(photos by @MyPolyamLife)
I’ve always been afraid of rope. I’ve always worried about being bound in a way where I can’t escape. I have a wasp in my chest that vibrates through me and keeps me moving. While I dash by people on the street, I’m always petrified of standing in someone’s way or frustrated with someone standing in mine. I struggle with stillness. I guess that’s why when Nathan initially told me he wanted to tie me up, it made me nervous.  

When I first came into BDSM, I was giving myself permission. Permission to explore some of the things I suppose I’d always put into the category of deviant, unhealthy and strange. Like a lot of people, I was raised religiously. Not just religious, but also quite isolated socially within that religion. When you go to a Christian private school, your parents forbid you from watching secular media, and most of the people you know are from the church, everything outside of that bubble seems like it’s part of Satan’s clever plan. However, at that point in my life, I’d put aside that woo, while trying to open myself up to another. All with the desire to explore and perhaps learn something new about myself.  

I met Nathan online. He was an openly pansexual guy who was also polyamorous. He’s the first polyamorous man I’ve ever dated and he was a guiding force for me when I first left my monogamous, vanilla relationship with a desire to find myself. I showed up to our first kinda-sorta date in modest clothing, nervous about the kind of deviant I’d be sitting across from; but when I sat down, those nerves melted away. I stuttered over my life story, and he confidently told me his and eventually, we meshed. He was open to leading me into my BDSM exploration. There was, however, one catch: he had to get to know me before any of his ropes touched my skin. So, we got to know each other for a good month or so before any intimacy. I remember being frustrated by this at first, but in retrospect, that was a green flag I’d come to appreciate with time.

Cringe if you must, but Nathan was my first “Daddy”. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that when it comes to dominant men, I really only resonate with the Daddies. To me, a Daddy isn’t just some dude who really gets off on being called that, it’s not even an explicit reference to age play or age regression. It’s an acknowledgment of who in this dynamic is leading. I’d say “in power”, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. A Daddy leads in a nurturing way, but the power is always in my hands. Nathan helped me understand that; and when he started tying me, he led me through it all. Being a student of Devil Mask Society, he has this uncanny ability to “problem solve” by looking at my limbs and knowing exactly how to get me into the position he needs or wants me to be in. He knows how to calm me down and how to place me. When he finishes a tie and I’m stuck in his web, ready to be consumed, it’s a feeling of stillness I’m not used to feeling. One I’d struggle to find myself.  

I met Nathan while I was living in Orange County and unfortunately when I moved to Los Angeles, it meant that we had to see each other less often. It’s been 8 years since we had that first date. What I didn’t understand as I was sitting across from him that day is what Nathan is truly unique. Nathan is a skilled, focused and practiced top-heavy switch who is, in many ways, truly pansexual. That’s a simplistic sentence, but very few people could describe themselves that way. Years before I met him, Nathan had already searched within himself to realize that he was attracted to transgender women, and he had already developed a taste for BDSM. When I met him, he was beyond the phase of his life where he was fantasizing about certain kinky tableaus, excited to experience them potentially for the first time. No, he had already done it. These were not fantasies for him, but realities that he already knew he enjoyed. His hesitation towards rushing into play with me was honestly because he saw himself, rightfully so, as too talented to give his pleasure to just anyone. I’d discover that most Doms in the LA public scene are not at all like Nathan.  

If you ask most Doms about rope, they will tell you that it doesn’t interest them. To a lot of Dominant men, rope is laborious and silly. Some will know how to do quick and simple ties that are useful, but ultimately its very rare to find men who are passionate about rope. And the men who are passionate about rope, are usually very monosexual, usually limiting their kink to cis women. After going to the Devil Mask Society Rope social a few times, it became very obvious to me that rope I was not ever going to be a rope top’s first choice. I quickly got the sense that if I wanted to bottom for men, I had to be thin and the only women I really saw get the attention of rope tops in the city a white, asian or light skinned. The rope scene was the first space where I started to feel very self conscious about my body. Every other scene felt encouraging and inclusive, but once I got to the rope community and realized that the men in the scene don’t want to see a dark skinned, plus size trangender woman in their rope. I love my body, I love myself, but the rope scene made me wish for the first time since I was a little transgender kid that I could exist in a body other than my own. One that would perhaps be more accepted.

When you’re fresh meat in the BDSM scene, people notice. When you’re a submissive without a Dom, people notice. I suppose being noticed is what I wanted when I first came into the scene, but the issue with being noticed is that people project onto you. One of the biggest projections I receive is that I am a Domme. Frankly, if you’re a woman who has any sense of self, any bit of confidence, any bit of gaul, you’ll be seen as dominant by people who conflate someone’s personality with their position in the slash. The projection of me as a Domme is a frustrating to me as one of the main reasons I was so afraid of BDSM is how many men have previously used it as an excuse to traumatize me. My introduction to BDSM was a man saving me in a moment of desperation and then pressuring me to dominate him for no reason other than me being black and transgender. It didn’t matter that I didn’t want to do it, because it turned him on to think of me as a domineering black shemale. As a black trans woman, I am constantly engaging with men’s fetishes which ultimately erase me and establish me in a way that I, frankly, do not and never have resonated with. I am completely averse to dominating a man. It’s a distinct line for me, so the assumption that i’m a Domme is a pretty painful one. However, it’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that many can only imagine a black transgender woman in this way.

It seems like many people in the public scene in LA cannot imagine someone existing in my body and also being submissive. I’ll never forget having a conversation with Victor about this when we visited Sanctuary in Portland, Oregon. He pointed over at a woman who “looked submissive”. She was a thin white woman hunching her shoulders in a way that, to me, read “victim”. In that moment, it was hard for me not to think about shrinking myself in the same way I once did when I lived a more socially conservative life in the OC. I’ve worked too hard on my confidence to be like that woman. Aside from that, if I carried myself that way, society would eat me up. Unlike cis white women, I do not live in a society that entertains the premise of my vulnerability. I am not seen as deserving of protection. My mother once said to me that if I carried myself like a wounded mouse, the hawks will attack you. So I try my best to hold myself confidently, if only to protect myself. Perhaps its a shield, but it’s one that’s served me well. To me, BDSM resonates when I give that shield to knight capable of protecting me instead. I don’t want to hold a sword. I’m forced to if I want to live. I will not be eaten alive.  

I was particularly interested in a Dominant who did seem to easily see by submissive nature. I saw him give an elaborate fire presentation at Dom Con, and it was very very hot; pun intended. While I had been familiar with this particular Dom, I hadn’t actually seen him play. At the time, I’d seen him in passing several times at various events. We’d exchange glances and flirtatious pleasantries and eventually we connected on Facebook. He asked me out to breakfast several times, but we just kept missing each other and at the time I was bottoming for someone who many people weren’t particularly fond of. We had very little conversation in person, but one night we happened to be at the same private party and we started discussing our kink interests. When I started telling him how much I enjoyed rope, he commented  

“That must take a lot of rope…” 

It was a comment that sat with me as it was a joke about my size that hit a very sensitive spot for me. With some of the rope tops I’ve spoken to, I’ve been very blatantly told that I was too big for their rope. I’ve had people explain to me that they don’t know how to tie someone like me, and that’s why they tend to only tie very thin women. My size is indeed what disqualifies me, and if I’m being honest, that was a hugely painful thing for me to hear, knowing what I know. But in the moment, I giggled and smiled because I was still interested in him.  

After seeing each other at that event, he’d pursue me more and ask me about meeting him for breakfast again. I was excited by the idea, but then had to remind myself that there are some Doms who have hangups about me being transgender. As a “passing” trans woman who was stealth for a decent amount of time, I don’t really naturally out myself and sometimes in situations like this I have to remind myself that it isn’t obvious to the people who may desire intimacy with me. That’s part of why I struggle receiving compliments, I always know they’re meant for meant for the cis version of me, not the trans version of me. Despite years of unrequited glances and flirtation, his interest in me vanished once I told him I was trans. He would then clumsily share a story about someone in his kink family coming out as trans and that being a big deal as a way of ending the conversation. I have this experience a lot.  

I was introduced to BDSM in a way that gave me a lot of optimism about being able to find open minded, trans inclusive men who wanted to dominate me because that was my experience with Nathan. With Nathan, my transness was a complete non-issue, but it seems that at least within the public scene, it will always be a problem. It’s hard to exist in a community that brands itself as so open minded and inclusive when you know that isn’t the case. Of course passing trans women are privileged in ways non passing transgender folks arent, but passing forces you to constantly engage with the reality that you’d be able to find partners if you were cis. If I were a cis woman, I think people would still assume I was a Domme, but I would have a much easier time finding partners. Without sounding too cocky, men are indeed attracted to me. There’s not a BDSM event I’ve gone to where I haven’t been hounded by men. But the line for many of these men is drawn when I tell them that I am transgender. When I vented about my experiences in the scene on instagram once, a woman reached out to me and tried to send me in the direction of someone she assumed was inclusive. That person? The man who I wrote about in the last paragraph. What bothers me is that many of these men have rainbow flags on their clothes. They’ve gotten onto soap boxes and ranted about inclusion and diversity, and they become known by cis women and AFAB folks as inclusive to the point where they do assume that these dominant men are inclusive of transgender women, when they aren’t. When they inevitably end up being attracted to an AFAB person who hasn’t medically transitioned, they may publicly question their sexuality; they may even list themselves as bisexual or pansexual after doing that self reflection. But when it all boils down to it, most of these men are only attracted to the same narrow group of usually, but not always thin white/asian women. It doesn’t matter if those Doms are people of color (the Dom I described in the previous paragraph is black); when it comes to rope that’s what I see. Several of the most popular rope tops in LA have running jokes about them only tying with “child brides”, for a reason.

I want to make it very very clear that I am not upset with the fact that those women seemingly have access to partners who want to play with them. No one owes me their rope. Talented rope artists have a skill that, like Nathan did to me, they have the right to withhold. Nathan wouldn’t want to tie me up unless he was attracted to me. Unless he’s learning, he’d be closed off to doing rope with someone he isn’t attracted to. I don’t feel like anyone owes me anything. What I’m trying to express, however, is that existing in the body I exist in and limiting myself to men while living within LA means that rope isn’t something I’m able to explore. It’s hard to feel that way when you’re constantly being told that this little space we carve out in the BDSM community is more accepting than the vanilla spaces we seek refuge from. Maybe it’s because I’m straight, but as a transgender woman it has been significantly easier for me to find vanilla men who are excited to dominate me than it’s ever really been for me to find BDSM partners generally, but rope partners specifically. If I opened myself up to women, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Plenty of women want to do BDSM with me, sadly, that just doesn’t resonate with me; and frankly, I do not like that I’ve been made to feel like the only way for me to find partners is to expand my BDSM desires into something other than what I enjoy. And it’s for that reason that I will always respect the Doms who see me as existing on the outside of their sexuality, but it is a bit frustrating to realize that even some of the Doms who do want to play with you, are afraid of other people knowing about it.  

It’s not terribly uncommon for me to only be appealing to Dominant men who want to play with me privately. After years of going to these events, I’ve realized that for a lot of dominant men, this whole BDSM thing is really just about ego. For some of these men, it’s a performance primarily for other men. When I was bottoming for that Dom that people didn’t like, it was mostly that. He wanted the appearance of many submissive women vying for his attention and affection, but he was not very present for most of those women. I saw it first hand. The one benefit he had was that he was, at least kinda, trans inclusive, but that inclusion was superficial. Because I “passed” he could develop a little bit of passion, but not as much as he’d have for a cis woman. That difference started to bother me and it’s one of the many reasons we stopped playing. After that, I had plenty of Dominant men approach me, happy that I was finally free, but many of those Dominants didn’t want to be seen playing with me because of how it would subtract from other people they were pursuing. I think what I struggle with in the BDSM scene is the fact that my vanilla relationships are mostly with men who essentially dote over me. Men who are proud to be seen with me and eager to, in their own vanilla way, dominate me. But so many dominant men in the public scene have a very particular fantasy they’re trying to fulfill and I am always going to be someone who exists outside of that fantasy for most cis men raised in the west. That’s why many can only imagine me in the context of taboo.  And admittedly, I suppose I’m doing the same with trying to find a very particular kinda guy to tie me up.

All in all, I refuse to embrace the idea that I am inherently taboo as part of my kink practice, but very few men are on Nathan’s level. When I met Nathan, he’d been out of the public scene for years and hasn’t returned in the 8 years we’ve been together. I have taken my feelings of rejection and the criticism I have of the scene and transformed it into a monthly BDSM social that I host. I hope to facilitate a space where someone like me can eventually have an easier time finding partners.  

As of now, I’m retiring my desire to find a consistent rope top outside of Nathan. It’s been a very long time since he’s has had the time to tie me, but he’s still the best. I have friends like @MyPolyamLife who tickle that itch for me from time to time, but as of now, I’m going to stop putting myself in situations that do not satisfy me, but make me feel othered. Perhaps i’ll learn more about rope as a purely platonic fabric arts sorta thing. I’m not sure. Either way, I’m no longer afraid of rope. I miss it.