I hung out with the owner one evening and booked a rope session, an erotic practice that combines aspects of bondage, dominance and sub-mission, and masochism.
Before my rope top started tying any knots, we talked. We talked about this book. We discussed the members-only space, the sex parties they host, the features of the BDSM playroom space, the various BDSM and nonmonogamous communities in the area, and local strip clubs. Somewhere in between all this chatter about sex, we shared a few personal stories. This rapport building was important.
And before we even had these conversations, we had already discussed stylizing the space, since the session would be photographed. Shibari, or Japanese rope bondage, is a beautiful art form, blending technique and creativity, where knots are carefully designed, and the bounded body is the canvas. I firmly believe co-curated fantasies are a form of artistic expression.
My rope top and I talked about my past experiences with BDSM, especially since I’d never been suspended before. We talked about my tolerance for pain and corporeal discomfort. He explained possible sensations, and we discussed how I would articulate when and if I was nearing my limits or felt unenjoyable pain. Finally, he confirmed that I had not been drinking or taking any drugs. With all of this necessary conversation out of the way, it was time to begin.
He laid out a copious pile of yellow, green, and red ropes on a set of black pads on top of the long puppy kennel on the far side of the room. He took his time, making creative choices about which colors to use and how to design them. With a yellow rope in his hand, he asked if I was ready. Once I had offered my eager affirmation, he began attending to my right thigh.
Rustle, crackle—he pulled the rope. At first, the friction of the fibers was all I heard. Then, a baritone voice. As he wrapped and knotted: “Are you okay?”
“Yes!”
“How are you doing?” “Great!” Rustle—crackle. “Too tight?”
“No, it feels like a hug.” Hoist—clank—clang. “Too much?” “No, just right.”
Given my sexual history and socialization, entrusting another person with my body isn’t something I do capriciously. Allowing another human, especially a cisgender man, to have control over my body, tying me up—this is difficult. Relinquishing power to a Dom and trusting that they will care for my body feels vulnerable, but doing so with consent feels cathartic. It turns out that this kind of exchange also builds human connection. Engaging in what sociologist Staci Newmahr calls edgework, or risky behavior that transgresses social boundaries with another human, produces intimacy.6
During my flight, as each lithe limb was bound and hoisted, my unflappable captain checked in. I reiterated consent. In this scene, my relation to my own body was restored through my rearticulation of consent and this man’s respect for my boundaries. I felt in control of my body and, thus, empowered. I know I am not alone in this experience.
Research has shown that BDSM practitioners who are survivors of sexual assault often find the practices healing, particularly so for bondage.7 As Ariane Cruz notes in The Color of Kink, many people find pleasures and healing in kink. This is especially the case for Black women, given the global legacies of violence against us. Acknowledging the relationship between past trauma and present pleasure, however, opens up critiques of BDSM as psychopathology. A political reluctance to explore how trauma is imbricated in our sexualities, especially non-normative sexualities, is understandable, but silence harms just the same. Silence can reinforce shame and hinder healing.
I understand the incredulous reactions I sometimes get when I tell someone that being bound feels like tasting freedom: “Free? You are quite literally shackled!” How can someone feel in control when they’re in such a vulnerable and subservient position? Legitimate question. Yes, the rigger, or rope top, is seemingly in control, and I am the submissive as the rope bottom. Throughout the process, however, I continually reauthorized the rigger’s dominance and control. I, too, derived much power and pleasure from this erotic exchange of consent.
The rope around my left thigh pinched and clawed at the butterflies inked on my skin. Still, no pressure, no diamonds! Once I was suspended, endorphins exploded like fireworks. My body felt euphoric and light—transported and suspended in a temporal plane.
As researcher and journalist Leigh Cowart explored in their book Hurts So Good, people across time and cultures deliberately choose “to feel bad, to feel better” and “to feel pain on purpose” to hack and enjoy the body’s physiological responses to pain.9 When I hike twelve miles up a mountain’s brutal course and my quadriceps burn like hellfire, I also know the pleasures of an apex view, the grounded feeling when I am connected to the Earth, and what the feeling of strength does in my body does for my self-esteem.
*Excerpt from Sex in Public: The Transformative Social Power of Our Erotic Lives by Angela Jones. © 2026 by Angela Jones. Available from Seal Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
