Graydancer

If you’ve listened to the latest Ropecast (and if you haven’t, why not? I’m hurt, really, I am) you know that in response to Lord Drachenblut’s request for free rope kits for listeners,

Twisted Monk and I will be giving away $50 gift certificates each month for the next four months.

That’s right, giving them away. Use it to buy a couple of lengths of your favorite, or towards a bigger kit, whatever. It’s yours. All you have to do is come up with a creative entry.

What do you mean, “creative”?

Exactly that. A picture. A poem. A story. A limerick. A drawing. An interpretive dance. Now, of course, I have to get it, and usually that involves either email or calling the Ropecast Hotline (608-432-KNOT). But I’m going to be at events, so I suppose hand-delivery is possible too.

But I’m not creative!

I would argue that, but Seth Godin does it better in his book Linchpin. Instead, I’ll make it easier for you:

• Write a pithy comment here, or phone it in to the Hotline, it counts as an entry.
• Everyone who has registered for a GRUE in the upcoming months (such as the Cleveland GRUE) will get an entry.
• If any of my sponsors – such as Twisted Monk (obviously) or Bound in Boston – tells me you frequented their business because of the ropecast, that counts as an entry.
• If you’re a “Graydancer’s Cuppa” member (see the upper right) you automatically get an entry.
• Pimp the Ropecast (www.ropecast.net) on your social media platform (or join the Facebook Fan Club) and you’ll get an entry!

How long do I have to try and be creative?

Every month’s “Theme” (and I’ll tell you this month’s theme for free: BIRTHDAY) lasts for four weeks. The first was launched Sunday the 21st of February, and the winner will be drawn at the Pancake Brunch at the Cleveland GRUE on March 21. That will also be when the next theme is announced, and the new gift certificate is up for grabs.

There’s gotta be a catch…

Yep! There is. The details above are all you’re gonna get in online form. The next theme, and more importantly, the winner of the gift certificate, will ONLY be announced on the Ropecast – and then it’s up to that individual to contact me and claim their prize.

In other words, if you don’t listen, you won’t know you won. Or how to win the next one.

Any other prizes?

What, $50 of  rope isn’t enough? Greedy…you must be a switch. OK, yes, there will be random awards for those entries which are deemed by my completely partial and biased panel of judges to be worthy of note. But that is incidental; the big prize is the $50 certificate, every month.

I’ll be posting the entries in my Gallery (or here, or wherever’s appropriate) as the contest goes on.

So go out there, and Ropeth!

That’s not exactly how he phrased the question, but I did get the following from an avowed “vanilla” listener to the Ropecast:

The one thing that still stumps me is the head space. My beloved wants me to tie her up and fuck her – Ok I’m good with that because I love her and at least intellectually I understand it. Hell I even like tying her up – but I have no emotional need to tie her up in the same way she has an emotional need to be tied up and fucked.

To put it another way, I like rope (a lot) and I like to tie her up but if I never tied her up again there would be no empty hole in my life. But – if she didn’t get tied up ever again she would miss something important – something I don’t understand on an emotional level.

I dunno – maybe it’s an unanswerable question – you get it or you don’t.

That is a good question – but first I have to give HUGE props to my vanilla friend here for being, as Dan Savage puts it, G-G-G (Good, Giving, Game). He listened to his wife’s needs (and notice he accepted them as needs, not just wants) and then did his best to meet them. Seems like he’s done so rather successfully, too. You ROCK, dude.

But what’s in it for him? He doesn’t say it that way, because he’s not the selfish bastard that I am, but it’s a valid question. Sure, you could do the whole “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” thing and she could deliver his fantasy of getting a blowjob while watching Glee and eating pancakes* but he wants to meet her at least part of the way in that experience of tying her up.

It’s an immensely valid question, and it reminds me of Cunning Minx’s tale of how she learned to like giving head. Her version of the tale is immensely entertaining, but to paraphrase: she didn’t, for a very long time. And as a result was not very good at it. Then a lucky and wise man asked her if she could find some aspect of it that she did like.

And she did. It wasn’t the physical part, or the taste, or being on her knees. I won’t spoil the tale by letting you know; you can ask her yourself (oh, I’m such an instigator!). But she did find something, and I think that’s the answer for my erstwhile vanilla friend.

Take a look at the whole act of rope bondage. One of the reasons I’ve loved it for so long (and have been able to talk about it for WAY too long) is because of the many parts of it:

• Naked flesh feels good in my hands.
• Rope feels good in my hands.
• It’s a puzzle: how do I tie her so I can do this? or that? Or even…wow!
• It’s a performance: How can I make the act of tying more graceful (or forceful or domly or sexy or insert adjective here)
• It’s a connection: hell with the knots and shit, her eyes are shining and it’s all because of ME.
• It’s a dance: I’m listening to Massive Attack (or Boss Hoss or Britney Spears or whatever) and the ropes and her and me are just moving.
• It’s a power exchange: I am in charge, and she is mine while she’s in the ropes. Hot.

You get the idea. There is probably some aspect of the rope bondage that you do like, my friend, and focus on that. Let that fill your mind during the act, and it becomes a shared experience.

Don’t be surprised, though, if you find that the parts that you like change, expand, or if it takes you both in a whole new direction. That is part of the fun.

*I’m speculating. But surely I can’t be the only one?