We were going to give Yin's new studio a bondage and photography baptism. I was going through some major difficulties at home and I wasn't sure I could do the shoot. Michele, Yin and I sat at lunch and talked about it. Yin and I have a history of being able to access and transform emotions together and Michele has an ability to capture that on film and support it as an artist and as a partner.

We decided to work with it, using my internal emotional landscape to shape what we did in rope. Yin's bondage mirrored the compression and the constriction I was feeling. She took care of me during the experience and gave me a safe haven, a place where I could open up to all that I was feeling and living through.

S/M and bondage play aren't therapy but if I'm open and honest, things are going to come up. My challenge is to find resolution for these issues and avoid merely using bondage to re-enact them over and over. My goal in life is to grow and change and heal and experience joy. My bondage play is a means to explore my internal workings but it's not a place that I go to solve my problems. It's a tool, not a cure. My blessing in life is that I have come to understand this simple yet elusive fact.