The Grey Handkerchief - Why be tied?
by Sloyd
I wear a grey handkerchief in my left rear pants pocket. Often when I am out, a much younger man asks me what it represents. I reply with the listing in the hanky code: bondage and discipline master. He shudders, and moves away from me quickly. This essay is not for that man.
This essay is for the man who is interested, but unsure, certainly frightened of the experience, yet curious to explore. My hope is to educate the uninitiated to expect the best from a bondage scene. I have done bondage a long time, and while I am a top, I am also a master of the art. Rarely is the question asked, "Why be tied up?" Perhaps it is too primal, too obvious, too obscure, or simply inexpressible. The quick answer is "Why not?" but being tied up is not to be taken lightly. While each man needs to seek within for the personal answer, I will attempt to give some guidance for those who reply,"I don’t know." There is great mystery in the spirit of bondage, so many seeming contradictions that the existence of the act makes little rational sense. Why be tied? In that gentle restraint man finds freedom, the ties that bind grant release to the spirit, to the tune of the body quivering like a taut plucked string. Trading control for sensation, trusting to the guide the experience, in the most secure grip the tree still shakes. In that dangerous territory lies new experience, in this settled world the risky frontier lies within.
I do get a lot of questions about what happens in bondage, and my answers may disappoint, for two reasons. The first is that every man is of a different make-up, psychologically, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. The second is that the questioner often wants graphic titillating sexual content, and I won’t supply that verbally, it must be experienced. I don’t do bondage over the phone, on the Internet, or in conversation in a public place. That’s not bondage, just verbiage. So I state the obvious; you will be restrained, and then we go from there. Some men walk up to me, a stranger, and upon first meeting ask to be in bondage now. To consent to being bound and helpless requires trust, and should never be done with strangers. I give them my number and tell them to call me. If they have numbed their fear with drugs or alcohol, I want to give them time to sober up, to chicken out, to make excuses and run first. The most critical ingredient of bondage is trust, and there needs to be a solid basis for that trust. Once a man has thought it over, gotten to know me, and is ready, the chances of the experience being positive and enriching are far greater.
Men are used to controlling their movements, being able to act. The fear of being restrained is a real fear, for once bound, the bottom is helpless, unable to resist what is done to them. I must respect that awesome power, and part of that respect is not to take it away from the man bound. Consent must always be practiced, but it is more than just consent, power is a gift. Unless a man freely gives to me control, willingly agrees to be restrained, I am not going to play. Without consent the fear can traumatize, without consent sanity and safety are at risk. Giving that consent is a great gift, it is one I always try to honor. The fear will certainly be there, and in small quantities add spice to the experience. Fear of the unknown is always present. The top may not reveal all that will happen, keeping a sense of mystery to use the fear of the unknown as arousal, without violating consensuality. Overwhelming fear is not a turn on and can harm the bound man. Often fear can be alleviated simply with a break, a warm hug, and a release to gain equilibrium.
Some men need to be guided slowly, starting with just being held, then being held down. Holding a man down limits my movement too, which is very reassuring to the bottom, while my strength is as secure as any restraint. The small steps to light restriction of movement, perhaps fastened to me to limit my freedom also, lead to the fully restrained man. Part of the inhibition some men have to being bound is not to themselves being restrained, but being in the presence of someone who is free to act while they are not. In self-bondage, no other is present, so while the restraint may be the same the experience is not. Other men are more mentally prepared to jump in, the click of cold steel handcuffs on their wrists releases them from their freedom in the first moments. The locking solidity plunges men into the inescapable, a powerful symbol of their submission. While symbolic and strong, handcuffs are restrictive, uncomfortable and dangerous if not used correctly, so I soon transfer to padded restraints.
Many men don’t know their limits, especially those who are new to bondage. A man who never reaches his limits may be living in a small section of his self. The first time in bondage is a trip into unknown territory, most of it in the internal realm. Self-discovery of new areas expands who we are, limits are usually far beyond where we guessed them to be. To find limits you must reach them, reaching beyond your normal scope brings more of the self into view. The self sets limits at the edge of the known, to expand those limits you must venture beyond what you know you can take, to a new place where this too is you. Bondage is experiential, the sensation is different from the description. Even those who don’t return to try bondage again, are granted a greater sense of what they have done, and can do. Those who do return, learn more, discovering new fields of passion, learning new desires in lands within themselves that they had previously feared to explore.
Far from the assumption that being restrained is imprisoning, many men find in full restraint a sense of freedom. The muscles don’t need to be held back internally when there is an external check. Strong men exult in being able to exert their strength against their bonds. Being immobilized frees them from having to act or be in charge. The mind may go into overdrive, or subside into trance. Awareness becomes louder than the internal chatter, or fills the silence. Once a man lets go of the desire to control, he can focus on the sensation. Sensation can overwhelm and focus can narrow as intensity grows, subsuming the concerns of the ego, freeing the body to quiver in pleasure unfettered by the mind.
Giving up control is the basis of bondage. Men have set ways to get off, and by habit, their bodies gravitate to those patterns. Once restrained, they can not control the touch, the pace, or the intensity of their experience. The bondage top orchestrates those sensations, tuning to the man bound like playing a musical instrument. The patterns are new, desires for familiar action denied by restraint, the same restraint allowing for great exertion in struggle, the anima breaking into new realms of the erotic. Fixed routines are denied, the top may start and stop sensation, teasing and tormenting the bound man by denying touch just when it felt so good! Despite the pleasure, climbing that peak from another direction requires patience and sensitivity from the top, and more "letting go" from the bottom than some are capable of. The harder the climb, the greater the reward, but every bondage experience is more journey than destination.
A conundrum in the leather community is the fantasy many bottoms have, once bound and helpless, of having a top lose control and intentionally harm the bottom against their wishes and beyond their limits. While this is the greatest fear of a bottom, for many it is also a fantasy that adds the spice of danger to any scene with a new top. Were this fantasy to come true, a top would find his reputation tarnished, and a dearth of repeated scenes, plus more bottoms would end up hospitalized. Time after time, a bottom assumes the top is going to beat him mercilessly, ignoring stop words, yet willingly goes into bondage anyway. There is a very powerful compulsion at work here, in both directions. Most scenes have an undertow of fantasy beneath the physical arousal, a current of danger that every top is aware of, yet resists the pull. Knowledgeable bottoms avoid tops with bad reputations, yet lose that sense of danger that excites when a reliable top doesn’t tweak their adrenaline rush of fear, at least a little.
To keep the sense of excitement while still staying consensual, a bondage top needs to be imaginative and unexpected. Every bottom has blind spots, easily enhanced by the addition of a blindfold. When the bottom does not know what is coming next, that original fear of "too much" glows again in the dark. This is new inner territory that both can explore together. Once trust is established and limits defined, a speechless, sensory deprived, immobilized universe of tightly focused sensation awaits. The world of leather is an unbridled exploration of one’s personal dark side, and for the man in bondage, the lack of control and the immense trust placed in the top are powerful vehicles the top can pilot into the unknown.
Trust is essential for the man being bound. The final snug of that last restraint is like a leap into the void, trusting to the top the control of their fall into helplessness. Some relationships of many years' duration lack the amount of trust that is created in a single night of bondage. With this immense trust comes intimacy, quickly reaching a level that would have been unattainable without the bondage. The choice for a bound man is between trust and fear, while trust is unfamiliar to many men, it is the rational and comfortable choice. As comfortable as the trust may be, for some men the accompanying intimacy is frightening. They deflect it with jokes or laughter, feigned apathy, or criticism. Trust is more powerful than these diversions, it allows bondage as a tool to break free of internal restraints. Just as trust is the anchor for the bound man, trust also anchors the top. He must maintain that trust through out the scene, not just invoke it to begin binding.
What of discipline? A top must have great self-discipline, not only to be sober, but to carry the control of the bottom in a responsible fashion. Standing over a bound and helpless man is a god-like position, and carries equal responsibility. The bottom must have self-discipline also, to keep the gift of submission flowing and not try to direct from below, or lose the spirit to panic. In my experience, true discipline is self-discipline. A scene between a willfully undisciplined bottom and a top trying to impose discipline through punishment, becomes either a game or abuse. As a top, I use example and gently persistent reminders to chide a bottom to maintain his discipline. Beating someone into submission is the role of third world prisons. In a consensual arrangement between men, submission can only be given by the bottom. No amount of beating can transform a beast into nobility. Still the intensity of being flogged has its place, as a tool to test and expand limits, heightened sensation, or a means of emotional catharsis. As a means of discipline from without, it puts both players into a vicious cycle of being bad to be punished, eliciting punishment for being bad. Exasperating for the top, consuming for the bottom, the self-exploration is put on hold until someone’s self-discipline breaks the cycle.
The innate inaction of bondage, means like meditation, it is a null state. Meditation is a quieting of the mind, and in most forms involves inaction. Bondage invokes inaction along with arousal. Some embrace bondage to calm the mind into meditative trance. For others bondage sets the mind into high gear, spinning wheels internally, yet unable to act while restrained. This speeding mind becomes inaccessible, the layers of inner voices merging into white noise, creating a strange trance state, like meditation entered from the other side. Often the absence of responsibility and ability to act is a great reliever of stress. Driven personality types require physical restraint to stop the doing, only in bondage do some achieve relaxation.
The most complete form of bondage is mummification. Cocooning the body in an all encasing wrap shuts off most of the senses, creating a state of sensory deprivation. The top must be sure of the bottom’s comfort in the wrap, with pads between the limbs, so that discomfort does not distract from the lack of sensory input. Without the sense of touch, sight, hearing, or the kinesthesia of limb movement, the bottom floats in a womb-like state, often unable to correctly judge the passage of time. In a quiet environment, the breath and heartbeat are the loudest sounds, while strongest sensation comes from parts left exposed. This focus bypasses the cognitive process, regressing to a pre-natal state, where pleasure exists but ego has not been developed. Culminating the mummification is the discarding of the cocoon, the birth through unwrapping the present, metamorphing into a world of light, sound, touch and action. The depth of this process requires preparedness on both parts, attentiveness and safety for the top, absence of panic and the willingness to dive internally for the bottom. It’s not for beginners.
Moderation is critical in all things, bondage is no exception. Meditation guides teach that meditation is a break from activity. Were one to be in a constant quiet meditative state of inaction, an imbalance would result, as the world moves with activity. Bondage requires physical immobilization, the absence of activity that is temporarily a welcome interlude becomes stasis when taken to extremes. You can’t drive to work in bondage, or play tennis, or shop. Too much bondage hampers the life and growth of the whole person. Bondage is a long moment of foreplay, not life itself. The appreciation of unrestrained movement is enhanced by restraint, no one savors the freedom more than the newly freed. Like the light and dark of the yin-yang symbol, a balance is struck between bondage and freedom.
These words have tied up the concept of bondage, but the spirit evades capture, even as I write. To codify the why of being tied is like strapping down a man’s body; I can only capture the concept, while the spirit roams free. Sentences knot and clinch at ideas, paragraphs are fetters of form, but the essence skitters into the darkness inside, beyond the limits of words. Those to whom bondage holds no appeal may consider this work incomprehensible. I agree. A few pages of text can not begin to express what so many bondage bottoms and tops find ineffable. Even those who practice are baffled to explain why, they just know that the exchange of power keeps the power from being taken for granted. The submissive gift, the responsible control, immobilization and freedom enhanced by opposition, all playing out the dance of light and dark in a circle of trust. Why be tied? Why risk anything ever? Why not?
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