For me, stable and informed consent is the foundation for every play, every session, and how I design my workshops.

FRIES: The Consent Model I Follow

FRIES is a consent model that comes from Planned Parenthood's sex education work. It was originally developed in the 2010s for educating young people about sexual consent.

FRIES stands for five core principles:

• Freely given: Consent is given without pressure, manipulation, or the influence of alcohol or other substances.
• Reversible: Consent can be withdrawn at any time — even in the middle of an activity.
• Informed: Consent requires that all relevant information is known and nothing important has been left out.
• Enthusiastic: Consent means a genuine, willing "yes" — not just the absence of a "no."
• Specific: Agreeing to one activity doesn't automatically mean agreeing to others.

FRIES is meant to help prevent overstepping boundaries. The model is practical and easy to apply in everyday life, and it makes clear that consent is dynamic: it has to be given again and again, and can never be assumed as final.

Consent Models in BDSM

The development of consent models like SSC, RACK, PRICK, 4C, and FRIES also reflects the development of the BDSM community itself. What was once a long-isolated and socially stigmatized scene has grown into diverse subcultures that now place greater emphasis on protection from abuse and manipulation, social inequality, intersectionality, diversity, and inclusion.

No consent model can fully protect against boundary violations. Still, these models keep evolving and offer a range of methods and perspectives to help create the best and most responsible consent possible.

Your Risk Profile

Rope bondage sessions can be intense physical and emotional experiences. Some people experience being in rope as both immobilized and at someone's mercy, and at the same time held, safe, and secure. Rope can also open up new sides of your personality and body awareness — like finding pleasure in pain or the feeling of being able to show vulnerability.

Shibari can trigger a wide range of emotions. Precisely because these experiences can be so intense, it's important to discuss the framework of a session as clearly as possible beforehand. A personal risk profile can help with that.

What Is a Risk Profile?

A risk profile describes:

• Which risks you're consciously willing to take on when tying.
• Which possible consequences you're prepared to accept.
• Which risks are off the table for you.
• Which limits and priorities apply to your current life situation.

The key question is:

What could go wrong in a session, how do I personally assess these risks, and could I accept the possible consequences?

If you're being tied, this might mean accepting bruises or rope marks as visible traces, for example. With more advanced ties, things like sore muscles, strains, tendon irritation, or nerve damage can also occur. What matters is where your personal limit of what's tolerable and acceptable lies.

This limit can shift depending on how you're feeling that day, your physical condition, your relationship, the situation, and your experience. That's why it makes sense to regularly revisit your own risk profile.

Risks in Personal Context

A risk profile doesn't look at your limits in isolation — it considers them in relation to your everyday life and personal priorities.

If you rely on fully functioning hands for work or your personal life, for example, you might decide that your hands should be given special protection while tying. If something does happen anyway, they might take priority when it comes to treatment.

This kind of context is often more helpful to another person than an isolated statement like:

My hands must not be tied.

Your risk profile can look quite different depending on your partner, the practice, and the situation. It's not a static document, but an ongoing process that's allowed to evolve as you gain new experience.

Informed Consent

Your risk profile is always based on your own conscious decision. In order to assess a risk, you first need to know that it exists and what possible consequences come with it.

That's why we talk about informed consent: if you're missing relevant information, or you don't know about an activity and its potential consequences, you can't give informed consent to it.

It's important to build awareness of possible risks. Everyone involved acknowledges that no BDSM practice is completely risk-free. That's why they should thoroughly inform themselves about the specific practice, its risks, and possible countermeasures.

This includes making sure everyone involved:

• knows their own personal limits and wishes,
• communicates risks openly,
• actively negotiates boundaries together,
• gives consent based on relevant information.

Consent to taking on risks can't be given if it's given under pressure, through manipulation, under the influence of substances, or in a situation where someone's ability to make decisions is significantly impaired.

Inclusive Rather Than Exclusive Consent

When it comes to rope, consent should be discussed as inclusively as possible. That means: before a session, you agree together on which actions, touches, and practices are allowed to happen. Anything that wasn't explicitly included stays off the table for now.

In many situations, this is clearer and safer than only defining what's not allowed to happen. Inclusive consent creates a shared framework that everyone involved can orient themselves by.

Exploring Your Own Risk Profile

Take your time and go through the following questions for yourself first.

Physical Aspects

• What medical information might be relevant for a rope session?
• Are you taking any medications, or do you have any allergies?
• Are there any injuries, chronic conditions, or physical limitations?
• Which parts of your body are especially sensitive?
• Where and how do you want to be touched — and where not?
• Are sexual interactions during rope something you're generally open to?
• What's okay for you, where, and how?
• What does "sexual" mean to you personally?

Psychological Aspects

• Are there any emotional triggers or traumatic experiences that should be taken into account?
• What feelings do you want to experience in rope?
• What feelings do you want to avoid?
• How do you feel about experiencing vulnerability, dominance, or submission in rope?
• What do you need to feel safe and self-determined during an experience like this?

Personal Limits and Wishes

• What are your physical and emotional limits?
• What practices or positions would you like to try?
• What practices or positions are off the table for you?
• How would you like to be checked in on during a session?
• What specific aftercare needs do you have after a rope session?
• What safewords, gestures, or other safety systems would you like to use?
• Would a traffic-light system work for you, for example?

Step by Step

Don't compare yourself to others. Learn to pay attention to your own perception, and take the time to reflect on your experiences together with the person tying you.

Talking with other bottoms can also help. Especially at the start, there can be a temptation to want to try everything as fast as possible. As a rule, though, it's more useful to gradually work your way toward your own limits and, if needed, save particularly challenging experiences for a later session.

Bottom-led Tying

A rope session guided by the person being tied can also help you get to know your own wishes and limits better.

In so-called bottom-led tying, the bottom sets the terms for:

• which parts of the body should be tied,
• how intense or tight the tying may be,
• which touches are wanted or unwanted,
• what changes are needed during the session.

The person tying implements these wishes while taking technical and safety-related aspects into account.

For more information on consent, communication, mindfulness, and vetting, check out our Shibari Flow magazines (links on the right).