and what they specifically were looking to get out of the experience that evening. She said that since being groped she could never shut her brain off, that she was always in a state of vigilance and self-preservation. He said that he had an interest in bondage since he was a child but that he was too nervous or worried that he was pressuring her into engaging in it with him, so he generally avoided the topic. “That’s why it’s so special that you brought me here,” he said to her, “and I just want to make sure that you have a good time. “After some more negotiation, she agreed to be the one who got tied up—another birthday surprise.
During negotiation, we all agreed to start at the shallow end of the pool and wait for her signal to swim deeper. We started the session with a lycra hood with eye and mouth holes, and then placed a blindfold on top of it. As soon as her eyes were obscured, she smiled and said, “The pressure feels good, it’s relaxing, so you can do more.” I taught him a simple decorative rope harness, and as he tied it he admired her body like a gift that he was wrapping for himself. He intuitively used the rope to connect with her intimately by wrapping his arms around her in an embrace every time he passed the ropes from front to back. At our next check-in, her feedback was that the constriction of the rope was slowing her breath like in yoga class, and that it was continuing to calm her down. He grinned like a Cheshire cat when she gave him the green light to continue. Finally, I showed them how to use bondage tape to restrain her limbs in different positions. During this activity she mentioned that she really liked the warmth and compression of the tape so I offered a slightly more intense sensation—mummification in plastic wrap—and she enthusiastically decided to go for it.
From a seated position, we wrapped her outstretched legs tightly in plastic wrap, then wrapped her torso with her arms crossed over her chest, embracing herself. He supported her as she tried to lie back while encased in the plastic cocoon, and expertly guided her head to a pillow like a trust fall. Because he created such a nurturing space, she was finally able to surrender and trust him with her body. With her head securely on the pillow, she squealed “This actually feels so good! It’s way less scary than I thought!”
“We should have known, it’s like that seaweed wrap spa treatment that you love. Let me be your personal spa attendant baby...” he laughed.
That was a good line. It showed that he paid attention to her self-care. He knew what she liked, and it was clear that she enjoyed the sensation of spa treatments. I arranged some sensation toys for them to try—scratchy, soft, hot, cold, all sorts of sensations for them to experiment with while she was wrapped in the cocoon. Sometime later, spanking sounds began emanating from the dungeon, building into a crescendo of moans and exclamations of love.
When they emerged from the dungeon, the couple was all smiles. “I can’t believe that bondage actually freed me from myself,” she said. “I have not been able to shut my brain off and enjoy sex like that since what happened to me.”
