January 03, 2018

Bob es uno de los mejores profesionales de bondage japonés y kinbaku en Europa, y uno de los mejores dentro de un Top Ten en todo el mundo. Me gusta mucho su pasión por el bondage, porque el bondage realmente es pasión. El bondage es la emoción de las ataduras, los sentimientos, y Bob también suma en sus trabajos esa técnica muy trabajada con las cuerdas, efectiva, estética y real.

Bob es muy bueno. ¡Es increíble! ¡Bob es uno de los mejores del bondage! Su kinbaku es asombroso. ¡Esto sí es realmente bondage japonés!. Comenzó hace treinta años. Creó su marca RopeMarks.com hace casi veinte años, y funciona realmente como una empresa. Es una empresa. Es bondage profesional. Real. Serio.

Su estilo se puede ver en muchos sitios. Se puede disfrutar de sus cursos, de sus shows, sus exhibiciones y demostraciones en muchos eventos del mundo, y nosotros estamos encantados de hacerle esta entrevista.

 

You are the best Dutch specialist in the field of Japanese rope bondage, and one of the best in the world-wide kinbaku scene. Why do you choose this technical bondage?.

What I can say is that I am doing bondage on a professional level and I think it then becomes mandatory to understand bondage on a technical level. So it's not that I choose to do technical bondage, but I do believe you need a certain technical skill-set to be able to tie rope, create a bondage, to be able to do with rope what it is that you have in mind.

You talk about Japanese bondage with so much passion. How long have you been doing bondage?.

I think without passion I would not have reached where I am now.

My fascination for rope sparked in the eighties, around my 16th, when I was browsing through the 'dirty book's in the back of the comic store. In Europe bondage was almost unknown at that time. Also there was no 'www' yet, but - thanks to my interest in computers (I have a slight geeky nature) I already had access to the internet, so I was gathering information on-line and educated myself on how to tie.

This resulted in officially founding RopeMarks in 1999. So, how long have I been doing rope? You do the math :) .

Photo: RopeMarks.com

By the way, do you speak japanese? Very good, or only "a little"? haha.

Funny you ask! I just started a course in Japanese. Right now I can read the kana's, but I'm afraid it will take a while before I can have a simple conversation, let alone to talk in depth about bondage.

What's the best part of your job?.

There is nothing about it that I don't like (it is awesome). But to name some things;

I really like meeting and working with new and fun/interesting people at special locations and events.

But this is not why I started doing bondage. It all started because I wanted to play around with the techniques of the web (remember, geeky nature) and decided to make a website.

The content just happened to be about my (then still private) bondage activities.

The "hobby" got out of control and turned into what RopeMarks is today but working with the techniques the web has to offer and create meaningful content is still a big motivation for me.

You created your website in 1999, 19 years ago! Are there many changes in the Bondage Community since your first day? Are these for good or for bad?.

A lot has changed and some is good and some could be better.

Bondage as we, now, know it is not as old as many people think. I got inspired by the first generation of Japanese riggers (i.e. Chimou Nurki, Akechi Denki, Mai Randa) and consider myself second generation. Since the late nineties internet makes it possible for everybody to quickly gather information and find like minded people and/or events, I think we are now seeing 4th generation riggers and possibly already the start of 5th generation riggers. With those I mean people that stand out from the crowd and follow their own path as opposed to people "copying" others instead of developing a own style.

The good thing about this "bondage boom" is that many people are exposed to bondage and if are able to live their kinks. Something that needs a lot of guidance from, I think, previous generation rigger, is that in the enthusiasm of these people to experience their fetish they start to run before they can walk, don't know enough about bondage-safety and accidents happen.

You have been teaching Japanese rope bondage around the globe, from Europe to the USA and Japan. Do you like travel? Do you travel alone? Is it hard to travel a lot?.

I definitely like to travel, yes. But I do not like to travel alone. Mainly because when I travel for RopeMarks to teach or perform I prefer working with people that I have introduced into my style of tying, RopeMarks Ryu, that I have adequate experience with so am able to "read" their well being from a look in their eyes, their body language, anything really.

Photo: RopeMarks.com

This level of knowledge, experience with someone makes it possible to grow and to do the most awesome bondages!

Which events did you visit recently?.

Because I live in Amsterdam, The Netherlands my main visits are to European events and the recent visits have been in The Netherlands (obviously), Italy and Germany. The thing I appreciate most is to see how different people are developing their own style and how different these styles can be per country.

What is your experience in the AnimeCon, The Hague? What were the comments and opinion of the people?

For the Dutch AnimeCon it was the first time for them organise a (RopeMarks) kinbaku workshop and demonstration. They made a space available that could hold about 80 people. When the time of our workshop and demo became closer it was very clear that more than 80 people had an interest in this topic. We finally had about 100 people in the room and had to decline entry to at least 20/30 people more. The people in room were really interested in the topic, loved the demonstration and the Q&A afterwards was filled with obvious but also very new and interesting questions.

But, if we speak of event, of course, the great BoundCon in München. You are one of the artist bondage with more experience in shows on this event. Of your first show in BoundCon, 15 years ago, right?. Tell me about BoundCon.

Well.. BoundCon is, as far as I know, the biggest bondage event in the world with around 5000 people visiting over the course of the event.

When BoundCon organized their first event I was lucky enough to be asked to participate, together with other German-national and international riggers. BoundCon is a special in that manner because of the sheer size of it there are so many international fellow-riggers and models that this is truly an international-bondage-meet-and-greet and every edition of the event turned out to be awesome in terms of people present, visitors, activities.

Specifically for a stage-artist BoundCon is special as well, it is one of the very few (only?) events where you get a real, big-sized, stage with professional music, light and accessories and to top it of 1000's of people watching. If ever there was a motivation to create a true show it is for BoundCon.

What are the requirements to be a bondage model?.

In my opinion there are no set requirements to be a bondage model, the only thing that I personally require is that the model/bunny/girl truly appreciates bondage.

Photo: RopeMarks.com

But the level of appreciation can vary depending on the type of bondage that will be done.

In essence everybody can be a model or 'rope bunny', but because I work with rope professionally I sometimes have more specific requirements. For instance, for photo shoots I usually have a rough idea of the image that I want to create and I try to find a girl that fits in this image. For workshops or shows I prefer to work with models that I have experience with, this familiarity enables me to go further in style and execution of a bondage.

How many people work with you?.

RopeMarks is an officially registered Dutch company with a registered trademark. To be a company makes moving around in the professional scene a lot easier, makes handling business-deals a lot easier, and in way I think this also one way to separates the people who do this is a hobby/fetish/kink from the people who do this professionally.

Because I do this professionally I need people to support me, it is close to impossible to do this all alone. Currently, including me, there are four people working for RopeMarks. Also, over the years I have gotten to know a number of good and trustworthy (scene) people that I work with on a regular basis. These are (freelance) fellow rigger, website owners, photographer, videographer and of-course models.

What are the typical working hours, in a bondage photo-shoots?.

When I plan photo-shoots I try to have a few rough ideas that are doable in the location that we have at our disposal and prepare as much as possible for the shoot(s) itself but also for the day. With that preparation an average shoot/set/session generally takes about two hours but very often with some creativity, on-the-spot-ideas and good vibes it is easily extended to three or four hours. A full day of shooting is between the six and eight hours (sometimes longer) and spans multiple sets/sessions/shoots.

Do you remember of your first model? How old were you? What bondage do you make in that session?.

The very first time I found a "model" was when I was eight years old and it was my cousin :-) . My very first photo-shoot was with my girlfriend at that time. It was an analogue shoot where we had to digitize/scan the photos to use them on my site and the web. The bondage was something of a hogtie-session if I remember correctly.

What is your opinion about digital piratery? What do you think about this problem?.

Stealing is stealing whether it is tangible items or digital/virtual items and should be punishable by law. It happens way to often that I see my own member-material on other websites and/or social media.

Photo: RopeMarks.com

The way the web works, including a certain anonymity makes it hard to prevent digital privacy. If I see my material I contact people to pay me for the use of my material and/or give me proper credits and if everything fails move to get their site taken down via their ISP.

Tell us a funny anecdote during one of your bondage sessions.

I'm always bloody serious…

Tell me about yourself. What are you like (extroverted, funny, nervous, shy, etc)?

I take the things I set out to do very serious but I do not take myself too serious. I make jokes and have fun with friends and the people around me, because of this people often think I'm very extrovert; I'm not perse. In new(-ish) situations I like to see which way the cat jumps before I dive in myself and I have nerdy side where I love to tinker with the soft side of computers and find solutions for technical hurdles.

What are your three greatest strengths? And your three greatest weaknesses?.

Being Dutch, driven and relaxed probably count as my greatest strengths and about weaknesses, being indecisive is definitely one of them.

What do you like doing in your free time?.

Free what?

When I have, create, free time I like to spend that with my girl, the love of my life, the sweetest, smartest, prettiest and most wonderful person I have ever come across. Also, when there are those scarce moments of free time I like to spend them with friends, see a movie or chill and binge a TV-series (mainly superhero, related, these days). I also love to read books… but there's hardly any time left for that.

Are you on Facebook / Twitter / Instagram? What is your opinion about social networks?.

I'm on social media so I exist! :-)

Having said that, I might exist a bit too much. Social media is fun and usable, but I really think there are too many platforms fighting for people's attention. Different activities benefit best from specific platforms and with the different RopeMarks activities it's a lot of work to reach and stay in touch with my target audience.

Currently I focus on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook ( Note ExoticBondage: RopeMarks1 and Bob RopeMarks ) and Fetlife.

( Note ExoticBondage - RopeMarks' platform are RopeMarks , RopeMarksRyu , ClubRopeMarks , ClubRubberRestrained and ShopRopeMarks ) .

What advice do you give to people and relationships that want to practice bondage for the first time?.

To quote Nike, "Just do it".

But, to keep your activity in focus, on Social Media people are exposed to a lot of "acrobatic-non-sexual-bondage" (by lack of a better term) and this is not bondage (in the broadest sense of the word) imvho. I would advise people to stay close themselves, learn some basics about safety and engage in fun, sexy, erotic bondage with they (play) partner.

If after these first steps the desire is there to move into the professional arena seek professional tuition and go from there.

I have to plug here… we provide professional tuition but we are also offering tuition for people's first steps into bondage, provide context and keep it real.

When can we expect the book of your story? This book will be wonderful to read.

:-) Yes… we've already published a few books and a few DVD's and them some. There is more in the pipeline but for 2018 this has moved on to the long term planning.