The nakedest, lengthiest bondage scene on basic cable TV (Saving Grace)

Where did I say that? Nowhere. You certainly are doing a lot of projecting when you respond to my posts. Maybe you should focus harder on what I actually say.

All I’m saying is, the bondage should appear to be well done enough to serve whatever its dramatic purpose is. In some cases, prop master have ropes that appear to be tight bonds, but which are just ropes glued together and cut in half, and then fastened together with velcro, so the woman isn’t really tied up at all, she JUST appears to be. Or sometimes prop masters (or whomever, it’s often the prop master who’s responsible for the bondage rigging for a scene) will line the inside of a supposed tape gag with a thin layer of cloth so the actress doesn’t get glue all over her lips. These are both fine with me, as long as the bonds appear to be tight enough to serve their dramatic purpose. They don’t have to really be tight or effective bonds to serve their purpose, they just have to look that way, most of the time.

In some cases bonds need to be loose or sloppy to serve their dramatic purposes, mostly in comedies. For example, in “The Painter” Bebe Neuwirth is tied up by the male lead, who’s not supposed to be a terribly smart guy, with one hand tied to an overhead pipe and one hand tied to the handle of a kitchen drawer. Well, as soon as the guy leaves the room Neuwirth slides the drawer out of its slot and reaches up to untie her hand from the overhead pipe, clearly amazed that her captor could have been so dumb. It’s sloppy bondage but it adds to the comedy and reinforces the lead guy’s dumbness.

Or in “Plump Fiction” a parody of “Pulp Fiction” Julie Brown and a male partner both wear enormous ball gags, but they’re worn almost entirely outside their mouths, which is a good thing for them because the balls were way too big, but of course, that’s not the way to wear a ball gag. Point is, the dramatic point of the gags was to make the leads look foolish and silly, and they both worked the foolishness of the look pretty well. It was sloppy bondage but dramatically successful, and I’m OK with that.

Most of the time, though, what you get is supposed criminal masterminds and whatnot tying up damsels in bonds they could escape for in five minutes of not too strenuous effort. And it doesn’t take a bondage fetishist to see that bondage like this (link is safe for work, but my site has been declared a pornsite by SDMB just because it has lots of nudity and sex, so I have to disable links on all pages, even if they don’t contain nudity):

http://www.bondagerotica.com/articles/acting.html

just isn 't going to hold anybody very long.

No, not safety, most of the time, comfort is more of a consideration, and a fair one. For example Annabella Sciorra (IIRC) complained that she had to spend long hours bound in a very uncomfortable hogtie for a scene in “Whispers in the Dark” which became quite painful to her because they didn’t untie her between takes. I would have been just as happy if they’d untied her between takes, or rigged it so she could easily slip out of the hogtie if things got painful. I don’t know why they didn’t. I imagine some actresses would use painful bondage to make their scenes more authentic, but apparently that wasn’t the case with Ms. Sciorra. Point is, I’m all for the actress being comfortable, as long as she LOOKS appropriate for her scene, which in most cases in dramatic scenes, would be uncomfortable.

And that’s my real problem with comfy chair ties, they don’t LOOK uncomfortable. They look comfortable. And most of the time, that conflicts with the dramatic intent of the scene. There are some chair ties that DO look uncomfortable, like Rosanne Dawson in “The Last Innocent Man,” in which her blindfold and gag are both tied to the back of the chair she’s in, so that her head is pulled back and exposed for her captor’s knife. Very effective, very uncomfortable-looking, and probably very uncomfortabe as well. But it’s not the actual discomfort that makes the scene, it’s the look.

Where did I say that? Nowhere. You certainly are doing a lot of projecting when you respond to my posts. Maybe you should focus harder on what I actually say.

All I’m saying is, the bondage should appear to be well done enough to serve whatever its dramatic purpose is. In some cases, prop master have ropes that appear to be tight bonds, but which are just ropes glued together and cut in half, and then fastened together with velcro, so the woman isn’t really tied up at all, she JUST appears to be. Or sometimes prop masters (or whomever, it’s often the prop master who’s responsible for the bondage rigging for a scene) will line the inside of a supposed tape gag with a thin layer of cloth so the actress doesn’t get glue all over her lips. These are both fine with me, as long as the bonds appear to be tight enough to serve their dramatic purpose. They don’t have to really be tight or effective bonds to serve their purpose, they just have to look that way, most of the time.

In some cases bonds need to be loose or sloppy to serve their dramatic purposes, mostly in comedies. For example, in “The Painter” Bebe Neuwirth is tied up by the male lead, who’s not supposed to be a terribly smart guy, with one hand tied to an overhead pipe and one hand tied to the handle of a kitchen drawer. Well, as soon as the guy leaves the room Neuwirth slides the drawer out of its slot and reaches up to untie her hand from the overhead pipe, clearly amazed that her captor could have been so dumb. It’s sloppy bondage but it adds to the comedy and reinforces the lead guy’s dumbness.

Or in “Plump Fiction” a parody of “Pulp Fiction” Julie Brown and a male partner both wear enormous ball gags, but they’re worn almost entirely outside their mouths, which is a good thing for them because the balls were way too big, but of course, that’s not the way to wear a ball gag. Point is, the dramatic point of the gags was to make the leads look foolish and silly, and they both worked the foolishness of the look pretty well. It was sloppy bondage but dramatically successful, and I’m OK with that.

Most of the time, though, what you get is supposed criminal masterminds and whatnot tying up damsels in bonds they could escape for in five minutes of not too strenuous effort. And it doesn’t take a bondage fetishist to see that bondage like this (link is safe for work, but my site has been declared a pornsite by SDMB just because it has lots of nudity and sex, so I have to disable links on all pages, even if they don’t contain nudity):

http://www.bondagerotica.com/articles/acting.html

just isn 't going to hold anybody very long.

No, not safety, most of the time, comfort is more of a consideration, and a fair one. For example Annabella Sciorra (IIRC) complained that she had to spend long hours bound in a very uncomfortable hogtie for a scene in “Whispers in the Dark” which became quite painful to her because they didn’t untie her between takes. I would have been just as happy if they’d untied her between takes, or rigged it so she could easily slip out of the hogtie if things got painful. I don’t know why they didn’t. I imagine some actresses would use painful bondage to make their scenes more authentic, but apparently that wasn’t the case with Ms. Sciorra. Point is, I’m all for the actress being comfortable, as long as she LOOKS appropriate for her scene, which in most cases in dramatic scenes, would be uncomfortable.

And that’s my real problem with comfy chair ties, they don’t LOOK uncomfortable. They look comfortable. And most of the time, that conflicts with the dramatic intent of the scene. There are some chair ties that DO look uncomfortable, like Rosanne Dawson in “The Last Innocent Man,” in which her blindfold and gag are both tied to the back of the chair she’s in, so that her head is pulled back and exposed for her captor’s knife. Very effective, very uncomfortable-looking, and probably very uncomfortabe as well. But it’s not the actual discomfort that makes the scene, it’s the look.

Are you saying it’s not uncomfortable to have your hands bound together (possibly behind your back) and a gag in your mouth that prevents you from speaking?

Maybe I’m not up on my bondage know-how enough, but I can’t imagine how that could be anything but uncomfortable.

EDIT: And apparently Evil Captor wants to say something, but his mistress won’t remove the ball gag.

Where did I say that? Nowhere. You certainly are doing a lot of projecting when you respond to my posts. Maybe you should focus harder on what I actually say.

All I’m saying is, the bondage should appear to be well done enough to serve whatever its dramatic purpose is. In some cases, prop master have ropes that appear to be tight bonds, but which are just ropes glued together and cut in half, and then fastened together with velcro, so the woman isn’t really tied up at all, she JUST appears to be. Or sometimes prop masters (or whomever, it’s often the prop master who’s responsible for the bondage rigging for a scene) will line the inside of a supposed tape gag with a thin layer of cloth so the actress doesn’t get glue all over her lips. These are both fine with me, as long as the bonds appear to be tight enough to serve their dramatic purpose. They don’t have to really be tight or effective bonds to serve their purpose, they just have to look that way, most of the time.

In some cases bonds need to be loose or sloppy to serve their dramatic purposes, mostly in comedies. For example, in “The Painter” Bebe Neuwirth is tied up by the male lead, who’s not supposed to be a terribly smart guy, with one hand tied to an overhead pipe and one hand tied to the handle of a kitchen drawer. Well, as soon as the guy leaves the room Neuwirth slides the drawer out of its slot and reaches up to untie her hand from the overhead pipe, clearly amazed that her captor could have been so dumb. It’s sloppy bondage but it adds to the comedy and reinforces the lead guy’s dumbness.

Or in “Plump Fiction” a parody of “Pulp Fiction” Julie Brown and a male partner both wear enormous ball gags, but they’re worn almost entirely outside their mouths, which is a good thing for them because the balls were way too big, but of course, that’s not the way to wear a ball gag. Point is, the dramatic point of the gags was to make the leads look foolish and silly, and they both worked the foolishness of the look pretty well. It was sloppy bondage but dramatically successful, and I’m OK with that.

Most of the time, though, what you get is supposed criminal masterminds and whatnot tying up damsels in bonds they could escape for in five minutes of not too strenuous effort. And it doesn’t take a bondage fetishist to see that bondage like this (link is safe for work, but my site has been declared a pornsite by SDMB just because it has lots of nudity and sex, so I have to disable links on all pages, even if they don’t contain nudity):

http://www.bondagerotica.com/articles/acting.html

just isn 't going to hold anybody very long.

No, not safety, most of the time, comfort is more of a consideration, and a fair one. For example Annabella Sciorra (IIRC) complained that she had to spend long hours bound in a very uncomfortable hogtie for a scene in “Whispers in the Dark” which became quite painful to her because they didn’t untie her between takes. I would have been just as happy if they’d untied her between takes, or rigged it so she could easily slip out of the hogtie if things got painful. I don’t know why they didn’t. I imagine some actresses would use painful bondage to make their scenes more authentic, but apparently that wasn’t the case with Ms. Sciorra. Point is, I’m all for the actress being comfortable, as long as she LOOKS appropriate for her scene, which in most cases in dramatic scenes, would be uncomfortable.

Often the bondage that looks the most secure is also the safest, from the POV of really binding the damsel. For example, tying a single strand of rope around a damsel’s wrist is much more dangerous than tying many strands, because many strands distribute the pressure more evenly along the damsels wrist/forearm and reduce the risk of bruising or even injuring tendons and damaging nerves.

My real problem with comfy chair ties, they don’t LOOK uncomfortable. They look comfortable. And most of the time, that conflicts with the dramatic intent of the scene. There are some chair ties that DO look uncomfortable, like Rosanne Dawson in “The Last Innocent Man,” in which her blindfold and gag are both tied to the back of the chair she’s in, so that her head is pulled back and exposed for her captor’s knife. Very effective, very uncomfortable-looking, and probably very uncomfortabe as well. But it’s not the actual discomfort that makes the scene, it’s the look. And that can often be achieved without incurring any great discomfort to the actress.

And all I’m saying is that the average person doesn’t even consider whether or not bondage is “done well enough” when they’re watching a movie or TV show. To the average person I think it’s pretty safe to say that if someone is tied up at all, that’s “good enough.” I think your years of experience with bondage have also hardened you to the fact that most people probably wouldn’t try to escape from their bonds when a big, burly bad guy is standing over them.

I also find it strange that you would cite bondage parody gags in comedies as “sloppy bondage you’re OK with.” Somehow, I don’t think the producers of those movies were going for reality.

I think you need to go to the Forum Rules sticky at the top of this board and read post #3, taking especial note to the portion printed in blue.

They USED to bother me, but they don’t any more. I understand that most people don’t care about the bondage per se, it’s just part of the dramatic mix. I do think there is sometimes sexual bondage subtext in supposedly nonsexual bondage scenes, though. And I find it surprising that people resist this notion so fiercely, who would otherwise casually accept the notion of homosexual subtext in supposedly nonsexual relationships between two members of the same sex.

I also think that people could learn a lot about ramping up the intensity of bondage imagery by borrowing from sexual bondage imagery, or by playing with the sexual bondage subtext in nonsexual bondage scenes. I don’t think this should happen in all scenes, just those scenes where it makes dramatic sense.

For exmaple, the vast majority of nonsexual bondage scenes occur when the cops cuff a suspect before hauling her or him off to the hoosegaw. There’s no point in trying to work up much in the way of sexual bondage subtext in the vast majority of such scenes, it just gets in the way of the story. But if you’re doing a story about a serial rapist who captures his victims and binds them before raping them, ramping up the sexual bondage subtext might be an excellent way of building suspense, suggesting to the audience the sexual vulnerability of the victim thorugh her bondage, such as by having her tied in a legs wide apart spreadeagle (even if fully clothed) rather than the more usual legs-together bondage, suggesting her fate if she’s not rescued in time.

That’s all I’m saying, really.

Sure, but you said ridiculously uncomfortable. Having your hands cuffed behind your back is uncomfortable, too, but it’s not unreasonable for cop shows to use real handcuffs.

Let me be the first to say:

This thread is worthless without pics.

Not often. For instance, theatrical murder is quite different from a snuff film. Sure there are varying degrees of realism in film, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen a murder scene that gave me the feeling that someone was actually being killed. There is also the purpose of the scene. Unlike pornographic bondage, Holly Hunter’s bondage scene was not inserted into the program to sexually arouse anyone. It was there to show us that she has a wild side to her sexuality. Huge difference. I think the scene did what the director intended and there was no need to portray it as an actual act of bondage. We got it.

Sorry about that. No personal offense intended.

I disagree with your notion, but it probably does help to have some illos for some of the notions stated. So (all links disabled as they are hosted on my terribly pornographic site. I’ll identify images that are safe for work (SFW) and those that are not (NSFW):

Here’s Sarah Michelle Gellar in a classic comfy chair tie. She’s restrained, her face is apprehensive, but her body is in a comfortable position, fighting the other aspects:

SFW:
http://www.bondagerotica.com/articles/chairtie.jpg

Imagine if she’s been tied up more like this, wearing the same clothes as in the chair tie:

NSWF:
http://www.bondagerotica.com/articles/cooldev.jpg

Wouldn’t the scene have been inherently more dramatic?

Here are images from the Canadian detective series “Crime En Serie” mentioned upthread which use nudity and bondage in a dramatic way to great effect:

NSFW:
http://www.bondagerotica.com/articles/nudity.html

Here’s the nude bondage with pantie gag on Law and Order SVU referrred to earlier:

NSFW
http://www.bondagerotica.com/articles/firsts/firstpantiegag.jpg

Hee’s an example of a sloppily done gag used for humorous effect, from the Lucyh Show. It’s pretty much the same technique used in Plump Fiction:

SFW
http://www.bondagerotica.com/articles/firsts/lucy.jpg

Here’s a very rare example of a damsel with her legs bound in a very wide spreadeagle from Farscape. Note how vulnerable Claudia Black looks. Note also how very, very DIM the shot is – a fairly common technique for directors to use when the bondage gets dramatically powerful:

NSFW
http://www.bondagerotica.com/articles/farscape.html

Here’s a more typical TV spreadeagle, Marcia Cross in a 'toe-touching" spreadeagle. Much less dramatic pose but offset by the bare flesh of her legs. Imagine Claudia Black in the scene above, dressed like Cross.

SFW
http://www.bondagerotica.com/extras/marciacross.jpg

I’ll make some caps of the Saving Grace and get them up soon.

BTW, I apologize for the graininess of the Crime En Serie caps, but you have to understand, they’re from Canada, which means they had to be smuggled across the border via ice road truckers and mooseback, which can be hard on video.

OK, here’s the Saving Grace vidcaps, tghey’re pretty much all NSFW:

Here’s how Nicole Kidman’s similar bondage was handled in “Birthday Girl” except Nicole’s head was raised higher, obscuring more of her butt, and her butt was in soft focus:

http://www.bondagerotica.com/extras/frontviewbest2go.jpg

Here’s a full body shot of Grace in her predicament. I’ve seen nothing like it on broadcast cable TV:

http://www.bondagerotica.com/extras/fullbody2go.jpg

Here’s a close up of all the plot-intensive script on her body:

http://www.bondagerotica.com/extras/zacko7andsmiley2go.jpg

There were a lot of other images of her, including an image of her having sex:

http://www.bondagerotica.com/extras/sex2go.jpg

Generally you have to watch Skinamax movies to see stuff like this on TV.

Well, sure. But if the TV cop pulled out, say, a pink plastic squirt gun and yelled “BANG! BANG!” while pointing it at the robber (who, of course, went down, mortally wounded), wouldn’t you snort out loud, ruining the moment?

Different people have different thresholds of disbelief, and they’re often related to how well you know the subject IRL. For example, I have a really hard time watching musicians perform on TV or in film: they’re usually very obviously not really playing, and half the time there are glaring errors like instruments not plugged in, people singing into stage microphones from two feet away, etc.

I’m not saying EC isn’t a strange bird - he is. I’m just saying I can understand his exasperation, even if I don’t share it for this particular element (bondage portrayal) of filmmaking.

While these screencaps are all well and good, I’m still waiting on a list of shows that pull out random bondage when the ratings start to go south.

I also really can’t see how any of those scenes would be more “dramatic” if the women were tied up in different ways. They’re all just screencaps without context. And while I can’t remember what episode of Buffy that SMG screencap is from, if she’s tied up at all, with rope, it’s because she’s been incapacitated in some other way. What with the superpowers and all.

I don’t even think it’s all that strange to be into bondage; what I find strange is the expectation of a degree of realism so as to elicit sexual gratification for a person who’s into bondage in something not designed to give the viewer a sexual thrill.

Except EC seems to be living in his own little fantasy world and he knows it (which is something I guess). All of his examples in this thread have been scenes that could have been “dramatically enhanced” by doing the bondage a different way. That’s not a technical problem like misplaced musical instruments or computer problems, that’s his own mental block on the subject.

And I say again, he’s showing us all of these scenes out of context, so who knows what they were like in the episode with a scene summary? Maybe they are as dramatic as they could be?

There’s a reason “more cowbell” is seen as a joke. “More bondage” would probably be a great sequel sketch.

Oh, I’m not personally offended. I just would like the discussion in the thread to be about the subject matter, not me, which is where your comments were leading. It’s fair to say that you don’t think stratagy X or Y for enhancing a scene would not work as well as I suggest, and to explain why, but it’s not fair just to say, “Evil Captor’s a nut because I say so, har har har.” This may be your true and honest feeling, but it doesn’t really contribute to the discussion. More productive would be, as some have said, “I don’t think the average viewer would in any way note or be affected by these matters of bondage technique that Evil Captor finds so obvious.”

Well, I didn’t say that, or anything close to that. What I said was, “It borders on the unhealthy! I mean, when you start critiquing artistic expression against reality…well…I just think you’re a bit too consumed with the subject.” which is not nearly the same thing. I think that by applying the same standard to two different genres unfairly detracts from the one that isn’t porn. And I think holding that expectation of realistic detail probably lessens your ability to enjoy Grace for what it really is. “Unhealthy” may not have been the best word to use. “Limiting” might be a better choice.