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Hi All,
After a discussion on a photography board about the safety of bondage, I decided I should update my basic bondage safety info on the site and link it more prominently.
I don’t want to have too big a section on bondage safety- I’m not medically trained, and while we do some tutorial stuff here on RE, there are websites devoted to bondage technique that can do a much better and more comprehensive job of providing bondage safety information than I can.
So what I tried to do is to put together some basic bondage safety information, and link it to a few sites with more (and also to plug Chanta’s book, which is very good).
Have a look at
http://www.restrainedelegance.com/bondagesafety.php
and let me know what you think. In particular if there is a really good safety/technique website I should link to, let me know!
Cheers, Hywel.
Id like to echo some (if not all) of Hywels points. I have been hurt on Professional shoots, so its very easy to get hurt at home, mainly from not knowing your own limits. Everything in moderation please!
Sophia x
Hywel, I think it’s great you have put this together. Especially the point about every tie not being suitable for every person.
Respecting limits is paramount as that means everyone has fun! Starting off with the simple ties is certainly best. Even now, after having shot many suspensions for R.E., there’s no way I would ever contemplate rigging one!
Yikes! Hope you weren’t hurt too badly Soph, that’s awful if you had a bad experience.
Steve
@sophiasmith wrote:
Id like to echo some (if not all) of Hywels points. I have been hurt on Professional shoots, so its very easy to get hurt at home, mainly from not knowing your own limits. Everything in moderation please!
Sophia x
I would like to hear some examples what went wrong, is it possible to give some? I want to learn from them.
So far i had no trouble but i never did suspensions, the only thing worrying me is what i read about long time or small time nerve damage. Its a complicated subject and englisch is not my primary language, so it doesn read easy.
I don’t want to think about it that someone gets hurt by my hands.@wow wrote:
@sophiasmith wrote:
Id like to echo some (if not all) of Hywels points. I have been hurt on Professional shoots, so its very easy to get hurt at home, mainly from not knowing your own limits. Everything in moderation please!
Sophia x
I would like to hear some examples what went wrong, is it possible to give some? I want to learn from them.
So far i had no trouble but i never did suspensions, the only thing worrying me is what i read about long time or small time nerve damage. Its a complicated subject and englisch is not my primary language, so it doesn read easy.
I don’t want to think about it that someone gets hurt by my hands.Im not so sure you would learn from them. The problem was the person doing the rigging, it actually felt like he was trying to punish me. I fainted on the shoot from being tied too tight and not being able to breathe. He pushed my levels, everything level wise (nudity and bondage) was agreed before hand in an email, so he was just a chancer.
I know other models on here have worked with him, I know Sammie B has, I have told Ariel of my experience with this man but cannot remember if she has worked with him.
I suppose in a way I was a bit of a pushover (if you can believe it lol), sometimes it just feels easier to get on with it and cry on the way home instead 🙁
x
Hi Sophia,
Brrr, I remember you telling me about that shoot 🙁 I’ve worked with him several times, once before you’d worked with him (and it was pretty horrible, to be honest – he didn’t push my limits but he worked really slowly, and left me tied up at the end of the shoot while he messed around with his memory cards…). But I worked with him again after your experience, (I didn’t know about what happened to you when I booked it) and he seemed to have become a lot more proficient and sensitive – I hope maybe he’s learned to treat people/models a little more reasonably? Hope so!
I know Sammie B told me she was achy after her shoot with him – I’m not sure if she’s been back since…..
Most of the girls I know who’ve worked much in this industry HAVE suffered from some kind of injury. I think there might be more risk involved in shoots as opposed to play because more often than not, the rigger is tying up a girl who he doesn’t know. So he’s just less switched on to her limitations and maybe won’t read her non-verbal signs that she’s struggling to cope. In my own experience, I’ve been injured 3 times – here is a list!
1) I got over-excited at a the RE Long Term Bondage shoot. I was tied with padded wrist cuffs to the top of a wall, with my feet on the floor. Because I wanted it to look good, I kept taking my feet off the floor and hanging from my wrists. When I came down, I realised I’d got a weird sensation in my left thumb. The feeling came back eventually but it took 3 months. Am fine now – but it’s a good example of how bad stuff can happen even when there’s nothing wrong with the rigging. It was my fault, but if I’d been more aware of my limitations, it wouldn’t have happened.
2) I got burnt at a bondage video shoot when the flames from the candles which were suspended above me (on a wooden frame) burnt through the (PLASTIC!!) cable ties attaching them to the frame. The candles fell on me, and one of them rolled under my leg. I couldn’t move cos I was tied up, and I’ve still got a scar. And I’m much more scared of wax play now.
3) This wasn’t really a bondage shoot, it was caning, but it went WRONG! The loony Doms that the company (which shall remain nameless) hired thought it’d be super if they both caned me at once. I was new to spanking work and the pain was too much for me after about 10 strokes. I fell to my knees and because they were going so fast (like LUNATICS) they didn’t have time to react, so two strokes fell on my back instead of my bottom and cut me. Yuk yuk yuk. The marks healed in the end but it’s a good example of a dom (or two doms) being so excited by their own domliness that they don’t notice that what they’re doing is too much for the sub. BAD! And it made me feel guilty too. I think I should have safeworded, but they hadn’t given me a safeword, and I was too new to know that I should have negotiated that first…
However, I’ve sustained more injuries at mainstream ‘normal’ shoots than I have at bondage/spanking ones. So it’s not all bad news for bondage 🙂
Any more stories, anyone?
Well done Hywel, for doing the safety page 🙂
Ariel xx
Just agreeing with everybody else here, It´s great that you´ve made this page. Hope lots of people read and learn/think about it from it. Saftey comes first, unfortunatley not everybody doesn´t seem to think about that. 🙁
I have not had a serious injurie from bondage but have had some bad experince from it being from a photographer, I was tied really tight around my upperarms just above the elbows with a harness going over/under my chest, and then put with hands behind my back, my arms and hands almost direct got blue and after a while got numb. (to tight) Then I wanted to get out, but he still wanted to take pics and didn´t want to cut the ropes, while he run around switching memorycards, I fell (had my knees and fett bound and standing up)… and the the other sets continued with the same kind of tying, I got a really weird numb feeling in two of my fingers afterward for a couple of days. So not a great experince….
Not as BAD as the ones you (Sophia and Ariel) have had, really sorry to hear about them, fainting and a scar from being burned with candles (eekkk..) makes me a bit scared. 😕
// Pling
Thanks for posting your bad experiences, ladies. I dont want to put people off having a go at bondage- it is no more dangerous than any other moderately strenuous physical activity, really. It is much safer than a game of football or rubgy, just so long as everyone bears in mind that there are risks and those risks have to be treated with respect. (One of the worst injuries I’ve ever sustained was a badly twisted ankle from a walk on the beach, the like of which I must have done a hundred times. I just happened to be unlucky and step in a concealed hole, then fall to one side sharply.)
I’d like to counterbalance the horror stories a little by saying that in something over 300 shoots for the site, we’ve had no really serious injuries, one fainting (but no injury sustained- though it nearly gave Steve, Merlin and me heart attacks), one falling flat on her face from a kneeling position (which was a pure mistake, in the early days) and a small number of temporary nerve damage problems (which thankfully have gone away of their own accord and most of which seem to have been related to suspensions or semi-suspensions).
We do also get a few minor bumps and bruises but as often as not they are just due to general clumisiness and walking into things when untied as anything to do with the bondage. These happen to me as least as often as to the models- I frequently walk backwards into things whilst concentrating on the view through the camera. I’d say our safety record is pretty good. The important thing is to always bear safety concerns in mind, so we can keep it that way.
I think one thing that does make it a bit more complicated, psychologically, is that the people who like getting tied are often also submissive, and the people doing the tying are also often dominant. This can make it hard for the sub to tell the dom something is wrong, and hard for the dom to admit that maybe he or she doesn’t know everything and isn’t really the King of Bondage. I would urge you to tell a photographer or rigger if something has caused you a problem, even if only after the shoot in a polite email. OK, if you think the guy was a total dickhead you may just be better off not shooting with him again, but if the photographer is at all reasonable it is just worth telling them as it is the only way we can improve safety standards. I’m sure there have been more instances of minor injuries at RE shoots than I actually know about, which is bad for avoiding repeating the mistakes.
So long as everyone bears in mind that the submissive’s safety is EVERYBODY’S responsibility and everyone bears their own limitations in mind (both as a rigger and when being tied up) I believe it is possible to do bondage as safely as any other physical activity.
Cheers, Hywel.
🙁
I was supposed to be at the studio to shoot the lovely Fi with Steve last week but couldn’t make it.. my heart’s broken, does that count?M
😉Lol – I’d say that definitely counts Merlin! It’s a shame you couldn’t make it but we can always arrange another shoot with her in the New Year. I did tell her all about you though! 😀
I did tell her all about you though! 😀
Never mind, Merlin… you win some, you lose some. 😛
Kate x
🙄
Aw you know I’m just kiddin!
x
Hi Hywel,
Are the Bondage Safety Notes available to non-members …
I was shooting a model last week, Air Hostess Glamour for a Lad’s mag, anyway I remarked this would make a great bondage scenario (genuine uniforms available for loan 😀 ). To my surprise the model said Oh I tried that last week! so we had a bit more of a chat about it and to cut a long story short I was a little concerned that although she was working with an OK ‘tog she herself did really know enough for her own safety…
I’ve mentioned to Ariel in the past that I think it would be a good idea for the responsible sites to offer some form of guidence to models, FAQ or half day tutorial or something… wonder what you and the others think .. this model didn’t tell the ‘tog she was going numb and was starting to get pins and needles … because she didn’t know she should! Ok the ‘tog shoudl have briefed her …
Frank
Peter
Yes, the safety page is linked from the front page, and the FAQ and is available to non-members.
Cheers, Hywel.
Aww Kate.. you know i was just trying to make you feel a bit guilty.. 😛
Made me laugh
M
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