Storage-nights bondage is safe with right steps
I’M A MARRIED gay man. I’m nervous about sending this question and my husband is afraid you might answer it.
I’m a fairly vanilla guy, while my husband is into bondage. We’ve been able to make it work because he’s into a kind of bondage he calls “storage”. On “storage nights”, I put him in bondage and play video games while he “suffers”.
So far, so good. But I worry about accidentally killing him. Most often I put him in his sleep sack—picture a leather sleeping bag you can’t get out of—which is strapped to a bondage board on the floor by our couch. I play video games for a few hours with my feet up on him. Every half-hour, I tighten the straps. Toward the end of the night, the straps are so tight he can’t move or even take a deep breath. If he doesn’t complain or ask to get out, he’s rewarded with a hand job when I’m done. We do this about twice a week. (We also have a leather straitjacket, but we use it a lot less often.)
I’m worried that he’s going to have an embolism or something because of the straps. Some go over him and around the board, pressing him down to the board, others go around his body and cinch in. The straps aren’t tight at first. But for the last hour,
they’re fairly tight, and for the last 20 or 30 minutes, they’re almost unbearably tight.
I never leave him alone. If it matters, he’s in his 40s, in great shape, normal blood pressure, et cetera. He didn’t want me to write, because he doesn’t want to find out it’s dangerous and have to stop. For the same reason, he doesn’t want to ask his doctor.
We’ve been doing this for 10 years and I haven’t killed him yet. Is there a chance I might? Can you ask a doc for me?
- Seeking Advice Concerning Kinky Dangers PS It feels crazy to say this, but “storage nights” are special couple time for us and an important part of our intimacy. I don’t want to give them up any more than he does.
“Hours-long bondage and restraint raises a few concerns,” said Dr. Seth Trueger and Dr. Ryan Marino, both doctors who specialize in emergency medical care. (They read your question and shared their thoughts in an email they composed together.) “First, however long you’re tying someone up, having some sort of safeword or action-equivalent alarm system of some kind seems prudent.”
If your husband is gagged when you store him, SACKD, a one-two-three pattern of grunts can be used in place of a safeword.
“For a mix of reasons, restraining people prone—on their belly—can be particularly dangerous,” said the docs. “We know this from both patient safety research and examples from law enforcement. That doesn’t mean tying people up on their backs is always safe, but tying someone down on their belly is worse. There’s also a known link between unexpected deaths and compromising the airway and breathing.”
So, don’t strap your husband face-down on your bondage board, don’t put anything around his neck or otherwise restrict his air intake, and if you haven’t already agreed on a safeword and/or safe grunt and/or safe gesture, settle on one and/or all now.
“Another potential risk from tight restraints would be muscle breakdown potentially causing kidney damage and electrolyte issues (rhabdomyolysis),” said the docs, “so platitudes like ‘stay hydrated’, i.e.,