Rope Work and Inner Peace
Whiskey Ginger is a 35-year-old non-binary queer person living in Denver, Colorado. They clean and organize homes through their small business, Here For The Hard Stuff. Most clients who have found Ginger through word of mouth include those working through mental health issues, chronic illness, disability limitations or people in sex-positive communities who would otherwise fear being judged, shamed or outed for their lifestyle.
In their time off, they curate their own home healing-space, collaborate on creating educational events about kinks and professionally bottom for rope performances. But how does a rope bottom work? Why do they find rope work powerful? Find out what Whiskey Ginger had to say when My Sex Bio interviewed them.
My Sex Bio: How did you get involved in rope work? Why did it speak so powerfully to you?
Whiskey Ginger: An acquaintance of mine needed a rope bottom for a rope intensive in 2015. I had heard of rope work before and seen books on it, but I had never had the opportunity to be tied and was unsure how I would react to it. We scheduled an evening to test out a few simple ties on my body to see how I would mentally, emotionally, and physically react.
I showed up that evening stressed and filled with anger about how poorly my day had gone at work. We negotiated what our rope interaction for the evening would look like and did a check-in process about where I was at and how I had supported myself throughout the day (what had I eaten, was I hydrated, how had I taken care of myself mentally and emotionally).
We did a hogtie position, a torture tie on my right leg, and then a suspension with a box tie on my upper body and a gunslinger on my hips and right leg. This person had a spinner set up on his gear, so I also got to feel what it was like to just spin and spin while suspended. When I came out of the rope, all the tension in my body was gone; I was light-hearted and very bubbly; I was giddy and excited, and basically love-drunk.
This feeling lasted for 4 days and I got scared because I knew I couldn’t rely on this one acquaintance to tie me all the time and I felt like I needed this experience every day! Thankfully I was introduced to Denver Rope Bite, Fort Collins Rope Bite, Denver Bound—and found an ever-growing rope community in Denver and nationally. Now we have many locations and events where ropey happens in Denver, including Studio Friction, a rope and aerial studio with 21 hardpoints!
Rope for me can be grounding, freeing, meditative, stimulating, calming, healing, sexual and non-sexual, artistic and athletic—I find it challenging me mentally, emotionally, physically, and even spiritually—super risky within a container of safety practices and risk-aware informed consent practices.
It’s a medium and avenue of art/science/play that gives me a format to explore and ask, “Who are you in the moment? Who am I in this moment? What are we co-creating by connecting through rope?” The rope is connection, exploration, art, science, and purely relating to self and others within a specific set container/medium.
MSB: Would you consider your rope work a form of sexual self-care?
WG: I am not familiar with that phrase and don’t know if my relationship to rope fits within it.
The rope is currently infrequently purely sexual for me... It transcends sexual interaction for me.
Sexual turn on and play might be present, or they might not be depending on what’s been negotiated. Rope work connects me intimately to myself and whomever is tying me in at that moment.
MSB: Can you tell me a bit about XCBDSM and the negotiation guide in your bio? What is your relationship with that organization and what, specifically, is that workshop you link to?
WG: XCBDM is a website created and maintained by Isaac Cross, who also runs Colorado Center for Alternative Lifestyles. The link in my bio takes people to a negotiation guide called LIMITS. Cross created it to help people have a foundational and thorough approach to negotiating kinky play of all types. I have adapted this guide for myself to use for rope-specific interactions and play. For me, this guide is both thorough and not too long or too detailed, compared to other approaches to negotiation I have read. And I find that it helps guide me in covering all major areas of concern when collaborating with someone.
MSB: A big part of our mission at My Sex Bio is that we believe in finding peace within us and the world through understanding our sexual selves. Our sex-positive blog embraces this vision. Do you think kink can be a route to that peace?
WG: For me, kink and rope bondage, play and relational dynamics of all types demand self-work, self-awareness, self-reflection, self-compassion, self-growth and an overall exploration of “Who am I, who are you, what are we bringing to the table and what are we co-creating together by interacting in this way?”
It is impossible to engage in kink ethically, consistently and for the long-term without some major self-growth taking place. I do not believe however that kink alone (without professional therapy and other forms of self work) is a wise choice as a route to finding inner peace or peace with the world.
For me, my exploration in kink and rope has been deeply tied to my exploration of somatic counseling psychology, attachment work in therapy, trauma processing, self-acceptance, exploration of power differentials, social justice and communication/relational learning and work.
