Privacy 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.
Privacy for rope bottoms - why it matters
Showing your most vulnerable side, sharing your most intimate practices with people - that’s scary, and for good reason. Revealing unusual desires or preferences to those around you can lead to unpredictable results. We have both experienced talking about kink with loved ones and them having a very negative reaction to it, straining the relationships as a result. That’s why we believe the way you decide to disclose your love of rope around you is something to be managed carefully, and most of all, something to be done on your timeline rather than by accident.
Depending on where in the world you live, and the society and culture around you, your privacy can also be your safety. Sadly, some people can be ostracized or targeted for their kinks, their sexuality, or things that are perceived as “deviant” by those around them. We want you to be safe, so if the place you live in now, or might go to live later in your life, is like this, then the advice in this article is doubly important for you.
Who are you OK with knowing you are doing rope?
Take a moment to inventory the people around you. Ideally, write them down on a piece of paper or jot some notes on your favorite app: - Family - your parents if they are still part of your life - your children if you have any - Friends (both vanilla and kinky) - your closest friends, those that matter the most to you - acquaintances that you touch base with regularly and navigate in the same circles as you - Work - your employer - your coworkers - customers you are in contact with and could recognize you by name, appearance or voice
For each of these people, take a moment to reflect on what the consequences would be if they were aware of your rope practices and had a negative reaction towards that.
Being seen at rope events
If you are a rope bottom, chances are you’re going to want to join rope events at some point - or already have been doing so for years. Most of the time, you don’t know in advance who is going to be in attendance, except for very private play parties in closed groups that don’t allow “plus ones”.
Keep in mind that people you see in one sphere of your life can sometimes unexpectedly pop up in another. For example, that person you chat with at dance class every Thursday night might one day decide to check out your local rope jam. How would you feel if you go to the dungeon rope party on Saturday night and find yourself face to face with your boss tied up to the St Andrew’s cross there? How will you handle making sure they keep your secrets and that you keep theirs?
When going to an event space or play space, consider that it might already have been “outed” as a kink space and people just seeing you walk in could raise suspicions, so plan accordingly if that is sensitive for you.
Having photos of you in rope
As of this writing, photos or videos of someone are still largely considered evidence by the public at large - even though that position might change with the progressive ease of creating deepfakes. Until the day comes where everyone has plausible deniability by saying “clearly that’s just an AI fake”, managing what images of you in rope exist out there is an important priority.
Do you show your face in your rope photos? Do you have unique tattoos, distinctive jewelry that you wear often and people might recognize? Does your body have any birthmarks, scars? Do you have a hairstyle so unique that someone who knows you well would spot you just by that?
If you decide you don’t want to show your face, we would advise using physical ways of hiding or disguising it. Masks, wigs, heavy makeup that make you unrecognizable are all good tools to help keep you safe. That way, even if someone sneakily takes a photo at an event without the organizers noticing, they won’t have anything on you that you can’t easily deny. Covid had the silver lining of normalizing seeing people in face masks, you can use that to your advantage.
Another commonly used option is to post-process photos to blur, pixelate, or cover faces and identifying characteristics before posting. While this is appealing because you can easily do this after the fact, keep in mind that still leaves an unedited picture behind somewhere. Even with the best intentions in the world from everyone involved, a smartphone, camera, hard disk or SD card can still be stolen (this is not paranoia, we’ve seen it happen to people in real life!) Then the unedited photos are in the wild, outside of your control. Also keep in mind that digital media need to be wiped clean with specific tools after having held sensitive content - a file that was simply deleted can very easily be recovered.
Also consider how private your rope space of choice is. Are there lines of sight from neighbors through the windows? Is there any chance someone could walk in on you when you don’t expect it? And of course, if you are tying outdoors, there could always be a hiker passing by with a smartphone.
Keep in mind that people tend not to be as careful with other people’s photos as they might be of their own. We’ve had acquaintances show us photos on their phone and scroll past other photos from people we don’t know, where we don’t know whether the bottoms in those photos had consented to that
People seeing your rope marks
Even if you’ve been extra careful about photos and videos, if you show up at a family dinner with rope marks all over your face, you’re still going to raise questions. :)
Simple ligature marks typically disappear within 2 to 6 hours after a rope scene for most people. But if you had a really intense suspension, or if your body marks more than most, it could be longer. And bruises, rope burns, and more intense play marks can easily be visible for days.
Who might see them? Do you go to a gym changing room where someone might notice? Do you have any beauty or health appointments coming up? In some locales, doctors are required to report to law enforcement when they see sign that could indicate domestic abuse. Will you share a bathroom with a sibling on an upcoming family trip? Those are all things to take into consideration. Have a look at your schedule in the days following your rope scene and see if anything might require additional caution.
If you want to stay discreet (for yourself, and for the benefit of not outing the playspace you are doing your rope at) we recommend bringing a change of clothes with long sleeves and legs to hide marks as you leave - and set your limits strategically to not have rope go somewhere the clothes won’t cover if marks are going to be a problem.
Communication, social media and discoverability
As a rope bottom, chances are you are going to be in communication with rope tops, other rope bottoms, and general kinksters with digital tools: instant messaging apps, chat groups, email, social media, etc.
It’s probably wise to not use your full vanilla name when interacting in the kink scene! Come up with a nice kink nickname, and create separate accounts for your “kink identity” to avoid doxing yourself.
Consider how you handle payments. Many rope events require prepayment by bank transfers and apps. You might want to send some money to a rope friend you are sharing the cost of a trip with. Will that result in you revealing your vanilla identity to the person receiving your money?
Lastly, social media can be really tricky. If you have a vanilla social media presence, Facebook, Instagram, and others, all have “discovery” features that will suggest your kink account to some of your vanilla friends even if you’ve kept the two separate (probably because you access them both from the same devices.) That can get you in a lot of trouble if you don’t plan for it.
Emergency contact and healthcare
Sadly, rope bottoming will sometimes result in you getting injured. If it’s really bad (and we really hope that won’t happen) - how will it be handled? Who needs to be notified, if you need help or if you need to be taken to the emergency room?
You might be understandably reticent to give the details of your emergency contact to your rigger or to the organizers of a rope event you are going to. What we would suggest as a middle ground would be to bring with you a sealed envelope, with the clear understanding that it is only to be opened in case of real emergency, containing the contact details of your emergency contact person (and ideally explaining what your relationship to them is) as well as any relevant healthcare documents such as health insurance if you have one, and important health information to be passed on to healthcare providers such as allergies, preexisting conditions and previous surgeries.
Deciding on your privacy strategy
Some people decide to be completely open about their rope bottoming. They don’t worry about any of the above, and consider that the freedom and peace of mind they gain as a result is worth the cost. But it can be a heavy cost indeed - often restricting what meaningful relationships you can maintain within vanilla society, limiting professional opportunities, and in the worst cases, open yourself up to be the target of hate crimes. It also comes with additional benefits, such as being able to be more authentic with the people around you and having additional support when they react positively to your choice of being a rope bottom. <3
When making that call, it’s important to not only consider the present but also your future .When you’re younger, if you enjoy being open about your rope, it can be hard to imagine a future where you might want to be more private. But change is a constant, and you can’t predict what your life might look like in 10 or 20 or even 30 years. Once that cat is out of the bag, it’s nearly impossible to change your mind about it.
But don’t worry - many people manage to keep their vanilla life and their rope life separate, and you can too. The goal of this article is not to scare you away from rope, but simply to raise your awareness so that you’ll make the choices that are right for you, in a deliberate and considered way, rather than leaving it to fate and keep yourself as safe as reasonably possible!
This content is copyrighted - please do not copy the content somewhere else. On the other hand, you can absolutely send a link to this page to a friend or play partner!
