Handling Envy and jealousy for Rope Bottoms

This article is part of a series of advice for rope bottoms, written by Mya and Fox. We’ve been doing rope intensively for 10 years. Mya has bottomed with a wide variety of rope tops, and Fox has worked as a top with many rope bottoms.

If you stay in rope long enough, sooner or later you will have feelings.

And not only the nice ones.

You will likely have moments of tenderness, pride, excitement, arousal, awe, gratitude, and deep connection. But you may also, at some point, look across a room or scroll past a photo online and feel something much more uncomfortable.

Maybe someone in your local scene seems more flexible, more elegant, more photographed, more desired, more technically skilled at bottoming, or simply more visible than you. Maybe that rigger you thought was only going to tie you has started tying one of your friends as well.

For rope bottoms, envy and jealousy are extremely common feelings, yet they are rarely talked about with much honesty. People often imagine that if they were more secure or more emotionally evolved, they would simply never feel these things. We don’t think that is realistic.

Rope communities are intimate, visible, and socially intertwined. Over time, many people will tie with many other people. You may watch your partners tie others. Others may watch you tie with theirs. You may admire people, desire people, and compare yourself to people, often all in the same evening.

Of course feelings come up.

Envy and jealousy are not exactly the same

People use these words in different ways, so don’t get too hung up on the dictionary police.

Envy is often about wanting something someone else has. That might be their body, their rope opportunities, their grace in suspension, their confidence, their photos, or their popularity.

Jealousy tends to involve fear of losing something you already value. For example: fear that a rope partner will prefer someone else to you, fear that your place in a dynamic is less secure than you hoped, or fear that someone else will “replace” you.

The two feelings overlap a lot. But the distinction is useful because envy often points toward longing, while jealousy often points toward insecurity and fear.

An easy rule of thumb to distinguish between the two: you only need two people to feel envy, but jealousy requires three (even if the third might be an abstract “future person” that isn’t around yet.)

Rope creates perfect conditions for comparison

Rope is unusually fertile ground for these emotions.

It is visual. It is embodied. It is social. It often touches things many humans are already sensitive about: attractiveness, sexual access, status, skill, intimacy, pain tolerance, flexibility, confidence, and belonging.

As a bottom, you may compare your body, your stillness, your elegance, your ability to point your toes, your endurance, your emotional surrender, your follower count.

You may also compare much less visible things: who gets invited, who gets messaged first, who gets offered workshop partner spots, who seems to belong effortlessly, who gets spoken about as special.

Rope can also feel scarce. Perhaps your local scene is small. Perhaps there are only a few tops whose rope really interests you. Perhaps one particular partner matters to you deeply. Scarcity can turn ordinary comparison into something much sharper.

So if you feel envy or jealousy in rope, remember that the environment is doing something here too. This is not about a personal weakness.

Do not compare your inside to someone else’s outside

One of the most useful reminders here is also one of the simplest: you know your own inside far better than you know anyone else’s.

When you look at another bottom, you are usually only seeing the outside.

You see the photo, but not the argument before it.

You see the elegant inversion, but not the years of conditioning, the pain, the fatigue, the practice, the rejection, or the fact that they may feel just as inadequate as you do.

You see the confidence at the jam, but not the social anxiety that came before they walked in.

You see the polished online presence, but not how carefully it has been curated.

You may not realise how much editing has gone on in terms of photos - curves smoothed out or added in, blemishes faded, even uplines removed.

Comparing your inner life to another person’s outward presentation is almost guaranteed to hurt you.

Of course, sometimes people will still genuinely have things you want. But it does mean your imagination will usually fill in the missing pieces in ways that flatter them and diminish you.

That isn’t insight. It’s distortion.

Jealousy around partners is common, especially in rope

Many bottoms feel embarrassed by jealousy when it involves a specific partner.

Try not to be.

In many rope communities, it is normal that people tie with more than one person over time. That doesn’t automatically mean your connection is unimportant. It does mean that if you want rope while also expecting absolute exclusivity in all forms, community reality may hit hard.

If seeing your partner tie someone else hurts, that feeling deserves curiosity rather than shame.

Are you afraid of being replaced?

Are you unclear what your place is?

Did you assume an exclusivity that was never actually agreed?

Are you okay with them tying others in theory, but not okay with being surprised by it in practice?

Do you need more reassurance, more clarity, or different agreements?

Jealousy often becomes more manageable once it is made specific. “I am jealous” can feel huge and hopeless. “I feel scared when I don’t know whether I matter to you” is much more workable.

The feeling may be carrying information worth listening to.

Use the feeling as information, not instruction

Envy and jealousy become most destructive when they move straight from feeling into behavior. (A process known as “fusion” in Acceptance Commitment Therapy, a model we both like very much and have practiced for years).

That’s when you get gossip, bitterness, scorekeeping, possessiveness, or attempts to drag someone else down instead of caring for your own pain.

A much better question is: what is this feeling pointing at?

If you envy another bottom’s flexibility, maybe your longing is about wanting more confidence in your body.

If you envy someone’s many rope opportunities, perhaps you are craving more initiative, more community connection, or simply more rope.

If you feel jealous when your rigger ties others, perhaps you need clearer agreements, more check-ins, or more deliberate reassurance.

If you envy someone’s online visibility, ask yourself whether you truly want that visibility, or whether you have just absorbed the idea that visibility equals worth.

Not every feeling of envy should be obeyed. Sometimes the thing you envy would cost more than you actually want to pay. The person with the extraordinary body, the endless rope opportunities, or the glamorous photos may have built a life around that in a way that would not suit you at all. And you can’t have one without the other.

You don’t need to want every life that briefly makes you envious.

Focus on your own plate

A useful approach here is to stop obsessing over other people’s portions and look at your own plate.

What do you actually have in rope already?

What kinds of ties nourish you?

What strengths do you bring as a bottom?

What have you learned in the past year?

What do your body, your temperament, and your values make possible for you that might be different from somebody else, but still deeply worthwhile?

Your rope practice doesn’t need to win against someone else’s to be real, meaningful, or beautiful.

Maybe you aren’t the bendiest person in the room, but you are emotionally present, communicative, and deeply connective. Maybe your rope is quieter, slower, less flashy, and more sustainable.

That counts.

Practical things that genuinely help

When these feelings are running hot, a few concrete moves can help a lot.

First, reduce bad inputs. If certain accounts, photos, or social dynamics reliably leave you feeling awful, curate what you consume.

Second, reality-check the story you are telling yourself. Ask what you actually know, what you are guessing, and what you may be projecting.

Third, talk before resentment hardens. If your jealousy relates to a partner, have the awkward conversation early rather than acting strange for three weeks and pretending nothing is wrong.

Fourth, build the thing you are longing for where you can. If you want more rope, take more initiative in reaching out to tops. If you want more skill, train. If you want more belonging, show up more consistently. If you want more reassurance, ask for it clearly.

Fifth, remember that difference is not failure. Another bottom being wonderful does not prove that you are lacking.

Let rope be a place where you become more honest

You are probably not going to eliminate envy and jealousy from your rope life forever. That’s not a realistic goal to set for any human.

And that’s fine.

The goal is not emotional purity. The goal is to handle these feelings in ways that make you kinder, clearer, and more grounded, rather than smaller and meaner.

Notice the feeling. Name it. Get curious about it. Say the brave thing where needed. And then come back to your own rope.

Because the real work is not becoming the most admired bottom in the room.

It is becoming a bottom who knows what they feel, knows what they value, and knows how to build a rope life that actually fits.

That life may not look like anyone else’s - good!

It’s yours.

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