Bondage Positions: Best Bondage Positions for Kink

One of the most annoying things when planning kinky sex, BDSM, or a bondage scene, is realizing you don’t know which bondage positions to use for what you have planned.

In order to prevent that from happening, I’ve decided to help you out, by creating a simple guide to the BEST bondage positions for sex and BDSM!

I’ll cover the advantages and disadvantages of each position, and also the feelings which each bondage position tends to create – this is really helpful so you know how you’ll be affecting the person you’re playing with.

Note: All the information and how-to for the ties used here can be found in Rope Bondage The Smart Way – basically a giant notebook designed to help you learn and use rope bondage for hot times as fast as possible.

The bondage rope used in this post is sourced primarily from Twisted Monk.

We’ll cover bondage positions involving the arms, and then move on to the positions for the legs later.

There are also a couple of variants for people with limited flexibility!

Bondage Positions For The Arms

Wrists Tied In Front:

Feelings: Only slight sense of vulnerability. Generally, most rope bottoms consider this position to be very light bondage play. 

However, if you are holding the end of the line attached to the wrist tie, it creates a sense of being led, controlled. That can be quite useful. It then inspires feelings of submission and having given power to someone else.

This is because you’re still demonstrating power through moving their wrists and arms around, rather than them doing it themselves. 

Notes: As stated, this is pretty small game in terms of power play. However, the advantage is that it’s VERY useful for first introducing someone to bondage and being tied the first time. You want to start light. For a first timer, even this can feel quite intense.

This bondage position is ALSO good for control/dominance/submission games, when you use it as a lead or leash, or for having your person perform tasks in bondage – leaves them just enough mobility to do things for you 🙂

Wrists Tied Behind

Feelings: More intense vulnerability and helplessness. 

The great advantage to bondage positions where the hands are tied behind the person’s body is that it generally creates a feeling of having had a significant amount of their power taken away. Thus it makes for a more intense experience.

This is basically the reason we tend to tie hands first, or don’t feel that a person is truly “bound” unless their hands are removed from play; because there is so much power and efficacy in your hands and arms. 

When tying hands behind the back, it’s safest to do it with wrists facing each other.

This protects nerves, tendons, and blood vessels from the pressure of the rope.

When using the above bondage position, you can place someone on their back if they’re on a soft surface e.g. a bed; it’s not particularly comfortable on a hard surface. Sometimes you can prop a pillow beneath them to create more space between their back and the bed.

Including The Elbows

Feelings:  Female: Sexually objectified. Male: Where the hell did my upper body strength go? Helplessness, restrained, powerless.  

Notes: Any time you tie the elbows, you have to adjust the space between them to suit the person you’re tying, due to a huge range in flexibility between different people. Lots of people can’t really have their elbows tied at all.

Another important note is to tie above or below the elbows, not actually on the elbows. 

When you do tie elbows, you significantly reduce the person’s arm movement and leverage. That takes away a LOT of power.  It also makes a person push their chest out in front, which is very fun. Because breasts. Or in the case of men, manly chests. 

Tying the elbows behind someone’s back makes it very difficult for them to get the leverage to escape rope. That’s VERY handy in terms of choosing your bondage positions.

You can sometimes then go to tie a person’s wrists in front of them as well; this effectively locks their arms around their torso, and makes them look as if they’re in a pose of graceful servitude. That can be very fun for D/s purposes or just creating a lovely aesthetic. 

Disadvantages: For a lot of people, having their elbows tied can only last for a certain length of time. It’s not uncommon for them to have some shoulder aches and pains afterward; stretching beforehand is highly recommended. 

Suggested means: here, I’ve used the same armbinder as I show how to make in Rope Bondage The Smart Way. It’s probably my favorite way to do elbows and wrists at once.

Hands Behind The Neck

The advantage of tying hands behind neck is you can then have someone on their back, front, or standing, without having their front or back obscured by the arms. 

Typically you’ll use a two column tie, and often some other fancy stuff with the tails of the rope left afterwards.

You can wrap the tail of the rope leftover from the two column tie across their face to create a gag, or take it further down their back and do a quick column tie around their torso to anchor their hands in place. Then if you have still MORE rope left after, you can do some extra wrapping around arms for more bondage!

The feelings created are similar to someone with their hands tied behind their back – only with some differences in what you can do with them.

The disadvantage is that the arms CAN place a little more pressure on the head and neck in this position, particularly for people with limited mobility.

For this reason, it’s often a good idea to limit the amount of time the person spends in this position, and to check in regularly – the same as you would be doing otherwise.

Hands Tied Together Above Head

Feelings: Considerable vulnerability and helplessness. Some sense of support from having the rope tied off to a fixed point. 

This is my absolute favorite bondage position and it is very, very useful, for just about everything. It’s easiest and safest to do with someone lying on a bed or whatever parallel surface, but also works really well for someone standing with their wrists tied above their head to a rafter or a fixed point of some sort.

Advantages: The best part about this bondage position is that you make a person feel quite helpless; they can’t use their hands and arms to stop you from doing anything, and you have SO much access to their whole front and back of body, which is helpful no matter what you’re doing.

If they’re lying on a bed, you can flip them from their back to their front without untying their wrists at all; and that’s pure gold in a bedroom bondage situation. 

Disadvantages: Pretty much only exist if someone has weak wrists. Even then, you can make the tie more comfortable and supportive by simply adding more wraps. 

Suggested means: Double column tie, with enough length left in your rope to tie off to something. I have a chain attached to the head of my bed base (no headboard), which I’ve padlocked to two fixed points. I reach down, pull up the chain, and tie my rope off to it at any point along the head of my bed.

Two Positions For Limited Mobility

Wrists Tied To Legs

Advantages: This bondage position is a great one for if the person being tied up has some kind of flexibility issue and you can’t get hands tied either behind back, or behind head. Their wrists can still be very well restrained, particularly if you use well cinched double column ties. 

Feelings: This one is oddly neutral in terms of vulnerability – the hands are restrained, but every time I’ve seen a bottom tied like this they seem to have a strong belief that they can get their hands out. The position just doesn’t seem to inspire that much of a strong emotional reaction. 

In terms of sexuality though, the rope placed around the top of the thigh sort of frames that area, and that’s quite handy.

The process of tying the hands to the upper thighs means the bottom is made very much aware of that area as the rope is wrapped around it. 

They’re also very aware that you’ll have no issues moving their legs to closed or open as you like,.

Disadvantages: The rope bottom may actually have some reason for their belief in being able to get their wrists out; they have a lot of leverage in that position, and rope tends to stretch and slacken over time. 

To create more difficulty in escaping, I suggest placing a band of rope (really big single column tie) across the torso and the lower part of the upper arms, just above the elbow.

This anchors the elbows more tightly against the torso, making it harder for the elbows to move outwards and create additional leverage to pull those hands out through the wrist tie.

If you can cinch that band somehow between arms and torso, that’s even better – though it’s likely that you’ll have difficulty finding the space to do so. Have fun experimenting!
Suggested means: Double column ties.

Wings!

This is another great one for people with restricted flexibility.

The idea here is to tie the wrists to the upper arms, turning arms into “wings”. Here I’ve used a lot of reinforcing wraps.

Feelings: Almost a sense of embarrassed vulnerability (I’ve heard people refer to feeling like their arms look like “chicken wings”).

It’s a weird mix of losing the power inherent in wrists and hands while still being able to move the arms around (unless they’re tied down to a fixed point). Still inspires some degree of helplessness though, and often adds a mix of frustration/embarrassment to the play. 

Notes: This is a good way to mess with people. It adds the possibility of a bit more struggling, teasing, and frustration into the mix.

Once you’re done with that, you can then tie the person’s doubled arms back to something so that their “wings” are now spread open, and you can easily access their face/chest without them being able to move. It’s like taking their power away a bit at a time, instead of all at once. That can be very fun. This sort of play is good fun with brats, people who enjoy struggling, and people who enjoy that kind of frustration (and yes, they exist).

And For The Legs…

Honestly, there’s much less useful variation here. There are about three useful bondage positions for the legs, which saves a lot of time in deciding which to use.

Legs Tied Together

Feelings: Pretty much all about the restraint and immobility. Can’t run away, can’t separate legs. Some degree of sexual objectification is still readily available – there isn’t quite the same feeling of exposure as when you can separate the legs though. 

Notes: The feelings created by this tie tend to be pretty similar whether you use a simple double column tie around the ankles, or whether you use an elaborate lacing or laddering technique similar to that shown in How To Tie an Armbinder, or shown in the Satin Robe extra at the end of Rope Bondage The Smart Way. It’s all about restraint and immobility, which can be very useful for scary scenes, role plays, etc. 

However, if you use a simple double column tie around the ankles, they have the ability to move a lot more by bending at the knees, and that is sometimes a good thing. Sometimes the simplest ties are the most useful and effective. 

With your people who relax into rope bondage, they may find the additional wraps of laddering to almost feel like a “cocoon” which can be very interesting if you want to induce a relaxed, submissive, compliant state. 

Sexual access is still very possible; with females it requires slightly more work and positioning (e.g. playing from behind, coming up from between the bent knees if they’re tied at the ankles) but with males it’s still reasonably simple, whether they’re into intercourse or insertables. 

Suggested means: double column ties or laddering/lacing techniques. 

Legs Doubled: Also Known as a Frog Tie

Feelings: Submission, restraint, immobility; with your legs tied closed you can’t run away or escape.

Being tied into a kneeling position is also absolutely fascinating in terms of what it does to a person’s headspace. They also become very, very aware of restricted movement and vulnerability to whatever the other person has in mind. 

I’ve noticed that it also tends to make a person feel super submissive.

Notes: Out of the available bondage positions for the legs, this one is my absolute favorite. There are SO many good applications for this position and tie.

Making someone kneel for extended periods for D/s scenes, simply immobilizing someone in place so they can’t run away, tying them on a bed for sexual consensual non-consent purposes… it’s just wonderful.

For sexual purposes, the legs can be separated to access whatever parts you might want to. You can place someone on their back with their legs bound like this, leave them kneeling with torso upright, or have them bow forward. There’s a lot they can still do for you.

There is a lot you can do with that position, from anything sexual, to all your other varied BDSM applications.

Disadvantages: if you want to move them to another location, either you pick them up and carry them, or it’s going to take a while. You could always make them do an “awkward shuffle” if you’re into making things challenging for people. 

Legs Tied Apart And Spread-Eagled

Feelings: Absolute immobility, restraint, helplessness, exposure. Possibly the most classic bondage position, but also the position that induces the greatest degree of helplessness and immobility. 

Notes: This one is very very good for having almost complete access to either side of the body. The bottom has little to no power at all like this – it works really, really well for sensation play, wax play (if you’ve got a drop sheet beneath them), sex, etc. 

Because of the huge degree of helplessness, there’s a significant increase to the intensity of almost anything you do; that’s something to be aware of. You may not want to do this to a bondage newbie – you may find it more useful to build up to that instead. 

This works best on a bed or flat surface; you can do it standing up, but you can’t do it for as long, and there are likely to be some balance issues. The more a person can move their legs while standing up, (adjust weight, relieve strain, etc.,) the longer they can do so; but this tie tends to prevent that. 

Conversely, if you want to terrify the hell out of someone, this is probably the position you want to use. 

Disadvantages: In some respects, this one of my LEAST favorite bondage positions.

If you want to flip the person over or change position, you have a lot of untying and maneuvering around to do. That can be a real pain in the ass. If you’re into feeling interaction and movement from your partner, this is also probably not the position for you. 

Suggested Means: Single column ties around each limb, the long working end of the rope tied off to fixed points. I highly recommend the Pete Riggs “Quick Fix” tie off. That’s because if something happens (earthquake, etc.), you really want to get some of those limbs untied quickly.

Wrists To Ankles: Full Body Bondage Position

Feelings: This one is actually really good for creating feelings of sexual exposure; the emphasis is really all about how you can separate the legs (all at once or gradually) and you can have a lot of fun with that. 

Notes: Very much a bedroom kind of position and tie; not too bad for consensual non-consent scenarios “play rape” etc.

You can easily move a person onto their back, or roll them onto their front, and the degree of sexual availability is tremendous. You can also add a chest harness or something else if you want to attach ropes to the outside of your two column ties; then slowly lever those legs open in a more cruel, prolonged sort of fashion – adds to the anticipation and also the intensity of the play. 

Disadvantages: Your person will stay in that sort of “hunched position” – over time they may develop soreness in their back or strain in their arms depending on their individual proportions. 

Suggested means: Multiple double column ties. One at the wrist/ankles, and one further up, on forearm and just below the knee, to make it more restrictive. Using a bit of laddering technique is not a bad idea either, if you prefer that. Use good cinching to prevent easy escape.

That pretty much covers the “best of” the available bondage positions that can be used in kink and BDSM.

Other positions can be found, of course, but you’ll find that most are variants of what you’ve seen here.

Hey, I hope you’ve found all of this useful! I really enjoyed putting it together for you 😀

If you’re keen on learning more about combining bondage, sex, kink and BDSM, then everything you need can be found in Rope Bondage The Smart Way, an Ebook designed to help you learn and use rope bondage for hot times as fast as possible.