Doug & Jo on Roping & #MeToo – Smart Sex, Smart Love with Dr. Joe Kort

Have you ever wondered what Roping really is? This week’s guests on Smart Sex, Smart Love are rope anarchists and kink organizers, Doug and Jo from miropes.com. Best known as experts on incorporating rope into sex and bedroom bondage, Doug and Jo chat all things bondage and #MeToo with Joe Kort, breaking the taboos and myths about sexual orientation versus erotic orientation. Typically, an illicit subject, Joe gets to the bottom of what makes rope so enjoyable, and asks, “Is rope always about sex?”

Joe Kort:              Welcome to Smart sex-Smart Love. I'm Dr. Joe Kort and today we're going to be talking to two experts in the BDSM field. Their names are Doug and Joe. Not their real names of course. They're organizers of Oakland and Macomb rope as well as m-i-r-o-p-e-s.com. As two of the founders of the Michigan Rope Expo, they've been sharing their passion and rope adventure as kink organizers for the last six years. As rope students, they are best described as rope anarchists who prefer to break down rope to its fundamentals, and then build back up into the different passions from patterns such as goat, to predicaments to how to incorporate rope into sex and bedroom bondage.

They have also presented on other topics including polyamory on behalf of the Michigan Board of Education and BDSM education alongside The Center for Relationship and Sexual Health in Royal Oak. In addition to presenting on rope, Joe is a licensed massage therapist and teaches on the healing power of touch, and both the therapeutic and kinky uses of cupping. Welcome both of you to the show.

Joe:                        Hi.

Doug:                    Thanks for having us.

Joe Kort:              Yes. So I thought before we start, I did want to ask you ... So that people know that Joe was ... Identified as female.

Joe:                        Yes.

Joe Kort:              Yes. And what is cupping?

Joe:                        Cupping is a very ancient form of massage that lifts up your skin instead of pushing it down. Literally use a suction to pull it ... Everything up.

Joe Kort:              Oh, all right. So you're using a suction cup to lift the skin?

Joe:                        Yes.

Joe Kort:              Okay.

Joe:                        So just [inaudible 00:01:37] of it, yes.

Joe Kort:              Okay.

Doug:                    Because essentially to get knots out of muscles, you can either push the knot down or you can try to pull it up.

Joe Kort:              Okay.

Doug:                    And cupping is just the pulling up.

Joe Kort:              I see. Okay, great. There's something else I read in this that I want to ask you about, but was there something I said that made you want to expand on anything in your intro?

Doug:                    I mean, we were just chuckling because I believe this is the first time we've had someone read it out loud to us [crosstalk 00:01:57].

Joe Kort:              Well I love having you here because so many people misunderstand BDSM. They misunderstand roping. Why would somebody want to do this to somebody, especially from a man to a woman? Why would a woman want to be treated this way from a man? So I thought we could cover those things. But maybe we could first start with Doug. I like your story about ... Because a lot of people think you get into this because you were traumatized. Something happened to you, you were abused. You were ... But that's not how you got into this. And I love your story about how you realized you like ropes.

Doug:                    It's not complicated in my case. I was 13. I was really horny. I was in the scouts. They handed me rope. I was tying knots.