For Self-Tyers - self bondage basics

The idea that there is a “right way” to do or experience rope is bullshit. Self-tying bucks common thinking about bondage in many ways, and self-bondage practitioners face a number of unique challenges. Some of these challenges are intrinsic in a practical sense (difficulty reaching behind your back to tie knots, for instance), some stem from self-bondage still being a niche activity, and some are a mix of the two.

Self-bondage is very much an emerging practice, but it's been amazing to watch it expand over the past few years. I've been producing events in San Francisco since 2005, and in my first five years of hosting I saw all of two people engaged in self-bondage at my events. At my most recent party, I saw five different people self-suspend! I'm seeing smaller-scale increases in self-bondage as I travel around the country to different kink conferences as well - its fabulous to see this practice spreading and becoming more accepted in the kink community!

For many people, self-tying is like rope masturbation. As with masturbation, some people do it because they don’t have a partner (or their partner is not available). This is a common approach, but it’s important not to conceive of self-tying only as a thing people do when there’s no one around to tie them. Many of us prefer to self-tie, even when there is the option of partnered tying - just as you might sometimes (or always) prefer masturbation to partnered sex.

Some of the reasons to self-tie include:

• Freedom to set your own pace, explore, and satisfy yourself without feeling the need to please and perform for a partner
• Desiring a very specific type of rope experience
• Wanting a physical challenge or a “rope workout”
• Fitting a "rope fix” into a short window of time
• Practicing ties (rope science or “lab time”)
• Learning about rope bottoming
• Challenging yourself or simply adding more variety to the way you experience rope
• Wanting to experience both topping and bottoming

“Self-bondage takes my anxiety, anger, or sadness and dissolves every single feeling till it's only pain and focus on the knots"

Let It Flow

My experience of self-bondage is often about getting into a fow state. Te idea of fow originates with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, one of the pioneers of the scientific study of happiness. He defines flow as “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it...for the sheer sake of doing it.”

When I’m being tied by someone else, I often have a hard time letting go of my brain chatter and worries: Is my top thinking that the hip harness makes my legs and butt look funny? Are they enjoying tying me? How are they securing that line? It just keeps going and going.

Its even worse when I’m tying someone else: Are they enjoying this? What’s the risk of me giving them nerve damage in this tie? Wait, did they say they did or did not like rope dragging across their nipples??? Self-bondage removes all those questions and worries, and allows me to be fully present in the moment, mind and body working harmoniously.

I’m an exhibitionist and often self-suspend at dungeon events. I love having a crowd watching me, yet I’m hardly aware they’re there. I become completely focused on my body and the rope, moving and flowing with the knots and my limbs. I feel the energy of people watching me, and it feeds into what I’m doing, but it’s also not for them, as I’m totally absorbed in bondage, flying, and sensation.

It often takes time to build up a tolerance to the intense sensations and emotions, including fear, that can be associated with being tied up. As you gain experience, your body learns that you felt all the things and not only survived but actually had fun!

While certainly there are real dangers of bondage, learning to distinguish warning signs of damage from sensations that are intense but not harmful is an essential and crucial rope bottoming skill. For me, selfbondage has been an invaluable tool to learn to make these distinctions, build up my endurance, and feel more confident and calm both with tying myself and being tied by others.

My favorite quote on this subject comes from NASA: “It is a defining characteristic of human sensory and motor systems that they habituate with repeated use." I find it is much easier to habituate with selfbondage, because I’m completely in charge of the experience and have total control of when it stops and how far it goes. I he skills I build in this way not only enhance my self-suspension, they also transfer to partnered bondage.

“I find that the motivations behind self-bondage and self-suspension are the complete opposite. In self-suspension there’s pride in one’s achievement. In self-bondage I find there?s the desire to feel ashamed, to be degraded (if only by oneself).”

On the Floor vs. in the Air

It’s fashionable these days to decry the “race to get in the air” and encourage people to spend a lot of time doing foorwork before moving on to suspension. While I see the wisdom there, I also think the ways we measure “experience” are pretty random. If I’ve been tying up my partner once a month for five years, do I have more experience than someone who dove into the rope community six months ago and has been tying eight hours a week since then? I’ve seen people with experience in other types of aerial or rope practices (professional theater rigging, trapeze, silks, even sailing) progress very quickly into suspension. We don’t all start from the same place, and it's ridiculous to proclaim that we should all follow the same path.

It's also quite fashionable to extoll the virtues of floorwork in general, with some declaring it more connective than suspension. While I don’t think suspension should be exalted as the ultimate pinnacle of advanced bondage, neither do I think that floorwork is automatically more authentic in some way. Suspension and floor-work are quite different activities and may interest different people, at different times, with different partners - and that is totally OK!

I find the foor/suspension divide is especially apparent in self-bondage. People who are primarily interested in self-suspension (as I am) are often quite a diferent lot from those focused on self-tying on the ground, which often involves rather extreme immobilization and a humiliation angle. It's been my experience that self-tying on the ground tends to be more explicitly sexual (frequently involving genital bondage or stimulation, or done as part of masturbation), while self-suspension is often more like training or performing on a trapeze, with little to no direct sexual stimulation involved.

This isn’t to say suspension types never do floor-work. We do, whether just to practice a new futo-momo or as an enjoyable stand-alone activity. But to think of it as a clean progression from floorwork to partial suspension to full suspension is a misconception, even more so to think people should progress through these types in certain periods of time, and this is especially true for self-suspension. While my own perspective is much more focused on selfsuspension than on tying on the floor, floorwork-focused self-tying is very popular in its own right, and many self-tyers explore both!

Challenges and Helpful Ideas

Now that we’ve covered some background, motivations, and misconceptions, let’s dive into some specifc challenges of self-bondage and ways to address them.

Learning the Ropes

Self-bondage has a relatively high bar for entry, combining the requirements of bottoming (body awareness, health, etc.) with the requirements of topping (technical knowledge, possessing the physical supplies, etc.). It demands an extremely high degree of knowledge about your own body and physical limits.

Self-tying is still not widely or publicly practiced, so learning the how-tos is often the first challenge people face. When I started experimenting with selfsuspension, I didn’t know a single person in my area I could look to as a mentor, and there were zero classes offered...and I live in San Francisco! I’d only seen a handful of people self-suspend, none of whom were located anywhere near me. I couldn’t even find videos on the topic (I’ve since made a few myself, and these days there are some others out there, but there are still surprisingly few online resources for selfbondage). I ended up taking what I knew from years of experience with partnered bondage and applying it to self-tying. This is reasonable but hardly optimal, as the experience doesn’t translate 100 percent.

Since many of us who do self-bondage are basically self-taught, we tend to struggle a lot with imposter syndrome ("a feeling of phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite evidence of high achievement.” ) - this makes it extra challenging to find someone willing to teach self-bondage. I still struggle with this when I teach suspension in general, and self-suspension particularly.

Self-tying is a very creative form of bondage. While I’d encourage you to find a mentor and take classes if you can, sometimes its simply not possible. There is a lot to be said for the combined wisdom of the community; however, there is also much to be said for being creative and independently coming up with what works for you. Use established bondage safety wisdom and skills to keep yourself from being harmed, but remember that particular ties are not the “twue” way. People created them...and you can also create your own ties! Self-bondage is an amazing opportunity to workshop and experiment with new and innovative ideas.

Abbystract in self-bondage. Photo by Liam Carleton Photography

While I’ve played around with some extremely intricate rigs over the years, self-suspension doesn’t have to be complicated. A pretty common method is to tie a suspension-worthy single column around the waist (tying on top of a high-quality corset makes it significantly more comfortable) and simply suspend from that, or from that and two additional loops that can be swapped between different limbs (this is sometimes called an open-loop suspension). It only needs to be complicated if you like it that way!

Important!

With self-suspension, it’s crucial to start getting down before you are overtired—you must have enough body awareness to save some mental and physical reserves to safely get to the ground. When undoing a suspension, generally it gets worse before it gets better; you will usually make the suspension more strenuous just at the point when you’re almost done, because undoing lines to come down will make the suspension more intense.

Many areas don’t have regular self-bondage classes (as we discussed), or a lot of established mentors. In my home community, I’ve collaborated with other local self-suspenders to build a number of skill-share events, munches, and similar types of gatherings. It has worked out amazingly well - we’ve built a fantastic little community, and the number of self-suspend-ers at events has increased exponentially as a result.

You’re almost certainly not the only person in your area interested in self-tying or self-suspension. I here are even several self-bondage groups on FetLife (type “self-bondage” in the search box at the top). If a local self-tying community doesn’t already exist (and odds are it doesn’t), create a FetLife group called “Self-Bondage in [Place You Live]” and post about it in some of the local bondage groups, and/or experiment with a meet-up at a local event or a munch. You could also host a mini takeover of an established rope event, skill share, or munch (as long as its leaders are onboard, of course).

Don’t worry if your local self-tying community starts out small. Know that it just takes someone to make the first steps, and that person can be you—even if you’re just a curious beginner. Building a community takes time. Have awareness of your own internalized imposter syndrome and realize what you have to share and offer.

Finding a Spotter

“Always use a spotter! I have had to use my spotter many times to get me of the ring, especially when I didn’t have upline management skills.” —OnionSkin

“Te proper answer is, ‘Yes, I always have a spotter.’ Te truth is less cut and dried. Sometimes I judge my risks of the tie I am going to practice and proceed on my own. Other times I do the smart thing and wait.” —MaraJade

“I’ve never had a spotter. I have a lot of body awareness and previous experience with aerial apparatus, so safety is something that I’ve always taken upon myself to feel out.” —Anna

“Once I began doing transitions, I started to keep two people with me at all times. I broke those rules a few times…and then I had my only truly bad experience, and since then I have never self-tied alone.” —Twitch-the-switch

I will defnitely go on record recommending that you never self-suspend alone. In terms of self-tying, risk isn’t “all or nothing” but rather exists on a gradient, within which you must use your own judgments and make decisions according to your own risk tolerance. Probably most of us have practiced single-column ties on our ankles alone in our living room, and it’s hard to think of what could go wrong in that scenario. However, being bound more intensely and alone (either self-tying or being left alone by a top) is highly dangerous, as fatalities can attest to.

Anytime you’re attaching yourself to a hard point, I’d strongly recommend having a spotter. I his also applies for ties that carry the possibility of asphyxia (when the body is deprived of oxygen), including positional asphyxia (where pressure on the chest impairs breathing, for example in a hogtie) and neck rope. Practicing self-tying a futomomo or a basic chest harness you probably can safely do alone; practicing a new facedown to face-up suspension transition, not so much.

It's important for me to have a spotter even when I’m suspending with lots of people watching, because I have zero awareness of what's going on around me. If someone comes into my space when I'm spinning and moving, I won’t even notice and they'll probably catch a foot (or high heel) to the head. My spotters need to both keep people out of my space and also be extremely careful how they approach me themselves.

Given that many people get into self-bondage because they don’t have a partner to tie them, how can you find a spotter? Some ways are:

• Finding a friend who also self-ties, and taking turns spotting each other
• Finding someone who’s interested in learning self-bondage and exchanging mentoring for spotting
• Recruiting housemates
• Practicing at a peer rope workshop or similar gathering where others are available and willing to help if needed
• Asking people assigned to monitor safety at parties and events, often called dungeon monitors (DMs) or plavspace monitors. Responses will vary based on the knowledge, comfort level, and duties of the individual DMs, but it's worth making the inquiry!

One of the things to keep in mind is that it's not enough to have a pair of eyes and ears—those eyes and ears needs to be attached to a person who can recognize an emergency and know what to do. What if you pass out? What if you fall? Do they know where your safety scissors or rescue hook is, and how to use it? Do they know what procedure to follow in an emergency? There are entire classes offered on this subject—take one if you can, and if you have a regular spotter, encourage them to go as well. At least talk through some possible scenarios, and make sure your spotter actually knows how to provide assistance.

It’s also crucial to discuss with your spotter how they can best help facilitate your solo scene. Some self-tyers like their spotter to provide anticipatory service, such as moving objects out of the way, offering water, helping pick up that piece of rope that’s just out of reach, etc. For others, that sort of “help” completely disrupts their scene, and they want to be left totally alone unless they ask for assistance or clearly have an emergency.

Do you want your spotter to watch you intently, because that’s what makes you feel safe? Or does someone staring at you seem too intrusive and you’d rather they were there, listening and nearby, but mostly focused on something else? Consider what will make your solo scenes fly, and don’t expect your spotter to be a mind reader - clearly communicate what you need from them.

As many self-tyers see spotting as a service someone provides them, it's common for people to give back to their spotters in various ways. This can be as simple as taking turns spotting each other, offering them a massage afterwards, or plying them with baked goods. Consider how to provide an exchange that energetically feeds everyone involved, and you'll get to do happy (and safe) self-bondage with spotters who will be delighted to come back and spot for you again!

Scenus Interruptus

“I’ve gotten interrupted by ignorant bystanders, as well as asked why I would want to tie myself when there are riggers around who want to tie me.” —Kel Bowie

"One problem with doing self-bondage is all the domly doms trying to ‘help.’" —volpetta

“A big challenge has been getting my space to be respected as a scene. I have a headspace as much as any D/s [Dominant/submissive] pair do, and being interrupted with ‘Do you need help?’ from people breaks that headspace.” —Azura Rose

Being interrupted while doing self-bondage at a venue or an event where others are present is a common issue. This can take many different forms— clueless observers getting too close, other riggers stepping in to be “helpful” concerned dungeon monitors (DMs) who are unfamiliar with self-bondage asking questions, or even sexual harassment from bystanders. Having a visible spotter helps head off these types of interruptions, and often a spotter can stop someone before they disturb your space.

When you are doing self-bondage in a venue that has DMs, I’d highly recommend talking with them before you start setting up. They may be able to facilitate your scene (advising on best location, sharing any special rules or guidelines you’ll need to follow, etc.). It’s extremely helpful to tell the DM who your spotter is, or whether you’re expecting anyone to enter into your self-bondage scene.

Different venues will have very different guidelines, and many DMs are not very knowledgeable about bondage in general (let alone self-bondage), so taking the initiative and checking in is something I highly recommend.

Injuries

“I’ve given myself sensory nerve damage. I’ve accidentally bruised myself and given myself rope burn. I’ve overstretched muscles, and I think overworked some and underworked others.” —Kel Bowie

“I have never had an injury from self-bondage. I tend to put myself into very comfortable ties, and because I am doing it to myself, I know exactly where I’m putting the ropes, how long I plan to stay up, how much tension I want on a rope, etc.” —adrenaline_lust

“I’ve had small injuries. Slight nerve compression causing numbness in a fnger for a couple weeks. Pulled a muscle hauling my weight up too quickly once.” —Anna

The risk of getting injured in rope isn’t unique to self-tyers, of course. But the risks involved in self-tying are a bit diferent than for partnered tying.

Getting on Your Nerves

Nerve damage is a major concern in the bondage community. Te interplay of five basic factors determines whether a bondage nerve injury happens and how severe it is:

1. Individual differences in nerve vulnerability
2. Anatomical location (where on the body you are tying)
3. Duration of compression
4. Severity of compression
5. Stretch, stress positioning

It is certainly possible to get a nerve injury from floor-work. However, due to the increased loads involved, suspension is generally higher risk than tying on the ground. The risk of nerve damage in self-suspension (as opposed to partnered suspension) is relatively low, as it tends to be dynamic (involving moving around a lot, rather than staying in one position and putting pressure on any given nerve for an extended period of time) and commonly utilizes lower-risk ties (hip harness vs. TK) with shorter duration. However, your body awareness may be altered as you take on both the top and bottom role, and you may get stuck in a position for longer than intended or strain yourself trying to self-rescue.

Its important to be aware of different kinds of nerve pain - numbness, burning, a sharp or cold feeling, tingling—and do frequent self-checks. Be sure you always have a reliable, safe cutting implement (such as a safety shears) within reach, and know when and how to safely use it.

I have given myself a nerve injury doing self-suspension - I damaged the iliohypogastric nerve, which is vulnerable below the iliac crest. I’d never even heard of the iliohypogastric nerve until I damaged it! As self-tyers do some unique bondage, we may also face some unique risks. Its important to broaden your sense of risk awareness beyond simply checking your arm for radial nerve damage or outer thigh for numbness.

Dropping Yourself

“I recently had a near miss...I just managed to catch myself from falling. It would only have been less than a foot, but would’ve caused some sort of damage.” —Angel666Sub

I had a homemade hoist rigged up that overheated. While trying to get loose (I was about 70 percent into an upside-down self-suspension), I fell backwards and almost broke my elbow when I hit the ground.” —David

“An upline attached to a chest harness slipped from my hands and I was inverted very quickly by accident once. It scared the crap out of me, and I’m grateful my hip harness was solid and that the upline was safely attached!” —Sarahblueberry

One of the frst self-suspensions I ever saw was a performance at a major rope event in which the performer dropped themself while attempting a tricky transition. Tere were mats underneath, and they recovered quickly and with no signifcant injury (aside, perhaps, from a bruised ego).

Drops from suspension are relatively rare but can have devastating results. Some precautions you can take to decrease the odds of a dangerous self-drop:

• When you’re learning (or experimenting with something new), hang your hardpoint very low—being an inch off the ground totally counts as a suspension!
• Think about what your critical line is (the line that’s keeping your head from hitting the ground) and don’t adjust or remove one critical line before completely-securing another. For example, securely tie off a chest harness, then raise and securely tie off the hips, then disconnect the chest for an inversion...and securely tie off the chest again before lowering the hips. Adjusting critical lines on the fly is a more advanced and risky move, so work your way up to it.
• Use rated rope for your uplines and properly rated hardware.
• Assess your hardpoint and use your own judgment regarding its safety.
• Use a crash pad, or at least a mat. I have a crash pad of the type that climbers use for bouldering. It was a bit expensive, but I dropped myself onto it once (when I miscalculated my height for a gravity boot-based transition) and can assure you that the investment was totally worthwhile.

Selfess Self-Tying

“I like to experiment and try things out on myself that I then later try on other people when I tie them. Self-tying provides an opportunity to take risks that I may not feel comfortable doing on someone else.” —SpecialLibrarian

“I learned more in my frst self-suspension than I did in half a dozen previous times suspending my partner.” —Pendorbound

“I find self-tying and self-suspending give me an insight into what the person being tied is feeling and experiencing, which I hope will make me a better rigger.” —Angel666Sub

Difculty with finding instruction and mentoring aside, self-bondage is an amazing way to learn how to tie, and I would love to see more people using it as a learning tool. For many other types of BDSM play, we encourage people to start on the bottom, or at least experience play from the bottoms perspective as part of the learning process. While I don’t think this is necessary in every case, I do think it’s extremely helpful to have the feedback and experience of being in rope.

I also admit to getting a bit judgev when I watch certain rope practices - I'll think to myself, if more riggers had been in rope ever, they wouldn’t tie the way they do. An experienced bottom with good body-awareness and the ability to give clear feedback is invaluable for a beginning rigger, but no bottom can give you the instant, unambiguous input that you get from experiencing your ties with your body.

Many of the people I’ve talked to about self-tying mentioned that they self-tie partly so they can practice or experiment without worrying about injuring someone else. An extremely common theme was: “I’d much rather risk an error when my own body is on the line than take a chance with someone else’s.” I his is also one of my personal motivators for self-suspending.

At the same time, don’t make the mistake of thinking that your subjective experiences with your own body-in rope will translate perfectly when you transition from tying yourself to tying other people. I have found that it's challenging for me when I've been exclusively self-tying for months to remember that another persons experience of my bondage may be completely diferent from the way I experience the same ties. Your own body will even react diferently at diferent times!

Additionally, the motor skills involved in self-tying differ from those involved in partnered bondage (it’s a bit like trying to write with your nondominant hand), so expect to feel awkward or have an adjustment period as you move between the two.

Your Rope Kit

As the joke goes in the rope community, there are two lengths of rope—too long and too short. One advantage of self-tying is that if there is a specific tie you do often, you can have a custom length of rope just for that tie on your body.

Regarding the type of rope you use for floor-work or harnesses against your body, the choice mostly comes down to personal preference—whether you prefer the feel and properties of hemp, jute, nylon, or something else entirely. I use a mix of hemp and nylon— nylon when I anticipate that I’ll be moving around a lot and I want to minimize chafing (such as a hip harness in a marionette rig) or maximize comfort (such as with a gravity boot), and hemp when I need to hold frictions and have my rope stay in place completely solidly (such as with futomomos).

Many types of self-suspension involve dynamic, high-friction applications that can impose shock loads. For this reason, I strongly recommend using rated rope for self-suspension uplines. I primarily use 6-millimeter POSH, which is a type of spun polyester that has a breaking strength of 1,200 pounds. Reinforced jute is also becoming more common. For static uplines I won’t be adjusting (pulling myself up, etc.) or particularly high-friction rigs like mobile suspensions, I use 1/8-inch AmSteel, which is a synthetic rope often used for sailing that has a breaking strength of 2,300 pounds.

Tying It Up

“I consider self-tying and self suspension to be my favorite form of self-love. I am giving myself something I truly love.” —Sarahblueberry

“Rope helped me to love myself. To look at the beautiful women suspended in pictures with appreciation, not shame or envy. Kink is about finding what works for you, not becoming what you think you should be.” —Phyllis

“Self-tying is about reclaiming my body and space. I’m a disabled woman, so most of my life I’m given the message that my body is not mine to enjoy. Self-tying allows me to be in complete embodiment of myself, and to feel my body working with me.... It’s my art, my meditation, and my self-care.” —Azura Rose

Self-bondage has motivated me to become a better version of myself. It has become the reason to take care of my body, the means to quiet my mind, a healthy outlet for my exhibitionism, and a constantly shifting challenge. Self-tying can be an amazing way to explore movement through rope, get into a flow state, enhance your mind-bodv connection, build skills as a rope top and rope bottom...or just a fun way to spend a quiet afternoon! Stay safe, enjoy your explorations, and savor this unique rope experience.