”I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the best part of a tie are the moments where you can step back and admire your model. Not to look at your own work or admire what you tied as a rigger, but to look at them in admiration and awe. To drink in how incredible they look in the tie and how much they endure for you, so you as the rigger can create and release. 

Even for models who enjoy and want painful rope, enduring it and receiving it is an intense experience. As someone who ties primarily for connection, watching my model suffer always elicits in me gratitude and wonder – at how strong and tough they are to persist through the difficulty, and at the gift they give me by trusting me and allowing me to tie them. 

Hearing @soptik_z and @sansei.sansei speak on this topic at the recent València Fest was an opportunity I am so grateful to have had. Their perspective on difficult or tough rope as a kind of love language is a sentiment I resonate with deeply. 

Semenawa and pain have never been about the pain itself to me. Yes part of my enjoyment for it is watching my model struggle, but struggle can be achieved without pain. For me it comes from the sentiment they shared of “I endure this difficult thing because I love you”, a gift of sorts, an offering even. This idea, that my model is offering me a gift when they come and allow me to tie them, allow me to make them struggle, to persist through something challenging in whatever way for me, is where my love for difficult rope comes from. 

There’s a delicious beauty in watching @knotmaggie come to me willingly, offering herself to me in this way and sitting, ready to receive knowing it will be difficult. Her allowing me to do to her as I want, and wanting to suffer for me in this way is a gift each and every time. 

Look after your models (regardless of the intensity of the tie) because each time they allow you to tie them, each time they place their trust in you and surrender to you, is a gift.”