What is your favorite gag?

Gags for me are even more important than restraint for making a damsel completely helpless. The tightest and most devilish hogtie conceivable is nothing against a scissors-toting roommate just one shout away. That's why it's important to make a gag not only effective but challenging. The more a damsel has to deal with wearing a gag the less she'll be able to struggle. She can try to yell but opening her mouth lets that bit gag sink even deeper and pry open her mouth even more. She can try to scream but all that mouth-packing held in by gauze makes it hard enough to breath. She can try to shout but then all the drool backed up behind that huge ballgag will spill out all over her bare breasts.

A challenging gag presents a damsel with both limitations as well as choices. She can struggle but when you can only breath through your nostrils you run out of breath very quickly. She can scream but not too loudly because there's so much drool and packing in her mouth she needs her tongue to push it away from her throat. The poor girl has to fight both the physical demands of the gag as well as the mental demands. Their mouths are pried open, their lips are sealed and their faces are encased. It's often far more uncomfortable than even 500 feet of rope. I've had people tied into pretzels but it's always the gag they want out first when it's all over.

My own gag preferences have evolved over the years. I still find it amusing that I used to hate ballgags. Now nobody gets through the door without having one popped into their mouth. Layering is my favorite thing now. Ballgag a damsel, tape over it, gauze over that ... the more the better. If a gal keeps saying something and I reply, "What?" over and over I know the gag is done right. And there's just something about the struggling you get when a damsel knows it's the real deal and not a simple ballgag. A model told me that when you can't breath through your mouth or swallow your drool you want it to be over. You don't know if you can bear having the gag taken off and then put back on again so you just keep wiggling hoping that the next thing the rigger says is, "got it, lets get you out of that." Of course, they wiggle a lot longer than they'd hope!

The image is from Kendra James in I Can't Get Away If You Tie Me Up Tight!

Where did she go?

So many people waft in and out of the business. It's no different that any other business, but I've worked with people that just model for a month. For that matter, I've heard of people leave after their first shoot. I can't really blame them though. You think it's one thing and then you get the ropes on and you decide that going back to school isn't such a bad idea! Then there are people that cycle in and out.

I met Renee years ago when I was shooting stock photography for comic books. She had never shot bondage before but had done some wrestling videos. I remember laughing to myself because she said the idea of being tied up seemed a bit rough but had already told me she'd done a dozen or so female wrestling videos where breast punching was involved. Call me crazy but I'd go for jacked restraint over getting punched in the Jimmy a dozen times. Regardless, after several emails we had our first shoot set up and ready to go, and it went great. Not only did her elbows touch, but she felt is was much less rough than she had originally thought. The material looked great, she was a great wiggler and the camera loved her. I immediately signed her up for a second shoot with video.

Then she disappeared. Well, she didn't disappear, but she worked under a manager (I can picture all the producers out there rolling their eyes) and they parted ways. And so our second shoot was foiled. To my surprise, I sent her an email just to touch bases about two years later and a shoot was back on courtesy of her new manager lol. Manager or no, we had two more shoots with some fun video. My style back then was based on cuts to provide drama and minimal moving camera work, mostly due to a crap motion sensor on my camcorder. I sometimes go back to that style because it really does make for good drama. I also tended to add more story to the shooting, so Renee got to play the part of a model that continually promises a bondage shoot but never comes through. Unfortunately this tactic only works so long before she becomes an Unwilling Bondage Model.

All Tied Elbows Are Not Equal

I know that everyone has a liking for different ties, and I myself like a large variety of restraints. I don't mind if someone's elbows don't touch as long as it looks tight. You can see when someone has them back there as much as they'll go, the shoulder shape and the slight color change always give things away. I do have to admit though that I find nothing cooler than when elbows touch. From an artistic standpoint there is a symmetry that is visually appealing. From a rat bastard point of view there is just utter helplessness there. When the elbows are tied touching you lose so much mobility. You can't twist your arms, bending is severely limited and the hands can only do so much. Love it!

All elbows are not equal though even when they do touch. Some people have great flexibly which allows their elbows to touch. Every so often you run into someone who's elbows just plain touch and by this I mean no tugging, no cinching of the rope or any external force is necessary. What does a rigger do in this case. You crush them of course. I'm not talking pain or damage or being an irresponsible ass. I'm talking about arms so close together there are no gaps and no spacing; skin touches skins from wrist to elbow. Holy crap it's a nice thing to work with I'll tell you.

I had the pleasure of working with Victoria Ashely on a video I called Date With Welded Elbows now up on my store. I plan on putting up several screen shots at www.tedmichaels.com very soon! The first shoot almost didn't happen because she got lost, but I drove out to lead her to the shoot when she got twisted around. I told her to put her arms behind her back when the first set was going and to my amazement they just touched. No ropes, no help from me ... just two unbound arms side by side. I couldn't believe it.

We did two shoots over the next two weeks and those elbows were welded 90% of the time!

Old treasures shine just as much!

Yesterday I spoke of going through the archives of material from a decade of shooting. The best decision I made ten years ago was to drop a grand on a DV camera. When everyone was shooting VHS and Hi-8 I was shooting material that holds up to a lot of the cameras today. If you can show me a VHS or Hi-8 that can be published as a 720x480 clip with no downgrade in resolution, then you can convince me otherwise.

Glamour models that discovered they liked bondage, a porn model that decided that rough oral was easier to do than my rigging, countless girls-next-door that never knew their elbows touched, models nobody has footage of but yours truly, capture sequences, vibrator sequences and full mini-movies going years back. I thought what I'd shot the last couple of years was a gold mine, but the mountain under that is just as shiny!

And so it is that I give you Ivy. She had done some mild bondage, had refused to work with some other producers and agreed to work with me because she was close and needed a content trade. I remember vividly that she changed when the ropes started going on and became very submissive. I had her elbows crunched, and she didn't care. By the time we shot a second time, I had her breasts bound and a vibrator in her crotchrope ... she progressed quickly! I'll hold onto that one for a little while though to see how her first clip, Ivy in Roped and Groped Glamor Gal, does.

Suckin' hind wind

If you're not from my part of the country the title probably doesn't mean much too you. If you are then you know it means being way behind in the race, the race today being my task list. I've gotten a lot done but nothing from my primary list. I guess I should be happy finding a spun aluminum pole with no wobble for the post-tie rig and coming up with a no-marring fastening system that relies about 3 bucks in hardware. I had hoped to be working on some RM versions of clips based on a request from a frequent customer (why RM I don't know, the quality is such bleh). The customer is always right thought, so he'll get his wish.

I'm also way behind for my clips for today, but I did get some work done on my first video release. I don't have a name, but it focuses on 3 gals with ample breasts, so don't be surprised if it has "Busty" somewhere in the title. The first gal will be Kerri Taylor who I work with often and appears multiple times on my clip store. Her work on Chesty and Chairtied is the update today which will also appear in all it's 1080p, hi-res glory on the first video over at C4S when it's ready. I'm thinking of adding a bosomy blond and the wonderful JJ Plush as well. Time will tell!

Before that though it's back to the pole tie rig for the custom shoot where Angelique Kitos will appear as a plucky and yet unlucky heroine that gets caught snooping, tightly tied to a vertical pole and made to suffer the indignation of a big vibrator welded to her sensitive areas. After that, I'll work on some classic material of Maria Shadoes being abducted, man-handled, put in one hell of a hogtie and then hung from a hotel door like a side of beef in a meat locker.

I love coffee

I woke up today feeling like I got hit in the face with a sledge hammer. I guess the change in weather has finally caught up with my sinuses. And that's why I love coffee. I'm not even finished with the first cup, and I already feel almost normal. I don't know how that works, but I'm not arguing.

Sitting over the steaming cup of miracle elixir, I'm doing my usual list of odds and ends. I had fun with some yahoo group posting. Knowing HTML is fun because you can always post messages that have links, pictures and formatting. It's all about the presentation. I put in an update from my last shoot with JJ Plush at her Yahoo group. I loved her blurb about me, "This guy doesn't fool around." It goes on the wall of quotes, with gems like "Nice guy, ties REALLY tight!" and "I'm glad I took my muscle relaxer."

Then I meandered on over to Stacie Snow's group to check things out. She was nice enough to put up a link for me and comment on the recent clip of her that went into my store. I always get a kick out of her group because she hates spammers more than I do ... and I hate spammers. I fully support her use of a tomahawk in solving the problem. The clips is from a series that I call "Hogtie from Hell" because it is basically just that, a hogtie that pushes people to their physical and mental limits. The "hell" challenges are all about the 3-minutes of video after the model is spent. I don't know why people agree to it, but I'm glad they do.

Oh, and the image of that hogtie agony is called Stacie Snow in Hogtied and Hurting available at my C4S Store.