A guest blog by Gerry
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: Bondage in general, and rope in particular, is great fun! Carmen has been offering several rope workshops per year for as long as I’ve known her, and I attended dozens of these. And sometimes, I presented them when the person who usually presents the workshops could not make it.
Generally, these rope workshops are great fun. It is amazing to see how people’s minds open up to the possibility of what rope can do once they get the basic principles. When class is over, and everyone ties up everyone else to practice their new skills, it is awesome to see the laughter, the insights, and the sheer joy people who attend these rope workshops experience.
But sometimes, just sometimes, something else happens. Something that makes the ‘mere’ fun of rope into something a lot more… dare I say, ‘sacred’. This ‘something else’ happened on the last rope workshop at Play With Me while still at The Gantry, and I was the one privileged enough to present this class.
Usually, these classes run at a dozen people, and I swear we’ve had as many as twenty attendees, if not more. But for some reason, on Friday, 25 September 2026, the turnout was unexpectedly small. Only three attendees. And maybe this was the Universe doing an intervention because we all experienced something deeply special that night.
Names changed because you know the drill: privacy, yadda yadda phishpaste. Of the three attendees: Lara, a middle-aged nurse and a life coach, who bought two tickets but the other person could not make it, and a young couple, Michelle and Steve. Late twenties, maybe thirty. So, uh. Three. And with Carmen and me, we make it up to five. Even my rope model which I had organised for the night cancelled.
But I’m a professional, and I handled this class of three just as I would if there were three dozen people. The net result of this was that we breezed through the class. It was over way too quickly. The “set subjects” which I cover (basic rope handcuffs, single column tie, double column tie, pentagram chest harness, karada) were over way too early.
So, what now?
Now I want to move to our young couple of the night: Michelle and Steve. Seeing these two people get their kink on was amazing. Sometimes you see couples, and you think “yeah, that’s gonna end in divorce”, and sometimes you see a couple and think “how on earth are those two compatible?” With Michelle and Steve, it was “Invite us to the wedding.” These two were issued on the same assembly line and fit together better than a hand in glove. I am a firm believer in soulmates. You do not see it often, but when you do, it shines, and together, these two shone like a new iPhone.
And holy hell, to their credit, they started asking the right questions. Not just about rope, but about BDSM and kink in general. The five of us were in Carmen’s workshop space, and a conversation ensued.
What basically happened was a discussion centred around ‘what is rope and BDSM when it is not fun and games upstairs at Play With Me?”
Now Lara has a ton of experience. She knows rope. She did not need a rope bondage for beginners class and was there for her own reasons. Carmen has been doing kinky things for who knows how long, and then there’s me, the village elder. Or maybe, the village idiot. I’ve been active in the scene since 2002. That’s about a quarter of a century. I literally wrote books on the subject. Between the three of us, we had a lifetime of experience from different points of view. Different areas of expertise. And then there were the two young ones, so obviously in love, so obviously kinky, and so in need of mentorship.
And the three older ones stepped up.
This “rope workshop for beginners” class ended up being one of the most sacred and deep BDSM discussion sessions I’ve ever had the privilege to be part of. We discussed the nature of dominance and submission, with Steve raising a valid fear: he hates bullies, and he sees pulling Dom on Michelle as ‘being the bully’. Michelle, for her part, could not articulate her own need for submission. Between Lara, Carmen and I, we had enough knowledge and experience to allow Michelle to speak her truth, and to reframe Steve’s mindset that ‘dominance’ does not automatically translate into ‘narcissistic asshole on a power trip’. Carmen played facilitator, I provided mentorship, and Lara – snugly locked in a set of my police cuffs – offered up valuable psychological insights from her years of coaching.
Yes, rope is fun. It is sexy, it is kinky, and it is just… It’s awesome. And usually that is what these workshops are. Good, clean, kinky, sexy fun! But a hill I would die on is that all this good, clean, dirty fun is not all that rope is, what kink is. There’s a lot more to it than floggers and collars and paddling butts. There is something underlying it that is actually quite sacred. Ritualistic.
There is something profoundly deep available to those who are willing to explore, to those willing to look deeper than erotic fun. I’d like to say Michelle and Steve realised this on that Friday night. It was an absolute privilege to see. These two youngsters had been given the key to a treasure chest they’d both been looking for, and were now given the tools to explore its contents.
Kink offers a genuine human connection I honestly do not know how to find without the extra layer of depth and intimacy it offers.
I like bondage. I like ropes and cuffs and locks and chains and cages. I’ve given it all, I’ve taken it all. I can tell stories for days. But sometimes you have an experience that makes you realise ‘yeah, that is why I do it’. Yes, I like getting my kink on. But by stepping out of my own kink and facilitating the growth of others, it felt like I came home.
Thank you to Carmen, to Lara, and especially to Michelle and Steve: you all have demonstrated that beyond the fun and eroticism, there’s indeed a much deeper aspect to all of this, and for those willing to go deep, there are indeed treasures to be found.