The Bondage Shoot Disaster

We photographed a model a few weeks back. She was a lovely girl. Most of the shoot was art-nude, but it had been pre-arranged to shoot a bit of bondage at the end of the shoot, with me in that part of the shoot as well. She was happy to do this. She had shot bondage before, and had no problem with shooting this style again.
So far, so good.

The art-nude part of the shoot went really well, although Rich has yet to finish the pictures. The bondage part of the shoot also went well, or so it seemed initially. We didn’t do anything outrageous, just tying her ankles to a chair (very loosely – easily a couple of fingers width between ankle and chair), and her arms tied loosely above her head, and the rope looped over a hook on the ceiling. She mostly held the rope, so she could govern how high she lifted her arms. That was the extent of it. No other gags, or blindfolds or anything like that. All the time Rich was saying “Are you O.K. with this, are you sure? Please stop if you aren’t comfortable with this in any way”, to which she replied, “No, no I’m fine”. But I noticed her face was tense. She looked unhappy. Again I checked, “Are you sure you are O.K.? We can stop this if you’re not happy” Again, “No problem”.

So we persevered. I was present at the shoot, to make sure everything was O.K, and position and hold the rope occasionally. Rich had the idea that I dressed in costume – a zentai suit, part of the anonymous zentai series that Richard is shooting. She was O.K. with this (we checked). But then at the end of the shoot, when I took off my mask so I could see (I was blind as a bat before then), and I helped untie her, that she practically tore at the ropes to get them off. We worked quickly, and removed them within a few seconds. And then the crunch came. I noticed that she looked pretty grim – her mouth was set and looked unhappy, and then I saw that she discreetly wiped tears from her eyes, when she was getting dressed.
I asked if she was O.K. “Fine” she said. And she stayed for a while afterwards, and had some lunch and a good ol’ chat as we always do with models and photographers who visit. And we parted on good terms. She loved the photos.

No harm done. Right ?

Wrong.

Since the shoot, I have been extremely upset, unable to sleep or eat properly. An emotional mess.

I feel terrible. I can’t bear the idea of the fear I saw in her eyes when I took off the mask. I have rejected bondage completely (previously I thought it was a bit of fun). I’m a gentle soul really – I can’t bear the idea of causing harm to another living thing, let alone a person. I feel horribly guilty at making someone cry, putting someone outside their personal comfort zone. I don’t mind play acting, or creating Art, but when it gets too “real” and the submissiveness and upset is genuine, then I can’t handle it. I looked into her eyes and saw myself, 20 years ago, scared and abused by my then-boyfriend. It brought back the pain, the anguish, the guilt. Horrible, really horrible. I thought I had forgotten it, but that moment dredged the whole lot back up again.

Poor Rich has been patient, comforting, despairing and finally annoyed with me. He says “She’s O.K. She consented to do that. We checked before, during and after the shoot that she was O.K. with it” Obviously he was upset that she wasn’t happy, but he says that we did all that we could, and we weren’t to know that she had issues. Plus he says that she could have stopped at any point she was upset – we made that very clear. He says I’m projecting her upset onto me.

He’s right of course. He usually is.

Some folks are going to think that I should get therapy for the events of 20 years ago. The thing is, I made my peace with my past a long time ago. I am healed, or at least as much as anyone can be after something like that. Regarding the shoot of a few weeks ago, I know it’s not my fault that the model wasn’t completely honest with herself or us about how she felt, and I know she may have private issues of her own. She’s a lovely girl, and very professional, but that still doesn’t stop me acting irrationally and feeling bad about what happened.

Currently I’m in a bit of an emotional pickle. The experience (my first joint bondage shoot) was ultimately a total disaster, and it’s put me off bondage for a while. I don’t want to limit Rich’s Art, but simultaneously I don’t want him to shoot any bondage in the near future either. At the moment, I can’t even look at the images from the shoot.

Rich is exasperated, completely understandably. He’s got lots of cool ideas for shoots, and I’m rejecting the whole bondage thing. We are going in separate directions.

I think I’ll be fine, but I need to shoot some more romantic “fluffy” bondage, with an experienced bondage model, whom I know and trust– something a bit lighter and happier, so I can regain my confidence in the whole thing, rather than dredging up the past. I need to have some fun with it, otherwise I’m not going to get past this experience.

This post is not to gain sympathy in any way from you guys, it’s simply by way of explaining what’s been going on in the last few weeks, and why I’ve been a bit quiet.

Of course, I’m a novice model at this sort of thing. Two novices at bondage, plus operating outside personal comfort zones = emotional disaster.

Sigh.

We’re still learning.




Roswell Ivory, a nice happy, glossy latex piccie, which always cheers me up :-)