HOW I DISCOVERED I MIGHT BE A ROPE BUNNY
(Or: The Brain Weasels Were Taking Notes Earlier Than Expected)
So apparently some people have a dramatic awakening moment.
Mine involved summer camp, a cabin, two bored kids who were supposed to be resting because we were sick, and a lot of knot knowledge floating around from various other camp activities.
Everyone else was out on the water that day, learning how to canoe.
Which meant we were left mostly unsupervised with:
too much curiosity,
too much imagination,
and absolutely no understanding that our future selves might someday look back on this and go:
“…Well THAT explains some things.”
At the time, it was mostly innocent childhood experimentation and mischief.
We were already chaos goblins, and both knew it. But somewhere in the middle of all the knots, laughter, trust, and “what happens if we try this?” my brain apparently filed away a very important note for future reference.
Not consciously.
Not sexually, really at all.
More like:
“Hmm. This feeling is unexpectedly interesting.”
Which was especially strange because I am somewhat claustrophobic, and not being able to find a way out of things can be very … triggery … for me.
Sort of like my weighted blanket, in fact.
“What I remember most clearly now is not sexuality, but the unexpected feeling of trust, restraint, vulnerability, and emotional safety.”
And then that file sat in storage for decades while the rest of my personality developed around it like ivy around a fencepost.
For years I misremembered the story as:
“I tied someone up at camp.”
And misremembered it for decades — that was a scout camp.
And it wasn’t me tying someone else up.
I can distinctly remember being there, with my arms tied behind my back, and being on my back.
My legs and knees getting bound and raised, and secured, holding them in that position.
And then — the huge surprise of a hand smacking me on my bottom.
My head jerked forward and my eyes got large and I might have made some kind of startled sound.
I was not expecting that.
I don’t know what I was expecting.
But I certainly wasn’t expecting it to feel… pleasant.
It certainly never felt pleasant when I got spankings at home.
I’m pretty certain that those were meant to. They were intended as punishments, as were such things in the 1950s and 60s.
This one? 60+ years later… I still don’t know WTF was meant by it.
I just know that it felt very different and that that connection with being restrained by ropes sort of went together much later in my life when I began playing around with such ideas as an adult.
