Starting at the beginning: What is rope bondage? 

Rope bondage is often thought of an aspect of the bondage part of “BDSM” — an acronym that combines B&D (Bondage and Discipline), D/s (Dominance and Submission), and S&M (Sadism and Masochism) into a single umbrella term. For many, BDSM is often assumed to involve overt sex, but this is not always true. While sexuality and eroticism often are incorporated into BDSM, they are not an inherent part of it. The same is true for rope bondage.

People may be interested in rope for many reasons:

• The desire to restrain someone or be restrained for the sake of sexual gratification.
• The desire to restrain someone or be restrained with some other kinky activity in mind.
• An attraction to its artistic or visual appeal.
• The desire to have a fun and useful skill.

There is nothing wrong with BDSM or rope bondage done with sexual overtones/activities in mind. However, it is important to understand that just because you might want to do rope bondage or some other BDSM activity with someone, that does not imply that you want to have any type of sexual activity with them, nor they with you.

Consent to do rope is not consent to participate in sexual activity. If you are interested in trying rope with someone, talk to them, find out what they want and need out of it, and come to an agreement about what you each are willing to do. If you want to do more to/with them while they are in rope, talk about that specifically and agree to all those details beforehand. More on this when we talk about negotiation.