Bondage for beginners: A step-by-step guide

If you’ve ever entertained fantasies of engaging in a bit of bondage – cue, mutual tying-up-and-teasing with your partner – you’re definitely not alone. A Yougov poll carried out in February found that 12,727,272 of Brits have been tied up for sex, and that Penrith in Cumbria had the biggest per capita sales of BDSM equipment in the UK (who knew?!).

Bondage has been a fixture of erotic novels and art for centuries, from Rembrandt’s Andromeda Chained to the Rocks in 1630, through to the release of Fifty Shades of Grey which took the publishing world by storm in 2013, bondage has certainly gone mainstream in the last few years.

A staggering 100 million copies of the Fifty Shades trilogy were sold worldwide, allowing countless women to indulge in sexual fantasies about BDSM that they might not otherwise have owned up to: suddenly, S&M was everywhere. In fact, the movie made the move so popular sales of the spreader bar sex toy sold out after Fifty Shades Darker hit cinemas and viewers witnessed that erotic scene between Christian and Ana. More visit: How to do bondage

But why is bondage so alluring? We’re into bondage for a variety of reasons. Play-struggling against restraints can build an exciting adrenaline rush, while being blindfolded heightens the senses in the rest of the body. Think of all the times you’ve closed your eyes during a massage – feels much better, right?

What is bondage?

Well, the B in BDSM involves consensually tying, binding, or restraining a partner for erotic, aesthetic and/or somatosensory (tactile) stimulation. But how do you introduce something that conjures up images of leather fetish gear, gimp masks and twisted rope, into a bedroom that rarely hosts anything riskier than Reverse Cowgirl?

Many people are put off experimenting with bondage because they don’t know how to broach the subject with their partner. This is something that Lovehoney’s bondage expert Jess Wilde is used to: ‘Never mind not knowing what to buy, a lot of our customers don’t necessarily know how to say to their partner, ‘Oh hey, honey, can you tie me up and spank me tonight?’

it’s not the easiest thing to throw out there.’ She recommends getting hold of some erotic fiction, or maybe a DVD to watch in the comfort of your own home. ‘That’s the very first step, before you even look at products. Plant the seed in your partner’s mind that it might be something you want to try. Getting them used to the idea might change their perspective a little bit.’