Author: Laerien

 

This part will deal with the effect of what we usually see in the kinky communities 🙂 I have to admit I am heavily affected as well. 

 

Suspensions

 

“Suspensions are the “real thing”, that is THE rope experience” / ”Yeah, this is all nice, but when do we GET TO THE SUSPENSIONS?”

When I had my first chance to be tied up by a good rigger, I was asking for a suspension as well. I guess we have something driving us to fly 🙂 Or maybe it’s the influence of all the nice pictures. 

First of all, suspensions are even more risky and require more equipment and more skill from both parties. Secondly, you can endure a suspension for a lot shorter time than a semi-suspension or ground bondage.So don’t rush to suspend! 🙂 

 

“We will play in ropes for hours!”

Yes, if it’s on the ground. If you are an average person like me, you will rarely find a suspension position where you can last for 40-50 minutes. It is not impossible, but usually you will have a nerve compression issue a lot sooner than that, so you will need to change positions. To be honest, we rarely ever had the climax of our play in suspensions. Either never planned it like that, or simply had to get down sooner than reaching a climax (literally and figuratively as well :P) 

 

I will enjoy “flying in ropes”.

Actually this is halfway true. I did enjoy flying in ropes in suspensions, but it was also one of the biggest surprises. I was rushing to get suspended, but apart from mild BDSM of having wrists tied to a bed (and a “gote” on a party), I had no other experience with ropes. My first suspension shocked me as I never imagined that it actually hurts! I mean, obviously I believed that all the distorted positions hurt, but there surely must be easy and comfortable ones. Yes, you can make it almost comfortable with many wraps around the body, but it won’t be like laying in a hammock. It was digging into the skin, my weight was pressing on my chest a bit, so I realised I need to do some work to breathe normally. 

Obviously, there are HUGE differences between suspension positions and the way you can tie them, but they will all hurt to some extent.

 

“I just can’t wait for him to grab me, pull out a rope, and suspend me…”

Again this is something that can work with partners with a lot of experience together, but it is usually better to warm up for extreme positions. I love surprises, so the way we do it, is I just ask what body parts, which joints I should warm up (and sometimes I get the answer: everything), so I am prepared, but the session remains very exciting due to the unknown.

 

“OMG, that is just such a complex tie, I see ropes all over her body, and all the lines pulling everywhere, it must be so difficult to endure.” 

Yes, I admit, it was my newbie thinking. I don’t know why, but I did not realise that the more ropes you have around your body, the better it distributes the weight on those points. And it is even more true when it comes to suspension lines. Hanging from one line is usually extremely difficult. (Okay, a good hip harness might be a reasonably comfy exception 😛 ). Hanging from two lines is so much better. And according to my experience so far, at least 3 is the number where it usually gets as comfortable as suspensions can get. 

 

The perfect pictures of the internet

 

“That picture is amazing! It must have been wonderful.”

You have no way of knowing how long that person endured the position. It takes a second to snap a picture. When we look at such a static position as a rope suspension, we may imagine it stayed like that for a while. Well, even I had some experience with such difficult positions, that we could quickly snap a picture, and then we had to let me down. All I spent there was two times 40-50 seconds. 

 

“It is so majestic. Strong models, perfect knots!”

You see a beautiful picture on fetlife, a model with perfect skin, in a floating, ballerina position in the perfectly symmetric hug of ropes. These are usually a set-up pictures, where the goal was creating art, and they probably involved a photographer with lights, and some post processing as well. And when your partner snaps a picture of you during the scene, and you see it…. Rope cuts into your flesh, even discolors it. There are some loose rope ends hanging here and there. Some knots are just a tiny bit skewed. Your skin color is uneven, you have red head if you are hanging upside down, you don’t have the perfect body shape as those models… You should understand (I am still processing this as well) that many of those pictures you admire are professional works, and unless you take your pictures in similar professional environment, it won’t be the same. 

 

Learning to tie

 

“It is all about the knots…”

Nope, it is all about the tensions. I was always thinking that you need to learn which rope goes over the other, how is the knot formed, then you just add the knots and frictions to the appropriate places and ta-daaa: the beautiful harness is ready. You usually have no idea as a beginner how much more difficult it is to lay wraps on the body in a way that they have equal tension. To figure out how tight you can make one part of the harness so it does not get to tight when you keep adding the frictions. 

The first hip harness I tied on myself was a complete mess in the end. I had all the knots and frictions in the right places, but the rope around my waist was so tight it was killing me, and the one on my butt was so loose I could put my wrist underneath it. 

 

“Rope is an experience for my partner and me”

It never occured to me that self-tying (self-bondage) is a thing. I remember I was surprised when I first saw a person practice on himself. But then I realised how stupid I was, of course it is a thing, why shouldn’t it be? Especially since it is a lot easier to sense tensions on your own body. 

 

Everyone is unique in a way…

 

“The rigger will know his stuff. I will just accept the lead.”

Even if you get tied up by a very experienced rigger, who has tied many bunnies, he has not tied YOU. While there are generic truths, each person is a tiny bit different, and a caring top will look out for your feedback. 

 

“I want (you) to do this, and that, and that…”

We tend to forget that we are different is size, shape, body composition, endurance, nerves, skin thickness, etc. What works for someone, will not work for others. I, for one, cannot take hanging upside down if both my legs are up. Having all the blood in my head is something I can’t take. (And no, it is not just mental weakness, I had some tiny veins popping under the eye before, leaving me with small spots like freckles when the pressure was too much) For sure, I will try to gradually work on it, but it is possible it will never get better.

Another example: I recently found out that one of my nerves gets compressed when my elbow is bent to its maximum. There is literally nothing I can do with this, I have to accept that I will never endure such positions for a long time. 

Or similarly, while placing the rope at a certain point works for some, causes nerve issues for others. That is why I emphasized getting to know basic anatomy and your own body. 

Getting inspiration from others is great, and we should all keep experimenting! We just need to accept some positions are not for us. 

For me, this is the most difficult advice, after all, we all want to be great bunnies who can do it all!