Tie Me Up to Set Me Free
How I experience being bound and suspended in ropes
The paradox of feeling free while bound has been repeated to the point of banality from rope bottoms and shibari enthusiasts all over. But, as is the case for most clichés, they’ve earned their status for a reason—namely that there tends to be some truth to them.
For those who haven’t experienced it, the contradiction is apparent while looking at a body all bundled up constricted; in which way could that feel liberating?
Contemplating the apparent fallacy, I realized that this is only one of many found in the realms of shibari and bondage. In this mundus inversus, discomfort can turn to ecstasy, physical compression to mental expansion, and surrender to transcendence. Let me try to explain…
Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty…
—Theodore Roosevelt
When I recently showed pictures of myself in suspension to my dear friend Yael, she also asked; but, what does it feel like? Looking at my facial expressions, she wasn’t sure what to make of them: You’re laughing in some, but in others, I can’t tell if it hurts or feels good.
