I want to start off by saying that The Ultimate Guide to Bondage: Creating Intimacy Through the Art of Restraint is a really excellent book. If somebody asked me what I would want from a book about bondage, I’d probably come up with something like this.
Most of the bondage books I’ve read before have been more technique and tutorial focused, and while there is some inclusion of bondage technique in this book (including in ways I wouldn’t have thought of!) a lot of attention is paid to discussing context, terminology, and theory. It’s actually not until page 72 that we even get a first tutorial here, and while that might frustrate people looking for a more tutorial focused book, I really love it! The author—Mistress Couple—isn’t afraid to spend time at the start of this book not just giving definitions of particular words, but really discussing the concepts involved in BDSM.
I also really appreciate that Mistress Couple doesn’t shy away from some of the more complicated issues around BDSM language, power dynamics, and the ways in which the two are impacted by the world outside the dungeon. In particular, she openly discusses the fact that ‘bondage’ as a term has a history heavily intertwined with slavery and incarceration, that privilege does impact how we engage with erotic bondage (including having the freedom to do it in the first place!), and the fact that marginalised groups often come to the dungeon different experiences with sexual objectification. As I grow and learn within BDSM, discussing issues with this level of openness and nuance is something I increasingly value and care for, and I really appreciate the thoroughness with which these discussions are included!
Rope is my main medium for bondage play, as well as one of the ones most often discussed within BDSM literature, but The Ultimate Guide to Bondage covers plenty of other methods alongside it, including some I hadn’t thought of as types of bondage before. There’s chapters on rope bondage, device bondage (think specific tools like cuffs), mental bondage (such as position training), objectification bondage, costume bondage, sensation bondage, fetish bondage, and sensory deprivation. There’s also additional chapters focusing specifically on physically stressful kinds of bondage and self-bondage, with a focus on safety concerns and ways to mitigate some of these risks, although Mistress Couple does emphasise in person teaching for things like suspension. Each chapter on a ‘flavour’ of bondage also includes thematically appropriate tutorials, which I really like! They work really well as a demonstration of how to apply theory in a practical way, and while they’re not all useful or interesting to me, they’re really cool as jumping off points. I also appreciate the diversity of bodies in the photographs for these tutorials—something that always draws my ire in shibari spaces is the frequency with which only petite able bodied cis women are depicted as bottoms. Instead, the models here vary in body shape, gender, presentation, race, size, and more.
That said, the practical sections are very short. While this means The Ultimate Guide to Bondage works really well for me, as a rigger/player who mostly learns in person and is looking for literature to support already existing practical knowlege, I think if you’re coming to this as a total bondage newbie, you might be disappointed. It feels aimed at an audience who have more than a casual interest in bondage, which makes sense given the ‘ultimate’ in the title, but I feel could be frustrating for those looking for a more practical guide. For what it’s worth, the book didn’t at all feel incompletely to me, and I agree with her argument that more advanced moves should be taught in person by a mentor.
Overall, I can’t recommend The Ultimate Guide to Bondage: Creating Intimacy Through the Art of Restraint enough. It’s beautifully written, expansive, and approaches the subject of bondage in an almost holistic kind of way. While Cleis Press did provide me with a digital copy of the book for review, I’m actually planning on buying myself a hard copy for my library, and if that’s not praise I don’t know what is!
A copy of this book was sent to me by Cleis Press, in return for a fair and impartial review. No affiliate links were used in this post.
