Dee is often heard to say, "I can't move..."

My answer is always, "That's why they call it 'Bondage' ".

If you look at our early photos, you'll see lots of steel and leather, cuffs, collars, cages and belts. Steel is fast and easy, and most especially inescapable.

Dee sleeps every night in some kind of bondage, and 99 nights out of a 100 those restraints are padlocked with the keys on Mick's side of the bed.

What we're trying to say is that for us, "Bondage" means "Inescapable". Harmony's Bondage Life magazine ran a great fictional story in 1985 called "The Studio", and this studio had the motto "No Fake Bondage" (or NFB).

One of Mick's prized possessions is a complete set of all 85 issues of Bondage Life Magazine, so he scanned the image at the right from issue #22.

But as easy as steel and locks are, there is a certain elan to using rope. It takes much more skill, and much more time, but Dee enjoys slipping slowly into sub-space as my hands and the rope move over her body, constricting and contracting and securing her.

I have three goals in each tie:

• Dee must not be able to escape (at least not without help)
• Dee must be comfortable enough to enjoy the rope and not loose circulation
• The tie must be symmetrical...aesthetics are important, so neatness and uniformity are also important, but symmetry is essential

Too Tight

A quick, simple tie improvised from a 6' terry cloth bathrobe sash. Very effective, but as you can see from the purple color of the arms, this tie is too tight. Note that terry cloth is very hard to untie.
This was a first attempt to make an armbinder harness by tying a net of rope. The two knots over the collar bones made this tie extremely uncomfortable, so that any attempts to struggle dug the knots into the skin. Maybe inescapable, but not suitable for long-term wear.

Too Loose

The idea was to make escape impossible by tying each wrist or ankle to a knee or elbow. But I misjudged her ability to reach the wrist/knee tie with her teeth. It took her under 15 minutes to get free.
This rope restraint was done at B-Witches. Since this is a bar, Dee had to wear a flesh-colored body stocking to be legal (this was two months before Alanis Morrisette wore one at the Juno awards). When I told her to get free, she was able to slip her head back between her arms, and then use her teeth to untie the knots.
Here we see judy and Dee (see Hanging with Friends) wearing suspension harnesses designed by David Lawrence. Beautiful, elaborate and very comfortable for suspension, but when I told the girls to escape, judy had her wrists free in 60 seconds and Dee in just 3 minutes.
This was a second attempt at an armbinder harness, but she was able to slip the upper arm cinch down over her elbow and then work her wrists free.
This was an experiment in tying each wrist to the upper arm. But Dee was able to rotate her right arm to the front to untie the main knot and start the escape process. It's amazing how she can move her joints.

Inescapable

This tie was done after the "joint" tie above, just to prove a point (Dee had been escaping a lot, lately). This was a simple tie in a single 30' piece of rope, with the wrists bound by a "handcuff" knot, and with the rope wrapped around her waist to keep her hands behind her back, and through her crotch to keep her arms low. Dee struggled with this one for 45 minutes before conceding defeat. I figured as long as she was occupied, I'd experiment with the lighting by using just two remote flashes sitting on the floor to enhance the drama of the struggle. And these aren't fake poses...this was her twisting and turning trying to get loose.

This was my most recent attempt. Again, it is almost "too tight", but I had to classify some of these experiments as successes, or I risk looking bad (grin). The wrists are tied separately using "Boola Boola" knots, and then the upper arms are cinched to the body twice, with the frappings attached to a shoulder rope, to keep her from pulling them down. Inescapable, but the arm cinches would have caused loss of circulation in the arms after 30 to 45 minutes, so this is not the last of our experiments.

Two last remarks...first, about type of rope. Yes, well-prepared hemp rope is far superior to nylon, it holds knots better and is much harder to slip off the skin. But nylon is easier to use for experiments, and I figure that if I can tie securely and comfortably in nylon, then the same tie will be even better in hemp.

Another goal I'm working on is to develop a good way of tying several women together. Here we see three slaves at La Domaine (a blond, a brunette, and a red-head...did I mention how important symmetry is?).

I typically start with them standing in a circle, and then have them pass arms behind each other's backs, left arm over right. Then I tie each wrist to the wrist of the women two places over.

Of course, with N women, there are N sets of teeth and 2*N hands, so they usually manage to get loose, but it's fun to watch. My personal bests are three naked women, and six clothed women.

One day I may match the exploits of ZZ Top in their song Buck Nekkid: