Self-bondage

What is self-bondage?

Self-bondage is the practice of tying yourself up with no one else present to free you. The rope, cuffs and positions are no different from ordinary bondage. What is different is that every safety measure is carried out by one person, and that is the same person who is tied.

How self-bondage first came up in the Netherlands

As a personal ad, and that says more about the practice than a manual would.

The newspaper archive of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the Dutch national library, holds the word three times, all three in 1987, all three in the personal-ads section with the same number series. The last, from de Volkskrant on August 15, 1987, is from a man: “Which young woman likes to fantasize about bondage, or does self-bondage, and might dare to admit to it just once? Like-minded young man (38, college-educated) seeks this young woman for a serious, lasting relationship.”

Two things stand out in that. The hyphenated spelling, because the word had not yet settled. And the assumption that anyone who does this does not admit to it. That assumption still holds, and it explains why the practice usually comes up in hindsight.

The two other appearances, from January 31 and February 7, 1987, are the same ad for issue 2 of the Amsterdam SM magazine Kerfstok, orderable by transferring 6.75 guilders to a giro account: “AUTO-eroticism such as self-bondage, SM handbook part 3, SM personals, SM stories, SM club news, SM gay weekend, SM calendar.” Both spellings sit there in one line.

Where the word self-bondage comes from

From a plain compound: self plus bondage. The Greek-prefixed variant, autobondage, means exactly the same thing. According to the Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands, the prefix auto- simply means “self,” from the Greek autós. It is an international scientific prefix, and the words built with it are, with only a few exceptions, coined technical terms.

So autobondage and self-bondage are the same word, once with a Greek prefix and once in plain English. The plain compound says what it is at a glance, which is why it is the form most people reach for.

Why people do self-bondage

Because it is the only form you need no one for, and for some women that is not the second choice but the only one.

• For someone who talks to no one about it, self-bondage is the version available today. No partner to convince, no appointment to make. Nothing to explain either.
• For someone who already knows the feeling, it is also the moment itself. No waiting until someone else has time.

The price sits in the same sentence. With bondage that has someone else there, the safety measures rest with two people. With self-bondage they rest with one, the same person who also carries the risk.

Why the risk reasoning is different here than with bondage

Because the usual safety reasoning assumes you can still act, and that is exactly what can fall away here.

The Netherlands knows that reasoning from labor law, where working alone is its own topic. The Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie, the Dutch labor inspectorate, writes that the Working Conditions Act sets no special requirements for working alone, and then lists what an employer does have to arrange: that a lone worker can protect against unwanted visitors, that the person “can raise the alarm quickly” and carries a phone or two-way radio, and that it is wise to make a manual for what to do in emergencies. The situations where someone works alone also belong in the risk assessment.

Put that list next to self-bondage and the gap jumps out. Raising the alarm, grabbing a phone, following a manual: all three ask that your hands and voice still work. With bondage that has someone there, that is no problem, because the other person is the alarm. There is only one measure that keeps working when you drop out, and that is the agreement that someone else will check on you at an agreed time. In the scene that measure is called a safety call, and it is the only one that does not depend on your hands.

What self-bondage is not

“Self-bondage is just bondage on your own.” In materials yes, in judgment no. With bondage together, supervision is the measure. With self-bondage supervision does not exist, so every safety net has to sit in time and in objects instead of in a person.

“Autobondage sounds more professional, so that is the right term.” Both words cover the same thing. The Greek prefix does not make it any safer, only less transparent.

“Anyone who does this has no partner.” Often they do, and that is the point. It is rarely about there being no one. It is about there being no one who has been told.

What I notice myself

I am Victor, gigolo, in the BDSM world since 1990 and trained as a psychotherapist. What strikes me is that women almost never reach for this word first.

They say something like “I have tried a few things,” and only when I ask further does it come out that it was about being tied up, alone at home, with a scarf or a belt, and usually with the door locked. The word comes later than the story. That is the same order as in the 1987 ad: first the question of whether someone dares to admit to it, then the name.

And the question that always follows is not whether it was dangerous, but whether it was strange. The answer to that is no. The question about danger is the more important of the two.

What you can do

• Have someone expect a message from you at an agreed time, and set down what they do if that message does not come. This is the only measure that keeps working when you can no longer do anything.
• Keep scissors or an emergency key within reach of the hand that stays free, and actually keep that hand free.
• Do nothing around your neck in self-bondage, in any form, not even loosely.
• Test every mechanism first while you are free, because ice, locks and timers behave differently than you expect.
• Tell someone if shame is the reason you play alone, because then that is the real subject.

More about self-bondage

Within this glossary, jibaku gives the Japanese word with its script and word history, and safety call explains how you set up that one measure that keeps working.

Beyond that, the Dutch labor inspectorate page on working alone reads in two minutes and is surprisingly useful outside of work, and anyone who wants to trace the word history can find the prefix auto- in the Etymologiebank.

Where this fits

If doing it alone is mainly a matter of having no one to do it with, then that is the real subject, not the rope. How a first date with tying-up in it goes is on the BDSM date, and what we go over beforehand on the preparation.

Sources

• Newspaper archive of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, searched via jsru.kb.nl and resolver.kb.nl on August 10, 2026. Gives the counts (self-bondage three articles, autobondage and the English self-bondage zero) and the three appearances, all from 1987 and all in the same personal-ads section, with the OCR read word for word: the ad from August 15, 1987 in de Volkskrant (“Which young woman likes to fantasize about bondage, or does self-bondage, and might dare to admit to it just once?”) and twice the same ad for issue 2 of the magazine Kerfstok, on January 31 and February 7, 1987 (“AUTO-eroticism such as self-bondage, SM handbook part 3, SM personals, SM stories, SM club news, SM gay weekend, SM calendar”). For those last two the KB records no newspaper title, only the date and the section.
• auto-. M. Philippa, F. Debrabandere, A. Quak, T. Schoonheim & N. van der Sijs, Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands (2003 to 2009), consulted via the Etymologiebank. Gives that the prefix auto- means “self” and goes back to the Greek autós, that it is an international scientific prefix whose formations are “with only a few exceptions scientific concepts and therefore coined words,” and that in modern language words with auto- are usually compounds with auto as a shortening of automobile.
• Alleen werken (Working alone). Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie, Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, consulted August 10, 2026. Gives that the Working Conditions Act sets no special requirements for working alone, that the employer names the situations of lone working in the risk assessment, and the list of measures: protection against unwanted visitors, being able to raise the alarm quickly, carrying a phone or two-way radio, and the advice to make a manual for what to do in emergencies. This source stands here as a parallel for the reasoning about working alone, not as a rule for what people do at home.

Related terms

Self-bondage is the form of bondage with the second person missing. That is where the broader practice with rope and supervision lives.

• Jibaku. The Japanese word for it, with the script and the word history.
• Safety call. The agreement that is the only one still working once you can do nothing.
• Asphyxiophilia. The combination you avoid here under all circumstances.
• Armbinder. The item that is hardest to get out of on your own.