Bondage 101 - Calgary Herald 2003/10/20

They say we have been naughty and should be spanked

Robert Remington
Calgary Herald
Monday, October 20, 2003

Sado-masochists are mad at the Calgary Herald after an editorial last week mocked a safe-bondage workshop hosted by a gay student group at the University of Victoria.

Practitioners of S&M say we have demeaned their pastime, including one local caller, Sam, who said: "I'm not gay. I'm a 50-year-old woman with two children, but I still enjoy being hung upside down once in a while."

Greg Bickford, one of the organizers of the Victoria workshop, wrote a letter to the editor expressing indignation at the editorial, calling it "incomplete and inflammatory."

"The workshop teaches basic safety principles as applicable to erotic rope bondage; including selection of suitable rope, areas of the body to avoid, and preventing loss of circulation," he wrote.

All of this comes as so passe to Calgary's Barbie (no last name, please), who has been teaching safe-bondage workshops for the past 13 years and makes bondage paraphernalia at her local fetish store, Barbie's Shop. Her gear includes the usual collars and studded leather codpieces you can see in gay pride parades and Madonna videos, plus more specialized accoutrements such as straitjackets, hoods and leather and velvet straps, the latter to prevent chafing. The most expensive restraining device she makes is a $1,200 leather mummy bag.

It appears Calgary is not as conservative as one might suspect.

Indeed, Barbie's Shop sponsors the annual Bizarre Ball, billed as "Calgary's largest fetish affair," which has attracted as many as 1,200 Calgarians. The ninth such gala takes place Nov. 16 at Tequila nightclub. There is also a Kinky Night the last Friday of each month at Detour, a club on 17th Avenue S.W.

Tying up your significant other is not something to be done without care, Barbie says. She preaches that it is important to "play safe," and is a staunch advocate of the safe bondage creed of "safe, sane and consensual." One should never engage in bondage while impaired, for instance, and abuse is never to be tolerated.

This philosophy is dominant throughout Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns: The Romance and Sexual Sorcery of Sadomasochism, written by Philip Miller and Molly Devon. Barbie recommends all bondage practitioners buy the book, which she calls the safe bondage "bible."

It is not the kind of book one would expect to find on coffee tables in Mount Royal, although Barbie says you'd be shocked by who comes through her door. "I have to keep my client list very discreet," she says.

Many of her customers are bored couples who have been together for years and are looking for something new, she says. "It's a form of foreplay."

With whips?

"If you just drag it across the skin it can be very stimulating," she says, although some people go further. "Some people like marks and some just like their skin woken up."

Bondage is defined as the restriction of a person's bodily movements for erotic reasons and is but one category of BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism). Those of us who have been bound only by ingesting too much cheese find such outrï¿½ tastes of other consenting adults to be either disgusting or fascinating.

For instance, Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns, contains one chapter on "furnishing your dungeon" which should be done, as is the theme of the book, with "discretion and security" -- especially in keeping the goodies stashed carefully from neighbours and immature eyes.

In a wealthy community like Calgary, there are some "fairly elaborate systems," Barbie says. Silly me. I thought wine cellars and indoor rock-climbing walls were the big thing.

More artful practitioners engage in Oriental rope dress, which uses ropes to symmetrically restrict and adorn the body in a highly decorative fashion.

I don't think Oriental rope dress is for me, having failed macrame, but 25,000 Calgarians might not agree.

That's how many are expected to attend the third annual Everything To Do With Sex trade show Nov. 6-9 at the Roundup Centre, featuring 150 booths of adult products and "sexy fashions," including selections from Barbie's kinky catalogue.