A hidden community was discovered on the top floor of Cesar Chavez Student Center as students at San Francisco State University discussed sub-dropping, aftercare and bondage on Thursday.
Ivy Limieux, also known as the Rope Kinktress, talked with students about kinks and rope bondage. The Education and Referral Organization for Sexuality hosts this event every year, but Thursday was Limieux’s first time teaching the workshop. Approximately 30 students attended the event, which featured a PowerPoint presentation and a tutorial demonstrating how to tie knots on themselves or others using rope.
Camila Hernández, the director of EROS, wanted to make sure every attendee felt safe and supported during the workshop. At the Richard Oakes Multicultural Center, students shared their kinks and fetishes as part of a discussion led by Limieux.
“I think it just shows another example of non-normative sex and sexual practices that people can partake in,” Hernández said. “It shows a wider range of what sex can look like, rather than what is typically expected.”
Limieux presented definitions of various kinks and fetishes, while also covering consent and aftercare. In the second part of the two-hour workshop, Morgan Fleming, an intern for EROS, demonstrated along with the Rope Kinktress how to safely tie up themselves and others.
“I’ve wanted to take some sort of class in bondage before,” said Fleming, who participated in the demonstration where Limieux tied her up. “I’m looking forward to getting some hands-on experience. I am expecting to learn some communication and boundary-setting methods and practices.”
During the demonstration, Limieux wanted to make sure Fleming was comfortable and consented to be tied up and touched, albeit non-sexually.
Limieux studied and interviewed other professional dominatrixes to get a sense of how the Bay Area kink community wanted to present professional dominance. The Rope Kinktress launched their business just as the pandemic struck, while Limieux entered the community in 2010 and established their own business in 2019.
“After my divorce, I realized there was nothing holding me back, nobody that I needed to take into consideration, except for myself,” Limieux said. “As I was leaving my marriage, I was also building my website, building a brand and I was taking all the skills that I learned from working, teaching and volunteering in the community and transferring it to the professional realm.”
During The Education and Referral Organization for Sexuality the pandemic Limieux had to move their work online, which was difficult due to the emotional connections required to best do their work. On Lemieux’s website people can book a personal appointment with them. The professional dominatrix also teaches classes on various subjects in the kink and bondage community.
“There is a specific way in which people connect online that is both intimate and detached,” they said. “It’s much harder to navigate feeling out a person in the intuitive ways that you would in-person but online — because you don’t get to be next to them: touch them, feel their breathing, their body heat, and the muscle twitches that happen when you actually reach out and touch a person.”
Christian Vela, a theater arts major, came to the event to express curiosity in the hopes of learning more about the evolving kink community.
“I am a really big fan of the fetish and leather community in San Francisco. I thought it was pretty unique to have an event like this on campus with people around my age,” Vela said. “This is something that I am actually very passionate about; I’ve been to a few similar events in the city with the leather district.”
Vela said he enjoyed the event and liked that it took place on campus with students who shared similar interests, saying it felt like a safe environment.
“I’d never had hands-on experience with rope and that was pretty insightful,” Vela said. “It kinda broke a barrier for me. But I also really appreciated there being an established speaker who was open to different experience levels.”
Vela appreciated that his specific questions and concerns during the lecture and discussion were answered and addressed.
The kink community uses several methods to connect with others. Munches take place in a casual setting where people discuss their kinks and experiences in the community while eating food. When Limieux was first introduced to the kink community in 2010, they volunteered for bondage classes and events to learn more.
Students became vulnerable during the discussion, discussing moments that worked and didn’t work for them when participating in “play time.”
Apollo Easter, a psychology major, partakes in kink and bondage with their partner. Easter had a discussion with Limieux about a potential “sub-drop” during the presentation. Sub-drop is typically experienced by a submissive partner during or after an intense scene. During the aftercare section of the presentation, Easter talked about their experiences with sub-drop.
“I think that bondage and communication is always really important and I think kink and bondage — in of itself — knowing how to navigate situations is really important outside of sexual connotation, ” Easter said.
Easter said that sub-drop can happen unexpectedly during sexual interaction scenes, emphasizing the importance of post-scene check-ins in aftercare to ensure the comfort of all parties involved.
Limieux also discussed the internet as a resource for people who want to become more involved in the kink community.
Danielle Hicban, the assistant student director for EROS, is not a part of the kink community but was interested in the discussion. In the bondage section of the workshop, she was tied up by Fleming.
“When I first started learning about sex, which was way later than most people should be learning about sex, there was not really a lot of conversation about what aftercare is,” Hicban said. “I know generally what it is now, and I do aftercare with my partner, but it was nice to hear everybody talk about what aftercare looks like to them and how it might be different to everybody.”
Aftercare is the act of caring for and checking in with all parties during, before and after intense sexual intercourse or play.
The conversation about aftercare drifted into how to act as a human being outside of “play time.” According to Limieux, the kink world is always evolving and changing. While the Rope Kinktress is a professional dominatrix, they also still take classes to learn about the ever-changing community.
“The kink world that I entered into in 2010 is not the kink world that we are in right now,” Limieux said. “Approaching kink and BDSM with a curious mind is the best way to approach anyone in life, really —especially approach[ing] a kink because it is your lifelong journey to discover yourself.”
Within the community, many people prefer to keep their identities private as it can potentially lead to being fired from a job or looked down upon in social settings .
There is another perspective regarding bondage — that it relieves anxiety and makes the receiving party feel safe.
Dava Munyon attended the workshop with a friend of hers who attends SFSU. Munyon attends Oregon State University and joined the discussion with Limieux about communication and bondage releasing anxiety.
“I call myself a power bottom that is also [a] verse, but also a power bottom because I know what I like and I know what I want,” Munyo said. “ A lot of times I unfortunately can’t find somebody who can give me what I want –– which is essentially just to feel restrained.”
Munyon has anxiety and what they call an anxious attachment style, so it is comforting to them to be rooted in one place. The Oregon State University student said many people use bondage to relieve anxiety and de-stress. There is a comforting as well as a sexual feeling that is attached to bondage.
“If you’re masturbating and you want to feel like you’re restrained and you don’t have someone to do that, having the tools to know how to tie yourself is really helpful,” Munyon said.
Communication and consent were a big takeaway for Munyon, because when she first was introduced into the kink community there was a lack of communication between her and her partner. She said she felt comforted, secure and beautiful when being tied up by the rope during the event.
“Always having that conversation beforehand, and actually having a real conversation about it, is a really wonderful takeaway from this class I had today,” Munyon said. “It was a wonderful reminder of how simple and effective that can be.”
