It has long struck me that there’s big hole in the English language when it comes to describing the two parties in bondage. Yes, we have ‘rigger’ as a word for the active party but this can get confusing as it also applies to theatrical riggers who hang up stage equipment and the like. I suppose there is ‘rope artist’but this hints at a professional involvement or a more esoteric interest in rope.
Of course, there are Japanese words like ‘nawashi’ and ‘bakushi’. Whilst I am not expert of Japanese and barely manage a dozen words, my understanding is that -shi is like -ist or maybe -er in English denoting a profession or job, e.g. therapist, dentist, teacher. ‘Nawa’ is, of course, rope, thus very literally ‘ropist’ or ‘roper’ in the sense of one who works with rope to make a living. Bakushi is a contraction of ‘kinbakushi’ (kinbaku meaning tight binding), so he is a ‘kinbaku-er’ or ‘kinbaku-ist’. The problem is these words don’t exist in English. I’m reluctant to use too many Japanese words as I speak English and an imperfect understanding always seems to end in me committing some gaff due to not appreciating certain subtleties in meaning. I’m told nawashi implies doing rope professionally but I’m not sure if the same applies to bakushi, either way I’m disinclined to adopt either term as I feel it’s a bit pretentious for westerners.
Admittedly, we could use simple BDSM designations like (rope) top/bottom but this implies, to me, an SM relationship and master slave strict D/s respectively. The trouble is they have preconceived roles attached. People can be very varied in their rope play so might not fit one of these boxes. There just aren’t names for roles that are not in some way value-loaded.
When we get onto the passive party, it becomes more contentious. Terms like ‘rope bunny’, and to a greater extent ‘rope slut’, carry very negative connotations for some and are deemed offensive. The first objection is that ‘bunny’ is demeaning in the same was as ‘bunny -girl’ or ‘chick’ might be seen to be. Like, the less flattering ‘slut’ it is very gendered. Whilst some might embrace being a ‘rope slut’, it raises the hackles of others.
This really only leaves ‘partner’ which ticks the PC boxes but doesn’t tell you who is being tied or doing the tying.This all made me think that we need non-gendered non-value loaded words to describe the parties. Taking inspiration from existing English suffixes, I was attracted to -or and -ee, as in ‘lessor’ and ‘lessee’. Hence, we have ‘bondagor’ and ‘bondagee’. Maybe ‘bondager’ is more USer-friendly, so to speak, as our trans-Atlantic cousins like to do that sort of thing to words 🙂 Which reminds me, where did they lose the ‘i’ in ‘aluminium?
Anyway, ‘bondagor/bondager’ and ‘bondagee’? Wotcha reckon?