When You Want More. Shibari, Desire and the Risks of Repetition

A discussion about the marshmallow test and shibari started on Facebook. Sanna Ursa pointed me toward it, and I went off to read and figure out this new word and idea for myself: Sub Frenzy. So, here is what I managed to figure out…

I. Can We Do More?

Once, at a party, I was asked to tie anyone who wanted to be tied. People came over, and I tied them. After about the third person, a kind of sporting excitement kicked in. I wanted to try with someone new. To see what else I could do. More than five people went through the ropes then, and somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it was the excitement pushing me on. And the next person was right there. I could do one more.

I tried hard not to let that feeling sweep me away. As far as I could tell, I tied as I usually do. Maybe I paid a little more attention to the details, so the excitement and tiredness would not obscure anything important for safety. Between sessions I went out for a cigarette, to bring the buzz down. The pauses and slower movements helped me get back to a more attentive state. In the end I simply decided: two more people, and that is enough for today. And I stopped.

In this story, I am interested in what I wanted. To tie someone new. To keep the pace going. To test what I could do. I could notice all of that, even though the wish to continue did not go away. The pause did not make the next session less appealing. It helped me step out of the rush a little and see again what I was about to do.

When we say “I want more,” it usually seems clear what we want. The rope, obviously. But a lot can feel good in one encounter: pressure on the body, attention, a beautiful result, our own courage, the person beside us. Sometimes we want to return to a particular state. Sometimes we simply want to continue something that is going well. These wishes can exist together. We have to work out which one we are trying to meet in the next session.

This concerns both ends of the rope. The person being tied has their own “more.” The person tying does too. In my story, I wanted to try with someone new and see what I could do next. The bottom may have come for something entirely different. The fact that we are doing the same thing does not tell us whether we are doing it for the same reason.

The marshmallow test deserves a conversation of its own. Here I want to pause on the question I came to through that discussion: what exactly do we want to repeat after a good experience? And what changes once the success of the previous encounter becomes an expectation for the next one? From this point on, the familiar “but you liked it” stops being a sufficient explanation.

II. Desire Has a Name

Sub Frenzy appears in English-speaking BDSM circles. A 2009 user entry on Urban Dictionary describes the excitement of discovering BDSM and wanting more experience immediately, sometimes with poor decisions along the way. On CollarChat in 2010, people were already arguing about what it meant: looking for a submissive dynamic, trying to please a partner, intense enthusiasm. So the word exists, but that conversation does not give it one agreed meaning. Urban Dictionary, CollarChat.

These dates tell us about the entries I found. They cannot establish where the term came from. There are earlier traces in indexed forum pages too, but treating the oldest search result we can access as the first use would be a stretch. Dom Frenzy and Top Frenzy also appear in community material. A set of words like this does not make a precise classification of states.

The scientific picture is modest so far. Among the work I checked for this essay, I did not find a study that measures Sub Frenzy separately or tests its mechanism. The term appears in participants’ accounts, but an account and a tested explanation do not carry the same weight. There is no basis for using it as a diagnosis. It can help name a topic for discussion. After that, we still have to look at what is happening with this particular person.

And I want to look without a verdict ready in advance. The word frenzy already carries a sense of “too much.” The person is too excited, in too much of a hurry, wants too much. Sometimes there really is a decision worth discussing. But sometimes there is simply a more experienced person nearby who thinks someone else’s pace is wrong. Then the label starts doing the work of a question. That makes me a little uneasy.

I know how to work with rope, but that does not let me know another person’s desire from the inside. I can ask, hear an answer, notice when what we agreed on diverges from what is happening. I can decline what I do not want or do not know how to do. But explaining to someone what they “really” want just because I have more experience… I would slow down there.

And a word about roles. A rigger ties; a bottom receives the ropes. Dominance and submission belong to other agreements. They can be part of the same encounter, or they may have nothing to do with its purpose. Calling every bunny submissive would be odd. It is better to first find out what the person does with rope and what they call it themselves.

Outside BDSM, I did not find the expression Sub Frenzy used with its own distinct meaning in the sources I reviewed. But the question of repetition is familiar even without that word. After a concert, a photo shoot, a conversation or a date, we may also want to bring back what we experienced. From here the discussion will widen. The question is similar, but I am not proposing one general scientific name for all these experiences.

III. What Exactly Did We Like?

Berridge and colleagues offer a useful distinction: pleasure, motivational pull, and learning an association between cues and reward can be considered separately. In their terms, liking and wanting are distinct. Strongly wanting more and getting a lot of pleasure are not the same thing. Their review relies heavily on animal experimental models and does not study shibari or Sub Frenzy. I take just one question from it: how closely do pleasure and the wish to continue line up? Berridge, Robinson, Aldridge, 2009.

Here is how I try to bring that question to the rope. The feel of the material, a voice, the pace of movement, a partner’s attention may all have come together in one good encounter. Then we want to return to the familiar action. But which part of that coming together mattered most? Maybe a particular amount of pressure. Maybe the chance to answer with the body and be heard. Or maybe it was this particular person, the one it all happened with.

Imagine a simple situation. After a session, both people say, “That was great.” The bottom liked the pace that let them take an active part. The rigger liked a new transition between shapes. Next time the rigger repeats the transition, but rushes it. Everything looks technically familiar, but that pace is gone. They both said “great,” but they liked different things.

Among beginner bunnies, I see another kind of acceleration. Women and men come to an activity that is new to them and start pushing hard. More sessions, more connections. Three times a week, five times a week. Three sessions in a row, four… Some eventually stop and settle down. Some get saturated. And some, God forbid, get injured and disappear from my field of view.

I am talking about some of the people I observe. I notice this pace, but a schedule cannot tell me why someone gets injured or disappears. I wonder what keeps the acceleration going. Do they want to meet more often? Try with other people? Get stronger sensations? Or has it become difficult to interrupt the sequence while another session is available? I cannot know from the number of sessions alone.

“More” can mean different things too. Longer in the ropes. More often. More complex. Or working in greater detail with a familiar shape. We might want more conversation, more freedom of movement, more time after the ropes come off. Complexity is easier to show and name, so it can easily become a measure of progress. But the person may have asked for something quite different. Another technique learned will not change that request.

I am interested, for example, in the chance to deepen what is familiar. A slightly different tension. A pause. A different bodily response to a movement. Not one new shape may appear, and there can still be a lot of work and attention. There can be pleasure in that difference too. “More” does not have to mean climbing a ladder of complexity. Sometimes you want to stay on the same step and finally notice what is happening there.

Novelty has its appeal, but it is easy to mix things up here too. A new stimulus, a habit of seeking novelty, and discovering a new practice are not the same thing. One good first session does not tell us someone’s lasting personality traits. Wanting to try a different shape does not prove that the familiar one has stopped being enjoyable. Participants may want exploration, repetition, or both at different times. There is nothing strange about that.

Sometimes we want to return specifically to the state we were in during an encounter. Ambler and colleagues have preliminary work with 14 experienced BDSM practitioners, describing associations between roles and measures of flow and other indirect measures of altered states. The sample is small. It does not show that everyone in rope has the same state, and it does not study the wish to repeat after a session. Ambler et al., 2017.

“I want to concentrate like that again” can be a perfectly understandable request. The thing is, it does not yet amount to a technical brief for a tie. Once, a shape and a state came together; another time the same person in the same shape may feel differently. If we have already declared that familiar state the measure of success, an ordinary encounter risks seeming like a failure. Even though it may have held plenty of good things, just different ones.

And I want to be specific about trust too. I may trust a partner’s handling of load and still not know how they will respond to a refusal or to my photographs. Good technique does not automatically answer all these questions. Neither does closeness. When the word “trust” ends the explanation, it is easy to miss what exactly the person is entrusting to someone else right now. That is the part we can discuss without guessing at their psychology.

IV. When Both Want More

My story from the party does not fit neatly into a convenient picture where the bunny is excited and the rigger calmly manages their desires. I wanted to continue too. That desire was part of the work, and it was up to me to notice it. The person leading also has interests, expectations, and pleasure. And their own reasons not to hurry, even when the next person is ready.

In a qualitative study, Kunstman and Derringer described different motives, including connection and self-expression, among 32 participants with a Dominant identity or role. This was a sample of Dominant participants, not riggers as a separate group. It cannot explain my performance. But it is a reminder of how many different desires can sit behind a role that outsiders reduce to control. Kunstman, Derringer, 2025.

With rope, we have to figure out the distribution of interests with the actual people involved. A bottom may suggest a shape, know a lot about technique, and come with an artistic task. A rigger may want simple tying and unhurried interaction. It would be too easy to give one person “emotion” and the other “technique.” We would have decided in advance what each of them is supposed to care about.

The action itself is also made from both sides. A request to change position, a suggestion to change the pace, a body’s movement all change what happens with the rope. That is participation, even if only one person ties the knot. A rigger may know more about a particular technique. The bottom may know their own movement and sensations better, and may know a good deal about that technique too. It matters more to work out who knows what for this task than to hand all the competence over with the end of the rope.

At the same time, technical responsibility is quite concrete. I place the rope, change the load, and affect another person’s position. I am responsible for that part of what I do. But it does not follow that I know someone else’s motive better or can assign them the experience that suits them. Feedback changes the work; a refusal changes the plan. Without that, “working together” would remain a pretty phrase.

Mutual excitement can help. We can be glad about another person’s suggestion, explore, and support each other’s interest. And still, it is useful to hear exactly what the person is saying yes to. The meeting? A new shape? A photo shoot? Publication? In a made-up example, one person is already thinking about the picture, while the other has agreed only to tie. Both are happily looking forward to continuing, but they mean different things by “continue.”

I do not want to turn enthusiasm into a suspicious state. People can want something very much, and that is a good part of an encounter. Not every motive needs to be written up and defended in a small dissertation ahead of time. But “let’s do more” does not finish the conversation about next time. There is still more to talk about after it. Sometimes that is what helps keep the pleasure, instead of just getting permission for an action.

V. The Right to Want. The Right to Change

A new practice can raise a question about who we are: it turns out I can do this too. In an identity study, 16 Israeli BDSM practitioners talked about their relationships with community, disclosing their interest, and changes in personal identity. It is a small qualitative sample. It shows that the meaning of a practice is discussed and takes shape in relationships with others, but it does not offer a required path of development for every person. Abulafia, Blount-Hill, Haviv, 2024.

For some, shibari will become an important part of how they describe themselves. Some will enjoy particular encounters. Someone else may make artistic work and not want a new role identity. I do not see which of these options should be declared more mature. You can try words for yourself and change them later. Join a community, stay nearby, or simply tie with a particular person. A person does not have to choose a role and hold on to it forever.

And a particular person may turn out to matter a lot. You may want to repeat who you were beside them, not simply find yourself in the ropes again. Then interest in the practice and interest in the partner become tangled together. They are not always easy to separate, but closeness is not a mistake that has to be corrected. It would be good to understand what relationship already exists and what each person imagines. One good session does not settle that by itself.

I would not rush to call that attachment dependency. Missing someone, cherishing an encounter, wanting that particular person does not yet mean losing your independence. It is different if a refusal starts to feel like a threat to losing their attention. Then there is a question about the relationship and the price the person thinks they would pay for saying no. That question deserves a direct conversation. The rope may be part of the story, but it does not explain everything at once.

Our state also affects choices, and there is related evidence here. Ariely and Loewenstein’s experiment included 35 male students. They compared answers to hypothetical questions when sexually aroused and when not; some answers differed. They did not observe real behavior. This is not a study of consent in shibari, and we cannot extend it to every intense experience. Ariely, Loewenstein, 2006.

What matters to me in this is the circumstances around a decision. What does the person want now, what has been offered, what do they expect later? But the study does not let us declare a particular consent unreal. Desire, consent to an action, and expectations about a relationship each need their own words. Both people can say no or suggest a change. A mismatch in desires does not necessarily mean someone has misunderstood themselves.

Boundaries can change. Someone may want to try something they did not want before. Or stop wanting something familiar. From one direction of change, “started agreeing to more,” we cannot know how it came about. Did they find what they wanted? Get new information? Try to meet a partner’s expectations? A previous boundary does not have to last forever. And previous consent does not create a debt for the next encounter.

VI. The Impossibility of Repetition

Photography makes all of this especially visible. A photograph holds a result: the pattern of the rope, the body’s position, the light. We can use it as a reference for a new shoot. But the image does not preserve everything the person felt. Even an expressive face cannot tell us on their behalf what they wanted, what felt good, or how the sensations changed during the work. I have to remember how much, exactly, I am showing.

The camera takes part in the action. Asking someone to turn, hold a movement, or keep a shape for the frame means changing the process. For the people involved, that can be an interesting shared task. It does not need to be justified by some special emotional depth. I understand the pleasure of making a good image. A beautiful result simply does not automatically answer how each person felt while it was being made.

That is why a photo shoot needs its own conversation. You can want a photograph for yourself and not want that image to have a public life. You can agree to an image and feel differently about the text beside it. The tying itself does not settle these questions. When a photograph takes part in how someone sees themselves, the caption and place of publication become part of what it means too. Agreement to a session is not enough here.

It is harder still when someone asks to recreate a photograph and “the same feeling.” We can discuss the light and the position of the hands quite precisely. But the feeling a viewer or photographer sees in the image still needs to be checked with the person pictured. The participant may care about something quite different. And even if we understood the previous experience correctly, that understanding is not a promise about the next one. It helps start a conversation; it cannot have the conversation for us.

At a performance, there is an audience. Someone might want to continue for a convincing finale, make the progression more visible, or repeat an effect the audience liked. I am naming possible situations, not a rule about how all performers behave. Applause is about what was visible. It can matter, but it does not replace a conversation about the result for the participants. The audience and the people in the action have different vantage points.

At the same time, a shoot or a performance can be the main purpose of an encounter. I see no reason to put intimacy above aesthetics. The question for me is whether the artistic task can change when what is happening in a living body calls for a change. If a different bodily response is treated only as a performance error, the concept has started to crowd out the person. That is a possible difficulty in the work, not an inevitable property of a camera or stage.

Repetition has a similar distinction. A sequence of actions, a technique, a place, an agreement about pace can be reproduced. That is part of how practice works. But an emotional result cannot simply be added as the final item after the right knot. The next encounter already begins with expectations and knowledge of the last one. Sometimes that helps. Sometimes it makes it harder to notice that today it would be more interesting to do something a little differently.

This is where repetition starts to make me uneasy. A memory becomes a measure: less concentration, a different reaction, a calmer result… so it did not work. And we want to add more load, complexity, or time. But if attention was what mattered most, we are increasing something else entirely. The wish to return to a good experience is normal. The difficulty begins when we stop distinguishing what we are trying to bring back from what we are actually doing.

Wanting the familiar is perfectly reasonable too. A recognizable rhythm lets you notice a small difference you missed before. A repeat does not have to be a poor copy, and new does not have to be better. I would leave room for both. We can agree on the conditions we want to keep. We can say what we especially liked. And then still give the person beside us the right to feel differently.

For a rigger, the tempting phrase here is “I know how to give you that state.” But then a shared encounter starts to look like one person’s skill. Where did the other person go? Their responses, their decisions, their day today? It is easier for me to take responsibility for my part of the work and listen to what is happening with the other person. I cannot guarantee the same feeling as before. Even when I very much want things to go well again.

My pause at that party did not switch off my desire. I still wanted to tie. It was simply easier after the pause to return to paying attention, slow my movements, and at some point finish. Maybe that is why this “more” interests me. It can stay there while you decide what to do with it. And the next encounter is still ahead… I do not yet know what will happen in it.