Bondage (BDSM)

Bedroom

Man cuffed to bedrail, with blindfold

Many couples incorporate bondage into their sex lives, often sporadically but sometimes more regularly, and find sexual bondage to be relationship-affirming.^[1] This sometimes takes the form of a sex game or sexual fantasy enactment. Bedroom bondage games may be used for sexual arousal or as a form of foreplay,^[2] that requires and implies a level of trust and a surrender of control by the restrained to the active partner.^[1] The restrained partner (called a submissive) surrenders control to the other partner (called a dominant). This surrender of control happens voluntarily and under mutual understanding and consent.

The main feature of sexual bondage is that it renders the restrained person vulnerable to a variety of sex acts, including some that they may be inhibited from otherwise engaging. The restrained partner is dependent for their sexual satisfaction on the actions of their partner, who may treat the restrained partner as their sex object.

There are many reasons why people allow themselves to be bound. Some people feel a kind of freedom during corporal passivity, they can concentrate on their inner spirituality and feel at peace, as a participant in a study about motivation for bondage explained: "Some people have to be tied up to be free".^[3] Others experience helplessness, struggle against their bonds, and feel a degree of masochistic pleasure from the restraint and pain, as well as being unobstructed for erotic stimulation by their partner.

Bondage can be relatively simple to apply, enabling improvisation using household items and little experience, though sophisticated commercial apparatus is available. Bedroom bondage is usually mild bondage, with one partner voluntarily being put into restraints by being tied up or handcuffed. It may involve simple hand ties, bed restraints, being tied to a chair, etc. Blindfolds are a common part of bedroom play. The restrained partner may then be sexually stimulated by masturbation, fingering, handjob, oral sex, a vibrator, intercourse or other sex acts. Bondage can also be used for purposes other than sexual foreplay, for example, it may be used in erotic tickling or for sexual teasing.

The free partner may derive erotic pleasure or achieve sexual arousal from being in a dominant situation, while the tied partner may achieve arousal from being in a largely "helpless" position in the hands of a trusted partner. Either way, the partners are usually playing out bondage games to act out their sexual fantasies.^[1]

In 1995, psychologists Kurt Ernulf and Sune Innala from Sweden published an analysis based on answers from members of the bondage-oriented Usenet group alt.sex.bondage. Most of the answers (76%) were from men. In 71% of the answers the active (restraining) role in bondage was played by heterosexual men, in 11% by heterosexual women and in 12% by homosexual men. 29% of the heterosexual men, 89% of the heterosexual women and 88% of the homosexual men played the passive (restrained) role. A third of the people who answered said they practised bondage in connection with sadomasochistic activities or at least thought bondage and sadomasochism belonged together.^[4]

In a survey of American students conducted by a magazine in 1996, 24% of the people who replied claimed to have sexual fantasies involving bondage. This was claimed by 40% of the homosexual and bisexual men, 32% of the lesbian and bisexual women, 24% of the heterosexual women and 21% of the heterosexual men. 48% of the lesbian and bisexual women, 34% of the homosexual and bisexual men, and 25% of the heterosexual men and women had had practical experiences of bondage.^[5] In a survey conducted in the USA in 1985, about half of the men considered bondage erotic,^[6] but according to the 1993 publication Janus Report on Sexual Behavior, only 11% of the representatives had had practical experiences of bondage.^[7]