AVN Hall of Fame Mistress & Fetish Film Star Julie Simone

Communication in BDSM Scenes

A rope bottom I know said something about his experience with someone who I consider to be a highly skilled rigger that shocked me. I had asked him about a photo of a tie where it looked as if there wasn’t enough chest support. I asked how it felt. There was a lot of support on the hips and legs, so I was curious if that was enough. He said it was painful, there wasn’t enough support but he didn’t say anything because “She doesn’t like feedback when tying”.

This makes so many bells go off in my head. How can someone not want feedback about a tie, particularly when doing something as complicated and dangerous as a suspension??!! I can understand it being annoying if every rope that goes on is met with a “can you move this, or put this rope here instead”, but as a rigger you need to listen to these things and have open communication with your rope bottom. Everybody’s body is different. Men are especially difficult to rig because they’re built differently, ie, they don’t have boobs, so you have to anchor things differently and pull weight from different areas.

Suspensions are not my forte. I don’t enjoy rigging them at all, but I do them because it’s what many people want to see, especially in a stage show. I’ve been in many excrutiatingly painful suspensions which makes me even more nervous when I rig other people in them. The whole time I’m rigging someone in a suspension I am STRESSED OUT. It’s not fun for me. Having an open communication between me and the person I’m tying makes a huge difference. I learned a lot when I was rigging suspensions for KisforKink.com. One guy I tied wanted me to pull the weight from his shoulders, which I would never do to a girl because it’d be pressing on the collarbone which is super painful. Men have more muscle mass in that area, so it didn’t bother his collar bone at all, whereas the initial tie I did pulling from his chest was painful for him. With his communication I was able to change one element of the tie without having to completely re-do the entire thing. Sometimes you just need to add one rope or pull something higher or lower. It can be that simple.

I think it boils down to ego, which is part of why most riggers don’t like to tie other riggers. I remember being tied to a spit by Lew Rubens in a horror movie, “The Hunt” (2001?). I had hurt my shoulder in a shoot and was sore, so I told him how to tie my upper body. I let him tie my lower body however he wanted. The lower body tie was not secure enough and every time they turned the spit my lower body dropped down, pulling at my upper body. It was really painful. Instead of apologizing or making sure I was ok, when he untied me he said “well, the other girl didn’t have any problems”. She was 90 pounds and didn’t have a shoulder injury. Blaming the sub when your ropework is off is ridiculous. Getting mad when someone communicates to you something that’s off with the ropework says to me you have too much ego and are dangerous. Feedback is an important part of BDSM play, it helps you learn and grow. I always ask my rope bottoms how the bondage felt, was there uneven pressure anywhere, anything they would have wanted to be different. If I fuck up a tie, I apologize. For people to stifle this so very important part of play is disheartening to me. When people are afraid to speak up, people get hurt.

Julie Simone