First Bondage Experience

First Bondage Experience
Curious About Bondage? 9 Things You Need To Know Before You Go There
For starters, there's a major difference between being tied up and tied down.
1. Communicate, communicate, communicate.
2. Don't get too caught up in copying what you see in the movies.
3. Understand the difference between being tied up and tied down.
4. Only restrain one part at a time.
6. Then consider bondage tape or ribbon.
9. But be prepared for emergencies, just in case.
Zahra Barnes joined SELF in November 2015, working on the Culture and Health teams before eventually becoming Executive Editor. She has spent her career as a reporter and editor covering people's lives with a focus on wellness.
Zahra specializes in sexual, reproductive, and mental health, all with the goal of destigmatizing... Read more
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If you immediately think of Christian Grey's 50 Shades of Grey Red Room when you hear the word "bondage," there's some good news: it doesn't always have to be that intense! (But of course, it can be if you want it to.) Even if you find the idea of the B in BDSM (bondage, dominance and submission, sadomasochism) intriguing, you don't have to dive in headfirst. Instead, sex experts recommend dipping a toe into the bondage pool before you really give it your all. Here, one shares some insight into how to start exploring the world of bondage.
Embarking upon a new sexual adventure makes talking about what's going on more important than ever. "Let them know if you’re feeling uncomfortable, and ask how they’re doing periodically," Jess O'Reilly , Ph.D., Astroglide’s resident sexologist, tells SELF. It might also be a smart idea to come up with a safe word, which is a word or phrase either of you can say when you need a time out from the intensity.
Or in pornography, or any other staged bondage depictions you may come across. "They may be beautiful, but they represent expert bondage scenes performed under supervision, and the models may have only held that pose for a few seconds," says O'Reilly. Instead, take it slowly and don't think you have to experience pain or intense anxiety for it to qualify as bondage.
They may sound interchangeable, but they're two distinct things. Being tied up means having a body part restricted, like having your wrists tied together, says O'Reilly. On the other hand, you're tied down when you're attached to something else, like a chair. Very good to know the difference when you and your partner are talking about your sex fantasies !
While keeping an open mind during sex can definitely be a good thing, trying too many things at once is an easy way to become overwhelmed. That's why O'Reilly suggests experimenting by restraining only one part of your body at a time rather than going for the whole shebang. "You don't need to be tied down spread-eagle to enjoy the erotic appeal of bondage," says O'Reilly.
A huge box of materials isn't required to figure out whether you like bondage. O'Reilly suggests neckties, scarves, and stockings as a good starting point. Not only will you potentially save money if bondage isn't your thing, you'll also know your way around them much better than you would a new toy.
If you're more intrigued after using household supplies to hold each other down, think about making bondage tape or ribbon your first bondage-specific purchase. "Even though it comes in a roll like duct tape, it isn’t sticky. It sticks to itself with an electrostatic cling," says O'Reilly. Science! "You simply wrap it around—keeping it flat—and press it against itself to hold it in place," she says, explaining that it's particularly great because of its versatility. "You can use it to bind body parts together or strap your partner to furniture without causing damage, and you can even create a kinky outfit using tape over your chest, pelvic region, or legs."
Once you feel comfortable, you can graduate to more intense bondage toys like handcuffs. And if you're obsessed with the idea of being tied to your bed but lack the all-important headboard, there's hope for you yet! O'Reilly recommends buying an under-the-bed restraint system that connects to your mattress instead.
Using household items is especially good for this aspect. Since you know them more intimately than you do with brand-new toys, you can make sure you're both comfortable when you use them. "Leave a little space for your partner’s skin to breathe and to ensure adequate circulation," says O'Reilly. "If you’re tying your partner up near one of their joints, add a little extra space between the bonds and their skin." Good blood flow is important for sex, and just life in general. Check in with each other every few minutes to see if whoever's being restrained is feeling any tingling or numbness, as that can be a sure sign that the restraints are too tight.
Creativity is the name of the game when it comes to all kinds of sex, especially bondage. Although lying on your back while tied up might be the first position that comes to mind, there are so many others to try! Here are a few of O'Reilly's suggestions for starters: "Bend over a chair and have your wrists tied to its arms, stand against a wall with your hands restrained behind your back, get on all fours and have your ankles bound together, or lie on your side to spoon with your hands bound above your head," she says. That way you can figure out if you like pretty much any position for bondage, if you have a few favorites, or whether you're actually not into it in any scenario.
Although it probably won't happen, sometimes urgent situations arise at the least convenient times. "To ensure that you can always free your lover from bondage in the event of an emergency, keep a pair of safety-edged bandage scissors within arm's reach," says O'Reilly. Also known as EMT scissors because their bent design helps them cut through clothes with less risk to people than ones, you can find them at various drugstores . As a bonus, they often slice through heavy-duty materials like metal and plastic.
Are they good to have on hand? Absolutely. Will you need to use them? Only on the rarest of occasions. The more likely worst-case scenario is that you'll decide bondage isn't for you, in which case you're still learning about your sexuality—always a win. But on the bright side, you might discover a new thing that really turns you on, which is undeniably awesome.
SELF does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any information published on this website or by this brand is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, and you should not take any action before consulting with a healthcare professional.
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By
Jed Lipinski

Published March 22, 2010 1:01PM (EDT)

Related Topics ------------------------------------------
Coupling
Love And Sex
Sex
Tmi

A few years ago, I put my old queen-size mattress up for sale on Craigslist. The first to show at my Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment was an attractive brunette in her mid-20s named Darla. She asked if she could lie down on it, and I politely averted my eyes as she bounced and flopped around. "I'll take it," she said. As we squeezed the mattress down the stairwell, she explained that she was on a roller derby team, and that it had kindled in her a new sense of self-confidence and female solidarity. After we tied the mattress to the roof of her Subaru, we exchanged numbers.
We talked amiably over the phone a few times, but I never asked her out. Then one day, I came across an ad in the Village Voice for a workshop called "Erotic Bondage and Dirty Domination," given by the adult sex shop Toys in Babeland. I was not involved in the BDSM scene -- in fact, I'd never even considered bringing sex toys, far less weapons, into the bedroom. But I thought it would be a kind of anthropological adventure for Darla and me. It might speed up the expensive and psychically exhausting courtship ritual, and give us a shared experience to discuss. At the very least, it was more original than a bar or a club or a show. A friend of mine had just been to an S/M party, and returned swearing that everyone should try it. That night, I sent a text message to Darla, suggesting we attend.
I should point out that I had only recently discovered the ease of texting. Suddenly, a hand-held device allowed me to write something I didn't have the courage to say to someone over the phone, never mind in person, and then to sit back and wait, burning with anticipation, for a response. The city at night seemed aglow with the variety of encounters this made possible. In truth, I wasn't even sure I wanted to go to the class. I was half-joking. I was also, frankly, a bit drunk.
Minutes later, a text arrived: "Sounds fun!"
And so on a cold night in November, I pushed open the heavy glass doors of Toys in Babeland's SoHo shop. Darla appeared soon after, zipped into a sleeping bag-length down jacket.
"Well, here we are!" she said brightly, kissing me on the cheek.
Two employees greeted us -- an effete young man in tight pants and a Mohawk, and a voluptuous black-haired girl in a jungle-green velour jumpsuit. Their expressions were identical: endlessly sympathetic, wildly sexual. They handed us packets and pens, and we sat down in a row of folding chairs near the back.
Darla's green eyes glittered with a kind of teenage mischievousness. But I noticed the packet -- labeled "Bondage and Discipline" -- was shaking slightly in her hand, as if she was about to give a speech. I instantly felt guilty for inviting her here. There was no alcohol to relax the mood, and the room was full of harsh fluorescence, throwing spotlights on products like the Ophoria Finger Vibe and Penetration Station. Our classmates, with whom I avoided making eye contact, were milling about the vibrator displays.
"That's the one I have," Darla said, gesturing at the display table. "The blue one." The device was large and streamlined, with the kind of wrist cord attachment found on cameras and flashlights.
The girl in the green jumpsuit stepped to the front of the ad hoc classroom, and everyone sat down. She introduced herself as Rosalyn (her name, like the others in this essay, has been changed), and explained that everyone is capable of both domination and submission, that nobody is either/or. Her eyes were smoky and dark -- bedroom eyes. When she asked what we wanted to learn, a heavy silence fell over the group.
"Knots!" a girl shouted at last, and the class laughed in relief. The girl was wearing cork-size plugs in her earlobes and holding her girlfriend's hand. They smiled radiantly, completely at ease under the circumstances. I envied them.
"OK," Rosalyn said. "Knots. Check! Anything else?"
"All right, well. I hope you guys are ready, because this class is gonna be really fun!"
Darla pounced on the opportunity for irony. "Yes!" she whispered, squeezing my knee. I was uncomfortable being here -- far more uncomfortable than I'd predicted -- and the benign comment loosened me up to an almost psychotic degree. I laughed into my hand, worried I might giggle uncontrollably for the rest of the class, but the fit soon passed.
Rosalyn stepped back and Daniel, a shifty fellow in a baggy sheep's wool sweater and wingtips, took her place. "Hey, you guys! Welcome to Erotic Bondage and Dirty Domination!" he said, with considerable sass. Rosalyn had seemed a sensitive and reliable guide, but Daniel looked unsteady; he seemed to be in training for the job. Rather abruptly, he began reading from the packet we'd been given, looking up now and then to establish a rapport with the audience. "The masochist is someone who enjoys inflicting pain on others," he said, "whereas a sadist … a sadist enjoys being the recipient of pain."
"I think you got that backwards there," said a black man in sunglasses and a white Kangol hat near the front.
Daniel blushed and flipped the pages back and forth. He gave an exasperated "Ah!" before redefining the words correctly.
Just then, Rosalyn said, "I smell smoke. Is something burning?" As Daniel turned around, Rosalyn leapt at the table behind them, where a scented massage candle had lit one of the fanned sex-pamphlet displays. "Oh my God!" she shouted, laughing as she brought a hardback erotica book down on the table, smothering the flames.
Darla leaned in again and whispered, "Couple on first date dies in Babeland fire." An image came to me of our blackened corpses lying amid the molten remains of sex toys and flavored lubricants. I smiled. I sensed we were bonding over this strange lecture.
But the comfort was short-lived. Rosalyn began playing a DVD of "The Devil and Miss Jones," calling it "a classic BDSM film available for purchase after the workshop." On-screen, a large woman in a corset, wielding an Indiana Jones-style whip, lashed another woman shackled to a mahogany table across the buttocks. The shackled woman screamed with pleasure and pain.
I am not squeamish by nature, but I suddenly started to panic. My heart was thumping. Each breath demanded more air than the last. The reason people go to dark bars on dates, I remembered, is to avoid having massive panic attacks. It was like being 13 again, halfway through a first date to the movies, not enjoying myself so much as trying to survive one moment to the next.
Meanwhile, Rosalyn fast-forwarded to a new scene: This time the dom was male, sternly clothed in a tight white T-shirt and black slacks. Jenna Jameson, the famous porn star, hung by her hands from a deluxe home-fitness machine, wearing a pair of vinyl chaps and nipple clamps, her mouth held open by a vicious metal gag. The man lightly flogged Jenna's vagina in a figure-eight motion, then told her what he was going to do with the knotted, glass-blown dildo in his hand. Jenna managed an obstructed "Oh-ay." Accordingly, he slid the dildo gently inside her. Jenna coughed out the gag. "Sorry," she said. The man quietly accepted her apology in a don't-let-it-happen-again kind of way.
At that exact moment, the guy in front of me put his arm around the woman beside him. It was surprising to see, this act of casual tenderness in the face of what struck me as frightening sexual role play. By contrast, I'd been avoiding any physical contact with Darla, even the slightest grazing of her boot with mine, for fear of implying that I was into this, that she could expect such things from me. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught her glancing at me cautiously.
Later, a professional dominatrix named Sheila came out. Gothic and rail thin, she began tying Daniel to a chair with cold, automatic grace. "This is your basic Lahrer knot I'm making," she told us. Rosalyn distributed short lengths of rope so we could practice on one another.
This, I discovered with a stab of self-pity, was the last straw. Earlier, I'd feared being summoned to the front of the class to take part in some kinky demonstration. Instead, the rope came to us. The tangible reality of it overpowered any attempt on my part at humor or ironic detachment. Darla and I stared at one another helplessly, like a couple of lost children.
"Should I … tie you?" she said, blushing to her hairline.
"Sure, sure," I said, offering my wrists like a prisoner about to be handcuffed. Following the steps in the packet, she carefully lashed them together in a trembling approximation of the Lahrer technique.
Afterward, while our classmates stayed behind for what appeared to be the true goal of the workshop (buying Babeland merchandise), Darla and I walked quickly to the nearest, darkest bar, where we drank whiskey and beer until our self-consciousness all but disappeared. We chuckled at our recent selves as though they were different people, clueless and socially inept.
Had she really wanted to go to the workshop, I asked, or had she been pretending?
"No, no, I wanted to go!" Darla yelled over the music. "I mean, if only so I could talk about it with the girls from derby. One of them gave me an S/M handbook a while back, but I still haven't looked through it."
Had she felt at all queasy during the dungeon scene?
"A bit. I sort of wanted a safe word, you know? To shout if things got too weird?"
"Totally. You looked super into it."
"No, I'm joking. You seemed shy about it. Like me."
After the bar closed we went back to her apartment. She showed me her blue vibrator and the S/M handbook, as if they were evidence that we had indeed been at Babeland earlier, that it hadn't been a dream. I marveled at the complex contortions and decorative rope bondage (the Dragonfly Sleeve, the Japanese Pearl Harness) depicted in the book. The patterns were amazingly intricate. It must have taken generations to develop the techniques -- years of groping in the dark after some elusive form of sensual excitement. All those agonizing botched attempts before someone finally got it right and a surge of pleasure shot up their spine! The thought of it made me feel ashamed for trying to hasten my relationship with Darla to its sexual endpoint. How had I become so blind to the subtleties of dating? Much like erotic bondage and dirty domination, it was a craft one honed over time with the willing and adventurous participation of another. Looking for shortcuts was an exercise in pointlessness, maybe even pain.
I closed the book and walked to the window. It was then that I noticed her bed. Stuffed animals and a fluffy white comforter had disguised my old mattress beneath. I'd forgotten all about it.
"How have you been finding the mattress?" I asked.
"Oh, it's delightful," Darla said, rolling her eyes in mock ecstasy. "It provides excellent lower back support."
We lay down on the bed together and stared at the ceiling, where she'd stuck a small galaxy of glow-in-the-dark stars and planets. I told her I'd had a similar arrangement as a kid. Within minutes, we were both asleep.
Jed Lipinski is an editorial fellow at Salon.
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