MxBliss (she/they) is a gleeful sadist, sensation empath, consent enthusiast, rope switch, self-suspender, and quinkster (queer kinkster). As an older, queer, femme-presenting POC who didn’t initially feel welcome in the shibari community, she is committed to rope education accessibility. Her rope style is a largely self-taught jumble of American-, circus-, and Japanese- rope (shibari and kinbaku) and is heavily influenced by her self-suspension practice. She’s been handling rope nearly every day since 2019; she’s done hundreds of partnered rope suspensions and even more self-suspensions. Formerly a business and social justice attorney, she frequently presents on negotiation, consent, kink and the law, and diversity/equity/inclusion. She’s currently making a living doing what she loves as a Dominance and Executive Coach/rigger and advising kink-positive businesses.

Instagram: @mx_bliss

[00:00:08] Wicked Wren Greetings to all my guys, gals and non-binary pals. Welcome to the Shibari Study Podcast. I'm your host, Wicked Wren. Shibari Study is an online learning resource offering video tutorials for beginners through advanced practitioners. Whether you're brand new to the world of Shibari and needing to learn the basics, or a seasoned rigger or rope bottom seeking inspiration to push your practice to new places, there's something for you at shibaristudy.com. Today I'm talking to Mx Bliss. Bliss uses she/they pronouns and is a switch. And you just said that you are daddy as (…) on both sides of a slash.

[00:00:49] Mx Bliss Yes.

[00:00:51] Wicked Wren First, welcome. And also can you talk about what that means?

[00:00:56] Mx Bliss I sort of thought about the way that I show up in my (…) relationships and how I want to show up in community as well. And I really love this notion of daddy as sort of the the caretaker. Daddy as, kind of a, a more responsible figure. And that's how I want to show up on both sides of the slash. Both as a, as a bottom and as a top. I love the gender (…) of being a femme presenting human, and to show up as daddy. It's a, it's a fun way to sort of play with the, the daddy trope. So...Yeah.

[00:01:39] Wicked Wren Yeah, it was cool that you said responsibility with daddy at first. And it's pretty easy to infer what responsibility would be from the top side. What are some responsibilities that you see from the bottom side?

[00:01:53] Mx Bliss Yeah. I think communicating, really knowing yourself. I sometimes half-jokingly say that you shouldn't bottom for something that you haven't topped for. And, and the reason why that joke resonates with me is because as a bottom, I think it's really important for me to own, in many respects, my own safety. And that means knowing what's going on. So as a rope bottom, for example, really understanding what nerve impingement feels like, the areas that are at risk, getting a better sense of how my body responds in rope, so that I can show up as the responsible rope partner, either as a bottom or a top.

[00:02:41] Wicked Wren Yeah, I think that more rope tops should be tied.

[00:02:47] Mx Bliss Oh, absolutely.

[00:02:48] Wicked Wren That's my take.

[00:02:49] Mx Bliss Yeah. No, 100%. I had this, this idea, which I had never really executed, which was to make a coffee table book of, you know, like prominent riggers in rope.

[00:03:02] Wicked Wren That is brilliant! Oh my God. Do you think that you would have a hard time getting those prominent riggers that never get tied to be tied for the book?

[00:03:15] Mx Bliss You know, I have asked a few people and, that I've actually tied a number of, you know, very visible riggers. Haven't really put it together in any sort of like, accessible way, but generally I think most rope tops are open to it. I think there's more switches than anybody wants to admit. I think we're all. I don't know.

[00:03:42] Wicked Wren I agree and I would also say that most rope tops are men. Most tops in general are men and in masculinity, there's not a lot of space for variation. And there's not a lot of space for someone to even explore different things.

[00:04:01] Mx Bliss 100%. Yeah. Patriarchy cuts both ways for sure.

[00:04:08] Wicked Wren Do you have a name for your coffee table book that you do?

[00:04:12] Mx Bliss I haven't, I haven't gotten that far but the enthusiasm about it is kind of contagious. I might, I might pick it up again.

[00:04:19] Wicked Wren You should, I love it. We jumped into this podcast really quick, but I did want to talk about something interesting you're doing. You are refurbing a church right now.

[00:04:32] Mx Bliss Yeah. I would say one of the most adult and most irresponsible things I've done in my life. You know, like, as a, as a teenage goth, I think I wanted nothing more than to live and die in a church. And so, in my, what was premature retirement, I bought a church with the intention of rehabbing it. I am in what is known as permit purgatory, which is to say that, I'm in the middle of a permit appeal. It turns out like trying to create an accessible space has been really difficult. Like the, the the track that I'm in right now is, in order to, to create accessibility, that is to to put in a lift, I would need to do a historic review of the building because it's a turn of the century church. And that is time and resource prohibitive. So we're just sort of stuck in this weird limbo and, you know, if I can't have an accessible space, I don't want it to be like a publicly available space. So I'm sort of stuck in that catch 22.

[00:05:49] Wicked Wren Do you have different rooms of the church that you're going to make different things?

[00:05:55] Mx Bliss Yes. Of course. Like the the basement I'm trying to create as a rope studio with some space for, you know, people who might be visiting, some guest quarters. I want to have, like, a wet room because, you know, because I'm (…).

[00:06:12] Wicked Wren I love it.

[00:06:14] Mx Bliss The sanctuary or sort of the main area of the church will be very much maintained in order to be able to throw, like, celebrations or have milestone events. There's nothing more delightfully sacrilegious than a gay marriage or something, you know, like, like a collaring in, in a church. And then getting some aerial high points, obviously, for, for (…) performances and then living in the choir deck.

[00:06:47] Wicked Wren Is there legality around living in a church? Do you have to do some weird things to move it from a commercial space to a personal space?

[00:06:57] Mx Bliss In the city of Portland where I'm at, the religious zoning, allows for something called a priory, which is basically like the quarters for a caretaker or for clergy. And, so that's the exception that I will be using, which is as the little choir deck is the new priory.

[00:07:17] Wicked Wren Wow. That's amazing. I could talk to you about that forever. But we have rope bondage to discuss.

[00:07:24] Mx Bliss Yes. Rope bondage.

[00:07:26] Wicked Wren How did you find it?

[00:07:28] Mx Bliss Oh, rope bondage. You know, I kind of fell into it a little bit accidentally. I will say, when I first came into public ki(…)k, I resisted rope and rope bondage. You know, I, I really didn't see a place for me in that community, because what I saw was a lot of, you know, older, cis, male riggers tying, you know, usually more petite, femme, younger humans. And I didn't fit in either of those categories. And so I really didn't see a place for me there. That changed when somebody local, their name is HitchinKitten. I saw them tying at a party. And they tied somebody who was twice their size and and strung them up like some, like some meat. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, I can do this. I can, I can do this too. It was super inspirational. And once I started, once I started to sort of unpeel that a little bit, I found a much more diverse community of rope humans. Yeah. And that was really great.

[00:08:37] Wicked Wren What was your intro into (…) or (…) in general?

[00:08:42] Mx Bliss It was completely by accident. So I know I've always been a (…) human. I mean, I, you know, from the, from like being five years old and like wiggling your tooth and knowing that that felt a certain way, right.

[00:08:55] Wicked Wren I love it.

[00:08:56] Mx Bliss Yeah. But so the (…) was always there. It didn't really come out in the manifestation that it's in now until I entered into the non-monogamy community and kind of... Found myself accidentally in a (…) space and, bottoming for the first time in an impact scene. And, I distinctly remember that experience of subspace for the first time. Being as close to God as I think I've ever been.

[00:09:28] Wicked Wren Wow.

[00:09:29] Mx Bliss And, that changing everything.

[00:09:32] Wicked Wren You said that you entered rope bondage in your 40s. Correct?

[00:09:36] Mx Bliss Yeah, yeah. I mean, I entered (…) in my late 40s as well. I mean, like, it's, it's been really interesting entering into a community as an older person, right? There is certainly, from the rope perspective and rope bottoming in particular, I think there is a strong bias towards younger femme thinner bodies in rope. And so, you know, wanting to bottom, it's been, I think it's a challenge, I think, for me to get in the rope as much as I'd like to. I have some amazing rope partners now and so, you know, I certainly don't crave it as much, but I see others, in the community who are older and particularly femme. You know, femme folks who I think have a lot of pressure to top, to be quite honest. And so I've just observed that, I'd love to see more of us tying and more of us being tied. I love the expression, Everybody that wants to be in rope should be, and I think, you know, watching, watching... Frankly, organizations like Shibari Study, really democratize rope and make rope education more accessible. It's really been lovely to see the evolution and the growth and the expansion and the diversity in the rope community over the past couple of years. And I think that's, you know... Shibari Study has a lot to do with that.

[00:11:16] Wicked Wren Yeah. You said something really interesting. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you were saying women are feeling pressure to top and tie. And things.

[00:11:28] Mx Bliss Yeah, I, I've heard, I've heard this. I feel like there's... So I am, I strongly associate with and spend a lot of time self-tying. And, and that has been, you know, a pretty significant gateway into rope topping and bottoming for me. But in those communities, I also hear folks saying that there's pressure to tie. And, and, and some reluctance to tie and, yeah, I just have several rope partners who have felt that pressure.

[00:12:07] Wicked Wren I felt that in the beginning too to start tying, because I didn't know who would want to tie me. So I was afraid and I wanted to participate in the event. So I said, Oh, I'll just tie and that'll reverse engineer me being in the event.

[00:12:23] Mx Bliss I don't know. I'm sure it is different for different individuals and different communities, but I think there is more demand to be tied than to tie. At least that's been what I have experienced. And so as somebody who prefers to rope top, you know, there's, there's an abundance there for sure.

[00:12:46] Wicked Wren Do you prefer to top than bottom?

[00:12:49] Mx Bliss Generally, yes. I like to say that I'm an 80/20 switch, which is to say that 80% of the time I am much more inclined to top. There are times though when there is no substitute for bottoming or subspace. I mean, there's, there's a completely different experiences for me. And, I can find sometimes when I'm doing way more topping and not enough bottoming that I get out of balance. But I do prefer to rope top, I love it.

[00:13:20] Wicked Wren What do you describe your rope style as?

[00:13:24] Mx Bliss It depends on who I'm tying with. I think it's highly adapted and adaptable. My default rope style is kind of like this [00:13:35]D/s-y. [0.0s] I'm, I'm a little (…), but also a little ridiculous, and I find that the best rope involves a great deal of laughter, sometimes tears. But most definitely laughter. But I love [00:13:53]D/s in rope. [0.5s] I mean, for me, rope is very much the, the manifestation. The perfect extension of power exchange.

[00:14:02] Wicked Wren Have you always been open to laughter in rope, or did that take a minute to get to?

[00:14:08] Mx Bliss I will tell you, when I first came into the scene as a, as a top and a dominant, I felt like it was very scripted in a very serious kind of like mistress dominatrix kind of way. Now I think you will more frequently find me in clown paint and than you will in like, some serious, like, leather latex garb. So, yes, I started off thinking that, that (…) and (…) is very serious business. And now, having sort of been through the sheer ridiculousness of it all, I just embrace and lean into that ridiculousness right from the get go.

[00:14:54] Wicked Wren How do you go about planning a clown paint scene? Or something ridiculous? How do these ideas come to you?

[00:15:01] Mx Bliss You know, I, I clown quite a bit with one of my partners [00:15:05]Shannonagannery [0.0s] and so much of it is, so much of it really is a very organic, improvizational kind of "yes, and" approach. So, sometimes the, the laughter just happens organically and you lean into it. When we plan kind of scenes that are intentionally nonsensical, we will just, we'll just play off of one another and it it happens quite organically. We'll start with a seed and, just keep saying yes.

[00:15:45] Wicked Wren I love that. This might be a strange question, but you're known for that now. It's clear that that's the thing that you like to do. So people know that that's what they're going to get into probably. But in the beginning, I'm sure, I'm sure it wasn't always like that. Was it hard to advocate for that in the beginning saying these are the things I want to do. They're a little bit fun. They're a little bit goofy. They're really different. And this is not going to be me in latex very strict with you.

[00:16:17] Mx Bliss I am lucky to have a wide range of play partners who really appreciate that sort of play. In bottoming, for a lot of (…) or (…), I find myself in this headspace of just embracing the ridiculousness of what's transpiring. You know, I frequently ask myself what a series of poor life choices I've made to find myself in this... In this very compromising situation. And, I tend to be drawn to people who also take things pretty lightly.

[00:16:53] Wicked Wren I love it. Well, just wait. Eventually you're going to be in a church in clown makeup doing this. So...

[00:17:01] Mx Bliss 100%. So excited for that, if it ever happens. I, again, I feel like I'm pretty stuck in purgatory right now, but I'm, I'm keeping faith.

[00:17:10] Wicked Wren I think that you should keep the faith. Do you have any memorable performances or scenes you've done that have been kind of fun and goofy?

[00:17:19] Mx Bliss One of... I think a milestone kind of scene that I did was basically like a hot dog (…) scene. I dressed as a clown. Basically a hot dog with a corn dog and using a corn dog (…). The best part of that scene, though, was that there were a bunch of littles who were watching, and it was, it was a dungeon space where you weren't permitted to take photographs. And they actually, like, drew the scene in crayon and, like, gave it, like, afterwards. That was a fantastic scene. You know, there's other scenes that I recall that sort of stick in my memory, which is one where somebody came and challenged me to help them cry. And that was a scene where I tried my first hand at (…), which was also delightful.

[00:18:27] Wicked Wren I want to talk about that in a second, but do you still have those drawings?

[00:18:31] Mx Bliss Oh, I do. They're on my Instagram. If you want to see them, I think they're... I will forward, I will forward them to you. They were... It was just fantastic. Yeah. It was. That was a lovely gesture.

[00:18:44] Wicked Wren So you made someone cry through (…). How is that?

[00:18:50] Mx Bliss You know, you know, the scene was, like, lots of terrible, like, predicament and lots of, like, whipping and waterboarding. But the thing that broke this human was, in fact, the, the (…) of all things.

[00:19:10] Wicked Wren I think that would break anybody.

[00:19:12] Mx Bliss Yeah, yeah. It was it was basically like, I think it was the Chipmunks "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" song playing over and over again for two hours.

[00:19:26] Wicked Wren You know...

[00:19:27] Mx Bliss That really broke someone.

[00:19:28] Wicked Wren I'm glad you said that, because we were on different pages with the word sound. I was thinking a very different version of sound, but this one is somehow worse.

[00:19:40] Mx Bliss Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it was... I can't imagine it. I can't imagine how terrible that must have been.

[00:19:47] Wicked Wren Wow. Well, that that seems like a new level of (…), honestly. I think that would break anybody. I just saw you at Folsom, and you performed a bunch, right?

[00:19:59] Mx Bliss I did. I love performing. It's really interesting, like, the transition from scene-ing all the time to performing quite frequently and sort of the difference between the two. You know, I think, I think about why I love, and in many ways kind of addicted to performing. I mean, obviously I'm an exhibitionist. Like, that seems pretty obvious. But there's just, like, a real chemical rush, I think, that comes from performing. The kinds of, like, the adrenaline that you get and the preparation that goes into performing. It's quite spectacular. And, and to have basically a group scene, right? It's not just a scene between you and your bottom, but it's a scene between you, your, your, your tying partner, your partner and the audience. And how you engage the audience is fantastic. I love the, the, the ability to tell stories and to move people in performance. I think like, the hallmark of when like a performance goes really well for me is when people say that they cry. Whether it's from happiness or from sheer ridiculousness or, because of other sentimentality, just... I guess, you know, I think maybe I'm a tear top. Maybe that's what I am. I just...

[00:21:36] Wicked Wren Just wanna make people cry?

[00:21:37] Mx Bliss Please cry. Please cry for me. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. Recently at the Twisted Windows Folsom event, we did a big hot dog scene. We did a big hot dog performance, and there was another performance that I did that was very much about letting the audience choose the, the, the, the intention of the rope, whether it be brutal, silly or (…) or – excuse me. Sweet, brutal, silly or sweet and letting the audience kind of choose their own adventure in terms of what they saw.

[00:22:13] Wicked Wren Do you think you are in the top percentile of rope tops that do things with hot dogs? You have to be. You have to be.

[00:22:25] Mx Bliss Yeah. I can say I'm not, aware of any other rope tops who... Who play exclusively in the hot dog space.

[00:22:36] Wicked Wren In that space. In that realm. You're really owning that space. I have two questions here. First, what did they choose? What did the audience choose?

[00:22:47] Mx Bliss Largely they choose brutal, which tells you something about the audience. There was like 1 or 2 instances where they chose silly, which, you know, afforded me some opportunities to do some pretty stupid things. Like raspberries. But generally they wanted brutal, and I was 100% there for that.

[00:23:05] Wicked Wren Why do you think they chose brutal?

[00:23:08] Mx Bliss Because we're all a bunch of twisted, (…) (…), that's why.

[00:23:14] Wicked Wren Yeah, we all want to see somebody get hurt.

[00:23:17] Mx Bliss Yes.

[00:23:18] Wicked Wren The way that you talk about performance is really different than most rope people talk about it. You're talking about telling a story. That's not most people's thing. Usually they just want to do their (…) in front of people and have it witnessed. Have you always been a performer because you do clowning as well? There's other stuff there. What is the entry? It seems like there was something before rope.

[00:23:45] Mx Bliss Yeah. I think performance has always terrified me. And I, maybe I seek terror. I remember, being in the fourth grade and being the runner up first elf and, and just remember being so terrified of that and kind of running into things that I'm running headfirst into things that I'm afraid of. And performance terrifies me to this day. And running headfirst into that is kind of the the name of the game.

[00:24:20] Wicked Wren Even in fourth grade. You ran headfirst into the thing because it was scary.

[00:24:25] Mx Bliss Absolutely. You know, public speaking, presenting, teaching, giving advice. Like giving legal advice in my, in my day job, like, all of those things still terrify me but I, I lean headfirst into things that scare me.

[00:24:43] Wicked Wren Have those things gotten easier the more you've done it?

[00:24:46] Mx Bliss Absolutely. Habituation 100%. And, you know, like, even topping has, has been initially was terrifying. And now you know, those things that terrify you become your passions.

[00:25:02] Wicked Wren Do you think that the doing uncomfortable things is a muscle that you have to work out and get used to?

[00:25:09] Mx Bliss Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And a lot of that, I think is just like, a willingness to fail and a willingness to make mistakes. I think we are so afraid of (…) up that we don't take that first step. And anytime I'm afraid of (…) up, that's when I turn, and I look at that problem, and I lean into it as much as I can.

[00:25:37] Wicked Wren What is your relationship with failure right now?

[00:25:40] Mx Bliss I mean, I... There are very few things I am more afraid of than failing. And, you know, there's the constant imposter syndrome that I think exists for many of us. And, you know, yeah, failing is.. My, my consistent relationship with failure is that I am terrified of it.

[00:26:08] Wicked Wren Everyone fails. It's a part of life. If, when you're doing something new, you're going to fail at it.

[00:26:15] Mx Bliss Yes.

[00:26:16] Wicked Wren When you do fail, do you have something that you do? Maybe the way you look at the situation, a way that you audit what just happened and learn from it. Like, is there some kind of thing you have in place where you can learn?

[00:26:34] Mx Bliss It depends on the kind of failure. But sometimes, I think like many others, I will find myself in this do loop of doom and gloom and, like, self-hatred, right? And I need to figure out ways to address that. I usually give myself, like, 24 hours to sort of wallow in my own self-pity and try very hard to sort of change that narrative. And it's, it's, you know, it's an [00:27:02]outer world [0.3s] to be able to do those things. I... Honestly, I find (…) to be really helpful to help disrupt that, that, those sort of those spirals that I might get into. In particular bottoming. Like there are times when I might be in these spirals and I have a, I have a lovely friend and rope top who I will go to him and say, I need some help. I need to cry, I need catharsis, I need to be disrupted. And he knows that means he needs to, like, make me cry in rope.

[00:27:37] Wicked Wren Yeah. Thank you for being so open about that. It's really scary to share. I feel the same a lot of times. Do you feel social media plays a role into that?

[00:27:49] Mx Bliss Social media is both the best and the worst. Like, I have such a love hate relationship with social media. Yes. I mean, I talk about this on my social media. Talk about meta, right? But it's, it's, you know, social media is such a curated experience. Like, you don't see me taking a (…) and like, you know, like studying for an exam on my social media, what you see is like very curated moments of performances and like the most pretty aspects of the scene. And so I think you can get a sense from looking at other people's social media that their lives are perfect. And yours by contrast in comparison is so imperfect. And so, yeah, I'm acutely aware of that. I, I love – but I also love social media for the ability for it to inspire and to educate and to build and share community. I will say, like, I didn't used to have an Instagram account until Covid and through the Instagram account, my, my community, particularly rope community and in particular like diverse rope community, has grown so much just by virtue of that social media platform. So I feel, you know, obliged to engage, obliged to make updates every now and then. But then I definitely have a love hate relationship with it.

[00:29:21] Wicked Wren It's hard. Because it's the place we all connect. I really dislike it in a lot of ways, but it's the only place we can all share things and have any form of the town square.

[00:29:37] Mx Bliss 100%. Yeah. FL is interesting. You know, FL seems... I like – again, same love hate kind of relationship with FL as well. It's a, it's an interesting platform though to, to write and share sort of more narrative points of view. So it's, it's certainly valuable for that.

[00:29:55] Wicked Wren I've read some incredible narratives on FL, which sounds like a joke statement, but it's not. Fuoco has some amazing things on their platform.

[00:30:08] Mx Bliss Yes. Yeah, yeah, it is fantastic. I've read some really amazing (…) on FL as well, which I appreciate.

[00:30:19] Wicked Wren This might be a strange transition here, but I want to talk about this with you. You were talking about (…) and the law and gray areas that exist in the law, and I would love to hear more about that.

[00:30:37] Mx Bliss Yeah. It's hm... It's been fascinating. I retired from sort of my vanilla legal practice last year, and since then have been really focused on, the intersection of (…) and the law, and... Have been really dismayed in many ways to, to learn about the gray areas in which we operate. And when I say when we operate, I'm talking about the legality of (…). You know, it's not illegal in most jurisdictions in the US, but it's not, not legal as well. Which is to say that we do operate in this gray area. You can see, and it usually comes up in, in what I characterize as sort of a negative inference, which is to say that it might come up in the situation of like a child custody matter or a divorce. Or it may come up, as a defense. Consensual (…) might come up as a defense to like, a rape or an assault or battery charge. And so, you see, the ways in which we operate, being really challenged, where we're, like, the (…) community is really on the fringes, you know, working with a lot of (…)-positive or sex-positive businesses. You see the areas in which they deal with tons of challenges, whether it be, you know, trying to find insurance or, you know, like banking regulations. I know that there's a number of, like, (…) businesses that can't get their, their, their payments processed. So it's, yeah, it's just, these interesting challenges. Just a pitch for NCSF and what they're doing in support of the express prior permission law. There's some model legislation that's out there right now that would that would basically create a defense, if there's express prior permission for non, non harmful acts, right. In and around (…). So I think it creates like a very distinct carve out for consensual (…). That would be lovely to have, you know, recognized in the law.

[00:33:06] Wicked Wren Yeah, it sounded like what you were saying in the beginning is that in an unrelated legal case, these things could be added on to further hurt and marginalized people.

[00:33:22] Mx Bliss Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:33:26] Wicked Wren Do you feel the eventual solution to this, or one of the solutions to this is making (…) more mainstream? More acceptance? Or no.

[00:33:39] Mx Bliss Yeah, I do. I think there's a substantial portion of the population that is (…). I mean, I think like, there's some (…) institute that's done some research in that regard. And to be able to normalize consensual (…) is very important. We, so many of us operate kind of in the shadows with scene names and, you know, our FL profiles with, like, just our torsos or, right? And so... Until we can be (…) and out and navigate the world in, in a open way. Yeah, I think there's work to do.

[00:34:27] Wicked Wren There is. That's one of the hardest things about accountability. Is that everyone has a scene name. Everyone has an Instagram profile that once you're delete it, all that information goes away. It's really hard to have reformative justice. It's hard to have any of those things when everything's so transient.

[00:34:49] Mx Bliss Yes, for sure, for sure.

[00:34:52] Wicked Wren How do you feel about 50 Shades of Gray?

[00:34:56] Mx Bliss I have strong mixed feelings. On one hand, it really put (…) in kind of a mainstream conversation which I appreciate. 50 Shades of Gray is probably one of the worst examples of consensual (…) that is out there also. So I have mixed feelings. I love that, I love that you can walk into any kind of (…) shop and find, you know, some rope and a flogger, though. So, thumbs up to, thumbs up to 50 Shades of Gray for that.

[00:35:31] Wicked Wren It is kind of weird because earlier when you were saying everyone has some degree of (…). It's true. It's like everyone likes to be (…) in some way. Everyone likes to be (…). There's some degree of it.

[00:35:45] Mx Bliss Yes.

[00:35:46] Wicked Wren Because also, as I said, there's no middle ground. It's either you're totally out or you're totally in.

[00:35:52] Mx Bliss Yeah. I think making this sort of education more accessible. All sorts of education is, is huge and certainly a huge motivator for me in terms of the work that I do.

[00:36:05] Wicked Wren Maybe it should even be included in sex ed.

[00:36:08] Mx Bliss Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's it's part of the, it's part of the human sexual experience, for sure.

[00:36:14] Wicked Wren It is.

[00:36:14] Mx Bliss We talked a little bit about inclusivity and rope and sort of like diversity in the rope community. And I really want to give a shout out to, to Shibari Study. And I think in particular, in the last two years, I've been a subscriber for probably 4 or 5 years. And in the last two years in particular, I've seen such a beautiful diversity of rope tops and bottoms and in terms of size, shape, and gender presentation and it's been really lovely to see. I think Covid has done wonders, actually, for diversity in rope. And I'm eager and excited to see more rope education that really, deconstructs a lot of the rope education many of us have had in the past about, about what bodies belong in rope and how to make modifications from what we've learned in the past to to make rope accessible for all bodies.

[00:37:23] Wicked Wren I agree. I agree, thank you for sharing all this and being so open.

[00:37:28] Mx Bliss Yeah, I'm grateful for your time. Thanks, Wren.

[00:37:30] Wicked Wren Of course!