‘Doing, feeling, thinking rope’: a comparative analysis of rope bondage scenes in London, Berlin and Paris.

Abstract

Rope bondage is an activity gaining popularity throughout Europe. However, the practice is still marginalized within society. It also remains understudied and sidelined within kink literatures and cultural studies. The thesis brings these literatures together by exploring the relationship between ‘lived’ experience, ‘situated’ knowledge and identitarian positions within the practice of rope bondage. It provides an account of motivation and experiences of participating in rope bondage negotiated encounters in the forms of private sessions, rope jams, practice evenings, workshops, festivals and masterclasses.
The research was conducted at rope bondage venues in London, Berlin and Paris with 45 participants, from which 11 participants were ‘riggers’ (people who tie), 10 participants were ‘models’ (people who get tied) and 24 participants were ‘switches’ (people who enjoy both tying and getting tied). It used a multi-methodological qualitative approach, drawing on participant observation, auto-ethnography, semi-structured and unstructured interviews, and artistic research in order to investigate rope bondage practitioners’ ‘lived’ experience mediated through affective mutuality within these three settings.
The thesis highlights the complex ways in which people understand, experience and situate in relation to the practice of rope bondage. First, the thesis examines the ways in which the practice of rope bondage be mobilised to address narratives pertaining to cross-culturality (East / West), and the politics of ‘kink’. Second the thesis attempts to devise an inclusive, horizontal and rhizomatic theoretical framework through which the practice can be examined. Third, the thesis examines the positionality of the researcher-participant within the theoretical framework. Fourth, this research adds to the ongoing initiatives aimed at integrating BDSM studies into academic discourse, which involves moving away from discussions around de/pathologization of kink, establishing rope bondage as a practice in its own right and contributing to interdisciplinary scholarship on Deleuzian theories, cultural studies, sexual cultures, affect, and curatorial theory. The thesis concludes with a call for further research on identitarian positionality and the way in which ‘lived’ experience impacts processes of knowledge-production within the practice of rope bondage.