Erotic Bondage Handbook

Jay Wiseman's Erotic Bondage Handbook.

Greenery Press, 2000.

This is a 'must have' book recommended to someone new to the lifestyle.

This book does go into is just about every bondage related thing you can think of except advanced techniques such as suspension and the art of 'Japanese bondage.'

After Jay introduces himself he goes over the basics of SM, how to meet people, what you can expect to learn, and basic safety information.

There is a whole chapter on self-bondage (tying yourself up) and the risks inherent in it.

There is also a fairly comprehensive list of different types of rope and the pros and cons of each. In the chapter "Basic Knots" he really starts getting down to the basics of learning bondage. He starts with basic terminology and explains how he will explain how to tie something. He teaches the difference between simple concepts like bight (rope is folded back on itself), simple turn, crossing turn, and round turn.

He describes that there are different stages in bondage, there is the "initial application" when the Top first applies the bondage. There is the "dressing" stage in which the Top works the rope so that everything is as they want it to be before things are tightened and there is the "setting" phase when you basically pull things tight. Some of the simple knots he goes over are the square knot, surgeons knot, granny knot, figure-eight knot, bow knot, and lark's head. He supplies a bibliography of knot books if a person is seriously into learning knots, but he stresses that someone doesn't have to know a lot of knots to do some wonderful bondage.

He goes into great detail on different kinds of bondage- including facial & genital.

All in all a great book.