Photo by Flickr user perldude. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Monk of ...and the strangest things seem, suddenly routine tells a story by way of answering why he likes rope bondage.

Few years back I was selling rope at a convention and got into this very conversation with three well known and well regarded rope tops.

When asked, the first paused and stroked his chin contemplatively and said, “It would have to be the artistry of it all, the lines and how they form across the body. The symmetry of the rope and how it forms the bottom into a compelling shape…”

The next one shook his head and disagreed, “That is all well and good, but for me it is the engineering of it. The “how” of doing bondage, what knots are going to be the strongest and most useful, how am I going to execute the bondage in the most efficient and streamlined fashion… that is what I really like”

Turning to the third and final rigger, he sorta shrugged and in a matter of fact voice said, “I do it cuz trying up pretty girls makes my dick hard. Always has.”

Read the quote in context here.

It’s not for me to judge an activity that doesn’t really float my boat to begin with but, y’know, if it were me I’m pretty sure that if I wanted to be the bottom in an activity called erotic bondage I’d… probably go with the top who had concrete rather than abstract reasons for wanting to tie me up. Or, more accurately, who was comfortable admitting, to himself or others, that that’s why he enjoyed doing it.

Because, y’know, the symmetrically aesthetic guy kind of glosses over what those “compelling shapes” might compel him to. And the efficiency/engineering guy makes it sound like he’d be even happier building suspension bridges since there are more knots.

Whatever else one might say about the last guy at least he’s able to acknowledge that he gets erotic gratification from doing something that’s, well, supposed to be erotic! With, presumably and one hopes equally, erotically gratified persons no less!

You see that same sort of alienation in photography when people talk about the esthetics of light and shadow with “the nude.” And yeah, light, shadow, and nudity really are esthetically very pleasing. But… but…

If you’re unable to disambiguate the individuality and agency light and shadows from “the nude” one is surveying then one might have more integrity instead “capturing” light and shadows on cars or pumpkins.

And yes, this is me being a prudish libertine again. I think it’s all great, I just also think it’s important to keep in mind that it’s all great with the people you’re with! Or you should probably stick with the intricacies of photographing sand dunes or suspending Chihuly glass. :-)

Richard of Down on My Knees has restored my sense of place in the panoply of BDSM-ery with a reflection on a post by Eileen of A Place To Draw Blood Laughing on what she calls being a “service top” or, as she calls it, a reaction top.

“Service top” is one of those bugaboo phrases. Probably invented by some online wanker in order to disparage someone one disagreed with him. Another weapon for that fatuous army of people who tell others they aren’t ‘real.’

While some dominants fear they lack in compassion others fret they’ve failed to pass Fascist Behavior 101. Relationships worth sustaining are beyond slogans.

Look. If I’m a service top … It doesn’t mean I’ll let you control the scene.

But it does mean that if I like you, I might make some of your fantasies come true. It does mean I want to know your buttons, and I want to push them again, and again, and again.

Richard said it here.

“Some online wanker” sounds about right. I’ve played BDSM-ish games with partners who wanted me to be the bottom because I’m endlessly fascinated with, and extraordinarily turned on by, that which gets a partner’s motor running. Oh yeah, and also because I think it’s fair and, finally, because I think it’s healthier. But! Given my druthers I’m just so much more inclined to be dominant but dominant for the same reason — I get extraordinarily turned on by getting a partner’s motor running and there are just way, way more creative opportunities — for me anyway — to explore that when I’m on top. But I was told that that made me a mere service top and not a real top at all.

For instance, as I understood it, a “real” top wants to dominate any partner and not just those who’s pulse quickens just talking about it. And at least since puberty I’ve never had much interest in binding or otherwise topping anyone who wasn’t interested.

I know I shouldn’t feel like I need outside validation for something that given me and a handful of submissive and/or switchy partners some very good times… but it is nice to hear it from Richard and Eileen. And now that I’m feeling better about it… hmm… who’s interested? :-)

Update: When I asked “who’s interested” I just meant who thinks it’s interesting, not who wants to arrange a play date. (He said, blushing.)

Holly of The Pervocracy is on a bit of a tear, brilliant-insight post-wise this weekend.

Home Depot rope. Jon and I use Home Depot rope. Isn’t that horrible? It’s absolutely true that Twisted Monk rope is better; from what I hear it’s woven from the treasure trails of the gods themselves. But what bothers me is the idea that Monk rope is right and Home Depot is wrong. Not lower quality, not more limited in uses, not requiring more caution, but… incorrect.

Bullshit. I’m not going to write a whole paragraph elaborating on this because my opinion fits in five words: Nothing that works is wrong. You can put Heinz on filet mignon if that’s what tastes best to you.

...

By the way, one of the worst manifestations of the “gotta do it right!” attitude I’m thinking about here is the idea that what Jon and I do isn’t even BDSM. Because, honestly? It’s mostly just spanking, rough sex, and overhand knots. There’s no medical-grade electrical boxes or 10-gauge needles or ultra-realistic walrus dildos. And I always feel oddly inferior, almost like a poser, for calling something BDSM that doesn’t even draw blood half the time.

She says it here.

Actually the question of “right” and “wrong” in hobbies with established traditions is kind of interesting. On the one hand it’s absolutely true that “inside the tradition of high French cuisine ketchup on fillet mignon is wrong.” On the other hand it tastes pretty good.

When I was a young, recent refugee from Southern Appalachia, having been raised on live-on-radio-and-tv performances by Flatt & Scruggs, Porter Wagoner, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, Tennessee Earnie Ford, and too many other (unavoidable and, post Beatles, unavoidably boring) country/western, folk, and bluegrass musicians, I was always startled to meet young gentlemen from places like Long Island and Cambridge, MA who tartly informed me, when I played bluegrass on street corners and coffee houses that “Bill Monroe didn’t play it that way.” This was all true, of course, but then neither did I chew “Bull O’ The Woods” plug tobacco, Brylcream hair tonic, Foremost buttermilk, Bunny bread, nor any of the other products that sponsored those musicians. Nor did I wear my grandpa’s sock garters which, truth be told, would have been about as likely as me playing anything exactly the way Bill Monroe (my grandfather’s age) would have.

But then who would know the “right” way to play bluegrass, someone raised listening to KNOX and the Cas Walker Show or some musicologist from Brookline? To be honest the jury may still be out since I wasn’t a terribly accomplished musician, but I’ll be danged if I wasn’t authentic as Hell!

So nowadays whenever someone comes along and says something like “you’re doing bluegrass wrong,” or quilting, or, especially these days BDSM wrong I think about the most important movie ever made about technical hobbies — not quite a documentary but nevertheless surprisingly lifelike: Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom. It says everything you need to know.

This is in no way intended as a knock against the “bluegrass police” in their too-often green satin zip-up jackets, or the used-car-dealer or insurance-industry-actuaries without whom there really might be no traditions at all. Same with those who uphold the “faith” in BDSM circles. But! Neither should one approach those who would hold the reins of this tradition or that as ultimate authorities. Nor should one forget (as Mancur Olsen discusses in his academic work The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Second printing with new preface and appendix (Harvard Economic Studies)) that those who are most interested in maintaining traditions often have an awful lot to gain.

Anyway, I happen to agree with Holly and plenty of others that if you really want to restrain someone head-to-foot with both safety and style then yeah, Monk’s beautiful hemp rope is the bee’s knees. If you just want to bind your partner’s hands to the headboard so they can’t stop you from throwing you down and ravishing you till you’re good and ready then yeah, anything at hand will work just great. There is no “right” way to play Fox on the Run (trust me), there’s no “right” way to ballroom dance, there’s no “right” condiment for fillet mignon, and there’s certainly no way to make your partner moan or roar with delight. (Even though there are some very good teachers for all of those things.)