Some tips on Self-Bondage

It is likely that the majority of people have no desire ever to be physically restrained. Likely, but unproven - there appears to have been very little research on the topic. This is the kind of field where people hide the truth from themselves let alone from others. My guess is that plenty of utterly normal men would dearly love to be tied to a bed by the sex symbol of their dreams. Women I'm not so sure about (feedback welcomed). 

Going beyond this, there are certainly plenty of people who explicitly crave some kind of enforced immobility. This is sometimes out of curiosity but more usually for erotic stimulation. Most modern guides to love making include a section on bondage, highlighting the intensity it can give to sexual relationships while emphasising the need for full consensuality and avoidance of physical harm (ie Comfort, 1990). 

Yes, great - it's legitimate to want to be tied, and you must feel free to discuss this with your partner without shame. (Embarrassment perhaps, but that is one of life's little hurdles...) If you have a partner who indulges your fantasies as often as you want, count yourself very lucky. There are plenty of people who lack a sexual partner, or whose partner won't play along, or says "Yes of course Dear, sometime- but not tonight". This document is written as a practical guide to those who want to be tied up and can't get someone to help. 

At a deeper level, I cannot fully explain why some people seek to be tied up but can pass on a few observations (published or anecdotal) and a wild guess. Self bondage is reputed to be most frequent amongst Caucasian males of above-average intelligence and 'controlling' personalities. (This might explain the reputation of conservative back bench MPs in the UK!). Dominant or forceful mothers have also been implicated. The whole field seems overdue for some proper research. 

My theory, for what it is worth, is that the state of enforced, smothered immobility reminds the unconscious mind of conditions in the uterus. This would fit with high IQ (as good early mental development would be needed to lay down memories accurate enough to influence behaviour 20 years later), the high frequency of transvestitism (wrapped up in essence of female), and (from my own experience only) the paradoxical feeling of total safety in a situation which is objectively just the opposite. All other ideas welcomed. 

There are certain difficulties in tying oneself, notably the conflict between being helpless (ie unable to escape) and the need for a guaranteed escape in due course. Much ingenuity has gone into solving this conundrum, and although most people escape most of the time there have been alarming numbers of men who died through making a mistake. Blanchard & Hucker (1991) report on 117 cases of autoerotic asphyxia from coroners' courts from Alberta and Ontario (Canada) in a 13 year period, most involving auto-erotic self bondage. DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU. 

If you follow the principles given below you can make yourself helplessly tied for a precisely controlled length of time (as long as you want), while retaining the option of a secure back-up escape option. There is no excuse for getting irrevocably stuck. All you will need are a few household items that can be bought in any town and look quite innocent. 

Believe me, the ability to conjure up a succubus from everyday things who indulges your sexual fantasies more absolutely than any human, then who evaporates back away into the household is a remarkable and wonderful power! 

2: The principle 

Have you ever tried opening a combination padlock in the dark? Probably not- to a good approximation it is utterly impossible. Most of the techniques described below use a combination lock - but then who switches the lights on and off? A preset timer switch! 

In essence you create a self-bondage setup with a combination lock as a keystone. Program your timer to switch the light off, then back on again in a while. Slip on the wrist loops or whatever, and wait. The lights go out - you're helpless. Eventually the lights come back on, you open the combination lock and you're free. Note that the length of time of helplessness is up to you to choose, but is irrevocable once the exercise is under way. 

3: Safety 

"It doesn't sound very safe to me" I hear you think. What happens if the house catches fire in that period of helpless?

If your escape really depends on opening the lock, you die. If you follow my advice you will have at least one sharp penknife within easy reach and are likely to escape and live. A good smoke alarm is a wise precaution. In a situation where seconds matter (ie someone petrol bombs your house) then being tied up is a seriously bad idea, but if you are paranoid enough to worry about such disasters self-bondage may not be the hobby for you! 

Statistically, the big danger is asphyxiation. This is a nasty way to go, but simple asphyxia would give you time to open a knife and cut cords loose. The real killer is strangulation, which can cause a sudden loss of consciousness. One well known victim was a prominent British Conservative MP, Stephen Millegan, who wasn't tied at all when he blacked out and died in 1994. Judo, Shorinji Kempo and other martial arts exploit this by teaching their advanced students to squeeze the carotid artery in the neck, causing unconsciousness in 10 seconds. This leads to death unless followed by immediate resuscitation. 

DON'T EVER FIX ANYTHING TIGHTLY AROUND YOUR NECK.

Being comfortably tied up is not intrinsically dangerous, if you have the bail-out option of a penknife nearby to cut cords. Oddly, this can make the experience less satisfying since you know you are only pretending. I recall the wonderful feeling of freedom in throwing my knife on the floor, leaving me truly helpless awaiting the dawn. (Psychologists may find this worthy of further research). If you do that, accept that any emergency will kill you. I've children now, and love them too much to take this risk. 

4: Equipment needed (Basics): 

A digital timer switch, a digital watch (ideally with a countdown timer), an extension cable that ends in a double socket, two clip-on or bedside lamps, two combination padlocks, nylon cord, 1 or more sharp penknives, a bed, a tube of fast setting polymethacrylate glue (Superglue), some sort of broad soft strap. 

Timer switch: The timer switch should be a 24 hour digital model. 

Lamps: You will depend on their light to escape - what when a bulb blows? Hence the need for 2 lamps (but check the maximum power load your timer switch and extension cable can safely take). 

Cord: You will need lots! (10m or more of soft nylon cord at least 5mm diameter + a few m of a finer cord). 

Combination locks: There are several types of combination padlock - the only criterion is that they must be openable with one hand. The sort with one round dial on the front (like miniature safe dials) are easy to open, but have a subtle weakness (see later). A few bicycle padlocks have only 216 combinations, which is simply too few (10 minutes to open blind). 

Knives: Your penknife should have a folding blade and a fastener on the handle to which you can tie a piece of string. 

Bed: Ideally your bed will have posts at each corner, though with ingenuity and lots of cord almost anything will do! 

The strap: By far the best item here is a broad cotton belt (called Obi by the Japanese) as worn by martial artists to denote their status. These belts are very strong, never slip and never leave embarrassing marks on skin. Any martial arts shop and lots of sports shops sell them in a range of colours. I would never use my black belt this way (having earned it), but there is no law against you buying any colour you want. I discovered the wonderful uses of an obi during Shorinji Kempo training. The post-blackbelt syllabus includes a technique called Baku Ho Dai Ichi (translation: first binding technique), which involves using the belt that you conveniently just happen to have around your waist to immobilise an opponent. If you want to know more, find a Shorinji Kempo dojo and grade to shodan! If you have no martial arts connections, explaining why you have just purchased a belt may prove difficult, but for the attachments described below an obi is hard to beat. 

Failing that, its place could be taken by simple nylon cord, but this will tend to cut the skin. A rolled sheet might also be OK at a pinch. 

5: Techniques 

5.1 The cross. 

Let's start by setting up the simplest of this family of techniques. I will spell out a lot of details here that will quickly become familiar, so please read through and set up this exercise even if you don't fancy the resulting position. 

Theory: one hand alone cannot remove a loop which has slipped tight around its wrist, even though this is trivial for 2 hands working together. Therefore set up two slip loops well apart (ie on each bedpost), then put one hand through each loop. Voila: You're stuck! 

Start up procedures (which will take time and togetherness- don't do this stoned!) 

A: Setup your knife/knives. Tie your fine cord to the penknife, leaving a tail of about 50cm of cord. Next tie a loop in the far end of this cord, so that you can clip a padlock though this loop and be sure that you knife is at the other end. Squirt a few drops of superglue on both knots. This freezes the knot - you will never undo it now (though of course it can be cut). After a few seconds wrap soft tissues around the glued area to mop it all up. If you don't do this, you will get blobs of superglue on your sheet. These are impossible to shift and very hard to explain! 

B: Setup the bed: You need a firm attachment for your padlocks at each side of the top of your bed. If you have bedposts, just tie some thick cord around each bedpost and superglue the knots (so you can't change your mind and undo them). If your bed lacks posts, you will have to run cord upwards from the legs, ending in a loop whose knot is superglued. A bit of experimentation is called for! Consider putting loops up the two bottom corners for your feet, but don't use them on your first trial. 

C: Make wrist loops. In theory all you need is a piece of cord with a slip knot. This will slip tighter as you struggle, marking skin and cutting off blood supply. No! Tie the loop in such a way that there is a stop knot which prevents it slipping too tight. You will need to spend some time calibrating each loop until you are sure that it will slip just tight enough to hold, and no more. 

When you are happy about this loop, open it wide enough that you can easily put one hand into the loop. The wrist loop should have a long tail, along which the slip knot slides. Next tie a small second loop on the long tail (which the padlock will go through), and freeze this new knot with superglue. Don't glue the slipknot (or it won't slip). 

You would be well advised to spend a little while padding each wrist loop to prevent it from cutting your skin. The simplest (but very effective) approach is to wrap masking tape or large plasters around the stretch of cord that will pull against your skin. Scuba diving shops sell wrist loops just like this encased in thick soft rubber tubing (called buddy lines). These are used to hold 2 divers together in murky water, and are readily modified for auto-bondage purposes. As with all diving kit, they are effective but expensive! You can do the same thing yourself more cheaply with rubber tubing, though persuading string through old bunsen-burner piping is remarkably difficult! 

D: Setup the lamps. Position them so that they illuminate the bed, without any possibility of their falling over or touching flammable material. Plug them both into the same extension lead, and plug the extension cable into the wall. Switch on the mains supply, and switch on both lamps. Check that they both work! 

If they are OK, leave them switched on but switch off at the wall and pull the extension cable out of the wall socket. Disconnect the phone now. 

E: Assemble the bonds. Open one combination lock, and use it to lock one wrist loop and one knife to the cord around a bedpost. Check carefully that the loop and the knife are both firmly attached to the bed - give them a firm pull to make sure. Repeat this for the other side - and stage is set. 

F: Next, try the escape under ideal conditions. Lie down on your back, put one hand through one loop, and pull it tight. Don't fasten your other hand yet! 

Check that you can get the knife, and then practise opening the combolock several times with one hand. Confirm that this really does free your hand completely. Practise opening the penknife, and check that you can get the blade into a position to cut at least one of the cords. 

All OK? Now the first real test. Re-shut the lock, ensuring that the knife is still firmly attached. 

When you're ready, fasten both hands. Wriggle a little to check that you really are stuck, and then escape by opening a lock. 

Still all OK? Refasten the locks, checking that your knives are still attached. 

Now you can start the timed routine. This bit needs darkness- best wait for night-time, though I suppose a blacked out room would do during daylight hours. Switch off all lights in your house except that in your bedroom ceiling. 

Decide how long you want to be tied. Start off gently; 5 or 10 minutes maybe. Get out your digital watch, and check that it says the same time as your timer switch! 

Set the timer switch to OFF mode, then program it to come ON in 2-3 minutes. Program it to go OFF again in maybe 5-6 minutes, and back on again after your chosen time interval. Be very wary of mixing am and pm; it would be a long wait if you expected the light on at 11pm but in fact it came on at 11am next morning! 

Put the timer switch into the wall (carefully - if the battery contacts are jiggled you will lose your times), plug the extension cable into the timer, and switch the power on. At this point the lamps will be off (as the timer switch is in OFF mode), and your main bedroom light will still be on. WAIT until the timer switch comes on, then switch the main bedroom light off. Now the only source of light is controlled by the timer switch. 

The wait is usually a little tense, but if the timer switch changes from OFF to ON it is clearly working. It is most irritating to wait for the lights to go off, when in fact the timer is locked in edit mode! 

I like to set the countdown timer on the watch to go BEEP at the time that the lights are expected to switch off. If the watch beeps and nothing happens, there may be a bug - escape and check. 

When setting up more complex schemes you may need 10-20 minutes before the timer switch cuts out, and in this case it can be very useful to have a countdown defining how much time remains. 

If all goes well you slip on the loops and realise yourself to be stuck - then the lights go out. Go on - try to open the combination locks! You just have to wait until the lights come back on. 

If all seems well, try fastening your feet to the bed next time. Almost any way will do as long as it is comfortable and you can't get your feet near your hands. 

This technique introduces you to timed helplessness. It has the drawback of being moderately uncomfortable, and sexually frustrating. 

You may well find the next method preferable, although it does call for a little more thought and really needs an obi (japanese belt). There would be some academic interesting in keeping records of the actual times you choose to be tied (my experience was a steady increase from 10 minutes at first to 2 hours within a year). 

5.2: Introducing the Obi. 

Equipment as before, but add an obi (japanese belt) or something else broad soft and strong. 

Theory: lie on your back on the bed and make yourself comfortable. You will find that your feet are apart and your hands are spread out either side of your body. The aim is to leave yourself tied in this position by means of loops on your wrists and ankles, plus (most importantly) a soft strong belt holding your shoulders down. 

Start by fastening the belt to the midline of the head of the bed. You should have a large loop of obi, which is solidly attached and can be hidden under pillows until needed. This may involve running cord between legs of the bed and running a branch upwards to the pillow zone, to which you tie the belt. Lie down on you back on top of the belt, then put your arms through the belt. If you have set things up correctly the belt runs under your back but over your upper arms/shoulders. You should be fully comfortable, but when you try to sit up nothing happens. 

Now point your hands towards the bottom of the bed and note where your they lie. Get up, and tie a long length of cord to one foot of your bed. Tie a loop in this at the point where your hand lay, and use a combination lock to fasten a wrist loop + knife to this long cord. Repeat for the other side of the bed. 

Now lie on top of the belt again, put your hands through as before, and just see whether they can comfortably touch the wrist loop and can get to the combination padlock. Almost certainly you will need to adjust lengths a few times before they're just right. When you are sure the lengths are right, freeze the knots with superglue (except of course the slip knot). Do be careful not to superglue the sheets! 

Now slip one hand into a loop, check that it is firm but that you can open the padlock and that the knife is accessible. 

All OK? Now try with both hands - you should find yourself comfortable but quite immobile. 

This is ideal on a wide bed. On a single bed your hands might be able to touch each other. If so you will be able to escape far too easily - think about modifying the attachment points so that your hands cannot touch. One solution would be to run a second long cord under the bed from one padlock to another, forcing them to stay apart. 

When your hand loops are set up (which may take a while), find some way of fastening your feet, and you're ready. Set up the lights and timer switch as before, and off you go. This one is wonderful when correctly set up, especially when mixed with hash cake (see later). 

5.3 Fastening your hands together: 

This not is easy to do. For a start, 2 hands together are powerful tools that take some serious fastening. Secondly, it is hard to see a combination lock behind your back! Thirdly, it really isn't easy to tie your hands together. 

By far the easiest way to bind your hands involves getting hold of some very non-household equipment. Buy some handcuffs, and replace the middle chain link by a combination lock. For added safety, replace the two outer links by string, having frozen the knots with superglue as normal (now a knife can save you, but knives don't cut chains). I highly recommend padding the hard metal edges with tape or plasters - this avoids a lot of discomfort and embarrassingly persistent marks on your skin. 

Try lying on a bed with your arms through a belt as described above, and handcuffing via a combination lock to cord attached to the bottom of the bed. WARNING: With unmodified handcuffs you can easily get quite utterly in this position. Ensure that your handcuffs are held together by the combination lock, and rehearse with both keys and a knife in your hands. 

If you can't buy handcuffs (they are hard to find in some areas) or don't want to handle them, poor substitutes can be made from string. 

The crudest approach is to knot cord around each wrist in turn, superglue the knots (not your skin) then fasten them together with a combination lock. You will inevitably have to cut this cord before re-entering human company! Marginally better is to create a piece of cord with one small loop at one and a larger loop with a very fat knot at the other end. Pass this around your wrist, and thread the big loop through the smaller. If your length is right this will just hold your wrist, won't slip tight, and has an easy attachment point for a combination lock. If so, freeze the knots with superglue. If not, try again.. 

Generally, having hands tied in front of you is not very satisfying. You often aren't substantially more helpless than if you were untied. One exception to this is the (highly recommended) procedure mentioned above whereby you fasten an belt in a loop to the head of a bed, then lie down on the belt, put your hands through it, and fasten them by a combolock to a cord running up from the foot of the bed. There is a critical level of tightness at which you are comfortable, but unable to move or get your hands near your head. 

Another is to tie some cord to a rafter in your loft, and dangle a loop through the hatch. Combolock handcuffs to this loop, and discover how little you can do with your hands tied above your head. This position is bad for circulation - don't do it too long. In addition the emergency release knife tends to dangle in your face. 

By contrast, the problem with tying hands behind your back is the helplessness it causes and the difficulty of escape. If you are reasonably flexible, you might care to try the variants below - but have a knife fastened to your padlock, or don't blame me when wife/mother/neighbours/police have to rescue you! 

Try fastening your hands behind your back to your waist. It is remarkably easy to untie belts/cords around your waist in this position, thereby escaping. To prevent this, make a belt of cord long enough to go around your waist with a loop knotted + superglued in each end. When the 2 loops are fastened by the same padlock that fastens your hands, you are helpless. When the lock opens, it all falls away. 

You can tie your feet conventionally, but better is to lie face down on the bed with one foot tied (by a slip knot) to each bed leg. You may prefer to try this position first without the waist band, although it is usually possible to get your hands to one foot and untie it thereby freeing yourself. 

The classical image of bondage is hands tied behind the back with a rope wound around your arms and body. I am sure that this is very effective when someone else does it for you (but have yet to persuade my wife to help me with this). It is not really viable on your own. Getting your arms into the coils is hard, so the coils must be loose. This means that they can always be slipped down/up or the knot untied. My experience of exploring these systems is of recurring failure, in sharp contrast with systems where hands are tied apart to solid objects. If you ever did manage to immobilise your hands behind your back in tight coils of rope, how would you ever see the combolock to open it? Any further thoughts on the matter welcomed. 

Escaping from hands tied behind: It is really useful to know how to escape from having your hands tied behind your back. The only hard part is the first step: get your hands past your bottom and under your knees. This involves some serious wriggling and squeezing - loose bonds are essential for the inexperienced. Having got here you can touch your face (removing anything undesirable which might be there), untie your feet, then slip one elbow over a knee and pull the foot through. Repeat for the other elbow, and your hands are in front of you. Now you can see what you're doing and use your teeth to undo knots. Easy when you know how, but always have a knife to hand just in case. 

6: Further notes on combination padlocks. 

There are two sorts of combination lock. Some have 4 rings that must be lined up with the right numbers next to each other, while others have one dial on the front like a miniature safe. The former are very secure, but quite hard to open with one hand. The technique is to squeeze the hasp in so that the dials all move freely, then use one finger to move each dial in turn. With 2 hands working together some models can be open by brute force dialling, if the numbers click into place. In practice it only takes a few hundred dialings to tire fingers out, while thousands are needed. 

The other sort of lock is opened by turning the one and only dial several times (either clockwise/anticlockwise/clockwise, or vice versa). What you are actually doing is lining up 3 plates inside the lock, each with a small notch in it. When the notches are all in the correct place the lock can open. 

Incredibly, you can get to know one of these locks well enough to be able to open it in the dark! Once the first number is dialled, the next 2 movements of the dial are always the same and can be learned. The notch occupies 1/12 of the circumference of the disc, so in theory by dialling randomly then following the correct turns you have a 1/12 probability of opening the lock. 

It's not 1 in 12 in practice, but I have found these locks falling open so often that they I don't think of them as very useful. 

Worse is that some have a raised motif (such as an arrow) in the centre of the dial, which allows you to estimate where each number is, so open the dial very easily. (But not easily enough to justify a total blindfold- that kind of attitude causes accidents). Put a blob of thick glue (araldite) on the motif to cure this weakness. 

7. Embellishments: 

These are some additional ideas, which almost entirely irrelevant to the technical aim of tying oneself up. They will tip the balance of perception of many people from the behaviour as harmlessly odd to the downright kinky. For others they can become the whole point of the exercise, or at least a compulsively important element. If you're worried by them, no-one is asking that you try anything. 

7.1 Clothing: 

Doubtless some of you will want to wear some special clothing or other attire while tied up. For men, female clothing (especially underwear) or leather is are popular (Blanchard & Hucker, 1991). That is up to you, but remember you need to be able to see (and breathe!). Opaque hoods are definitely out. If anyone has worked out a refinement that allows timed escape while blindfold, I'd be fascinated. (Might there be a market for failsafe handcuffs with a built-in timer? Would you trust them?) 

If you insist on being hooded, there is a good compromise. Normal tights fit over heads well, give a constricted feel but won't suffocate you or prevent you from opening a combination lock. They do make escape harder (equivalent to 30-45 minutes extra wait as dawn comes up). If you are troubled by their propensity for coming off after long struggle, apply a little ingenuity to find ways of holding them in place. If you add anything else, it must obey 2 rules: it must let you breathe, and somewhere there must be a hole in it through which you can see numbers on the dial of your padlock. Thus panties are OK (they have leg holes) but a pillow case isn't, and a plastic bag is suicide. Explore with care. 

7.2 Substances. 

Another refinement that is likely to be popular is the use of some chemical stimulus to add interest to the experience. Floating away on cloud nine while comfortably helpless is an amazing experience. Do be careful. Don't have a large pot of tea or several pints of beer before getting tied up for the night, or face a burst bladder! Anything that could induce vomiting is seriously dangerous and must be avoided. If you must smoke something beforehand, be very careful to stub it out before going ahead. 

Cannabis is said to have anti-emetic properties and isn't diuretic; eating a hash cookie would probably be reasonably safe for experienced users. Hallucinogens would be a very personal decision, with real risks of panic attacks if mishandled. Caution is the watchword. 

8. Non-timer techniques. 

I describe here two techniques that are not timer-controlled, but worth having in your repertoire. These only work as long as you pretend not to know the escape algorithm. They are worth exploring for all that. 

The first is extremely simple, useful for those nights when the wife boots you into the spare bed for snoring etc. It involves an obi (japanese belt) as described above. These belts are soft but very high friction, so that the simplest knot will not come undone when pulled. Take an obi, and wind it round your feet 1-2 times, then tie it with the simplest knot that will hold. You should have c. 70cm of belt left unused. Tie the simplest slip knot in this that will hold, lie on your tummy with your feet folded back, and put one hand through the slip knot. Ideally wind the belt twice around this hand. Now put your other hand through the same loops, and pull tight by trying to stretch your legs while pulling the slip knot closed. This will bind hands and feet amazingly well, leaving you utterly immobile. To escape, untie your feet (it was a simple knot wasn't it?), then keep flexing your hands and eventually they will come free. The more you struggle, the tighter the knots slip so be careful - remember that even a sharp knife will take ages to cut an obi. 

The second method involves making string handcuffs based on a noose using a one-way slip knot that I believe to be called the Jacobsen knot. These work astonishingly well when made correctly, and can be used with a combination lock to fasten your hands to something solid. 

The problem is that I face here is that the explanation really need pictures to explain adequately. I'll talk you through it as carefully as possible, so that an operation which actually takes a couple of minutes will sound much more complex. Please try to bear with me. 

Let's start by making one Jacobsen noose. For ease of explanation I will ask you to use drawing pins to fasten loosely a length of cord to a surface. This is purely to ease my explanation. Once you have made one knot you should have no more need to pin the cord down. 

Take c. 50cm of soft nylon cord, and pin it to a sheet of card so that the pinned section is c. 20cm long, and runs vertically up the card. It shouldn't be at all tight - you will need to wrap the cord around itself, so make it nice and loose. Have the rest of the cord running upwards, away from the upper drawing pin. 

Now fold the loose end of the cord to your right, down, and make it cross over the pinned section at 90 degrees so that you cord now looks like the letter P. Fold the tail back under the pinned section, below (ie towards you) the point where it first crossed, then back over and back under again (still spiralling down towards you). You should now have wrapped the loose end twice around your pinned section of cord, with the tail lying to the right (looking more like a capital R than a P now). 

Lift the tail up and away from you, and lie it down parallel to the pinned section so that it passes over the bottom arm of the loop. Now pull the tail to the left under the pinned section, and back over the top so that there are now 3 coils wound around the pinned section. Voila! Fasten the knot by pulling the loose end under the beginning of the third (most recent) coil, pull tight and remove the drawing pins. 

If you have managed to follow the instructions, you will have made a noose defined by a slip knot with 3 coils wound around the made a noose defined by a slip knot with 3 coils wound around the central axis. When you hold the knot and pull, it will slide tighter or looser with equal ease. BUT if you try to pull the noose open from inside, it will lock tight. This knot is a standard item in boys-own survival books etc: with 4 such knots you can climb a vertical, slippery rope by moving one knot at a time. 

Practice making the Jacobsen noose a few times, and make sure that there is lots of spare cord coming out of the actual knot. Note on each one that one and of the cord is a tail along which 

the knot slips, and the other comes straight out of the triple coil. Let's call this latter end the static end, since this section of string does not slip at all. When ready, make 2 such nooses and tie them tightly together by their static ends. Now practice slipping each one tight. If you have it right, the distance between the 2 knots (hence your hands - in due course) will not change. If the knots move apart as the loops tighten you fastened the wrong bits of string! When you've got it right, put one hand into each loop and pull them tight. 

This should be reasonably easy to do. Now try to pull your hands apart. The knots should lock solid, and really won't move. To escape, worry at the slip knots with your teeth until one suddenly switches to 'slide' mode. 

Now try with you hands behind your back, having first read my note above on how to escape from this position. Be careful and have fun! 

Jonathan Peters 

October 1995 

References 

Blanchard, R. & Hucker, S.J. (1991). Age, transvestism, and concurrent paraphilic activities in 117 fatal cases of autoerotic asphyxia. British Journal of Psychiatry 159, 371-377. 

Comfort, A. (1990). The Joy of Sex. 17 October 1995~0c 
 

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Contents. 

Created 12 December 1995, last updated 12 December1995, and copyright by Rob Jellinghaus.