A New Hope: Our Strange Fascination With Rope

Burt Lancaster in "Rope of Sand", 1947

   Crazed week, short post, all about rope.  Because rope is a bit unsung these days. Too bad, too, because without rope, there would be a sad hole in the fabric of our pop culture references tapestry. Not to mention our language, which is fraught with figurative expressions like "on the ropes" and  "roped in." Suffice it to say, rope is dope, and this is our brief, but heartfelt tribute to it.
  Okay, depending on which dictionary you consult, rope was either invented by a German named Robert Gostop in the early 1800s (how it that possible?) or is one of those things "whose origins are lost in the mist of time." But it's probably a safe bet that rope has been around a lot longer than duct tape or velcro. As have those rope-based expression that pepper our daily verbal exchanges. One of those expressions is Rope Of Sand, which also happens to be the title of a 1948 adventure noir starring Burt "Elmer Gantry" Lancaster as Mike Davis, a  hunting guide tortured and abused by the North African mining firm who has hired him to scout out new diamond mines. The rope reference comes into play when Davis stumbles across a new diamond mine and decides to keep its whereabouts to himself, as retaliation for the horrible treatment he has received at the hands of his bosses. Naturally, they try to torture it out of him, thereby making it clear the relationship between the mining company and Lancaster's character is a "rope of sand", which Definitions Online defines as "something of no cohesion or fiber; a feeble union or tie; something not to be relied upon."

All Star Cast ropes in the raves

 The same cannot be said of our next rope-related reference, which, we are pleased to inform you, is the much maligned and always joke-worthy "soap on a rope." Yeah, you've owned some. So has almost everyone you know. Memories of middle-class American Christmases are littered with boxes containing soap on a rope shaped like baseballs, golf balls and soccer balls, gifts bestowed upon husbands and fathers who may never use them, who, at the most, will hang their new acquisition in the shower and forget to even notice it when they reach for the shower gel.

The gift that just keeps on being ignored

Soap on a rope, standard issue

Around your neck? Really, dude?



Oh, the hours of fun you'll have with this

Proof that soap,on a rope is dope...y.

    It won't be until that last squirt of shower gel hits the shower wall that the soap on the rope is actually used. But can you blame the poor sod for waiting? Soap on a rope is pretty much the hygienic equivalent of mittens on idiot strings. A good idea that you don't want to utilize. Fortunately, not all soap on a rope is created equal. Shower stalls have always served as potential portals to sexual misconduct (not necessarily a negative thing), but spend ten seconds researching "soap on a rope" online and your eyes will soon be stinging from looking at images like this and this and even this. In fact, the only anatomically-shaped soap on a rope image we dare to show you here on this post is this one....

      Scrubbing away your sweat with breast-shaped soap. On a rope. This is what separates us from the animals. This...and, well, perhaps a few other things, another one of which is tied closely to the use of rope. (Pun was actually not intended, honest to God. Sometimes it just happens.) But back to the rope.....

A nawashi demonstrates her rope technique

   Of all the things there are to eat in the world that we can actually stand, Japanese food is close to the top of the list. In fact, we're pretty much enamored of Japanese culture in general, including the ancient art of erotic rope bondage. For the record, Japanese rope bondage has about as much to do with S & M style bondage as real women have to do with plastic blow-up dolls. It's closer to Tantric sex, another ancient sexual art form that, if done properly, allows the participants to transcend mere sex and achieve a connection on a truly spiritual level. 

Sex as an art form: positioning is everything

  In Japanese rope bondage, the woman's body is treated as a canvas, a malleable one to be positioned and  bound as a means of enhancing the sexual experience on both an artistic and emotional level. Unlike garden variety bondage, Japanese rope sex often addresses various parts of the body separately, such as the hands, the breasts, sometimes just the genital area alone, creating a unique, specialized experience that allows the participants to explore the effects of putting pressure on those specific regions. It's not unusual for hardcore practicioners of the art to wear their bonds underneath their everyday clothes prior to the sexual interaction itself, thus heightening anticipation and bringing an emotional content to the experience that gives the sexual act an entirely new dimension.

Japanese rope sex addresses all aspects of the bondage experience,
exploring fear, pleasure, pain and sensuality as separate components
of a spiritual and sexual whole.

Pain and pleasure are closely aligned in Japanese  rope sex.

Beauty in bondage, eroticism in
exploring new roles

Bound to enjoy

Japanese rope sex: a binding experience from head to toe

   Japanese rope bondage isn't for everyone, of course.  The fear and uncertainty and primal emotions that characterize the ancient sexual art form serve as an aphorodesiac for some, but for other, the thought of opening themselves to such an experience is enough to keep them from ever uncoiling that rope they've been keeping in the cellar all this time.
   But that's how it goes. One man's trash is another man's treasure. One woman's pleasure is another woman's pain. And when it comes to rope, there's more than one way to tie a knot.