Bonding is a new drama and comedy series on Netflix that premiered in 2021 and was deemed one of the most amazing short-form shows produced in recent years.
Examining the power dynamics both inside and outside of Tiff’s dungeon as a professional dominatrix, the story of Netflix’s steamy short-form show Bonding revolves around the professional dominatrix Tiff. Tiff, who’s also a psychology student, reconnects with one of her high school acquaintances, Peter (‘Pete’), and after revealing her side hustle, she hires him to be her assistant and bodyguard in case things go wrong with her clients. Their shattered relationship serves as the focal point of a tableau that depicts various kinks within the BDSM community. These kinks each reveal a unique part of both of their characters.
What is Netflix Bonding About?
Bonding is a fun, entertaining, and intriguing comedic look at BDSM based on the creator’s personal experience. The plot of the Bonding series moves along quickly, and the script is admirably taut with snappy one-liners. However, despite the principle and the door, it opens to BDSM society, Bonding isn’t usually overtly sexual. The show does describe some of Tiff’s clients’ quirks, but these are mostly glossed over for laughs, which means it missed a golden opportunity, and the creator could have used it as a chance to normalize sex work and BDSM on Netflix.
The series’ central premise is that Tiff and Pete gain confidence through their Domme employment, allowing them to take more risks in other aspects of their lives. In Pete’s case, this includes taking risks in his love and sexual relationships and trying his hand at stand-up comedy. His breakthrough moment as a comedian occurs during a scene in which he effectively roasts a client who finds verbal abuse sexually appealing.
Netflix’s BDSM Show Bonding Did Right at Plenty of Things
Wide variety of kinks
The audience is exposed to a wide array of kinks on display from when Peter knocks on the door until they reach the dungeon, where Tiff carries out her duties as a dominatrix. A man dressed as a baby with a diaper and bib is seen running past while wailing. People are groveling to be humiliated. About halfway through the show, one man requests to be peed on. And Tiff also employs a”house slave” who cleans and always says,” Yes, Mistress,” all while wearing a gimp mask.
This may all seem a bit out there, but the truth is that people have all sorts of weird obsessions. For example, fetishes, or you may call them kinks, range from “humiliation play” (the act of deliberately humiliating oneself) to wearing penguin onesies. And Bonding explores different levels of kinks, from everyday to the outlandish, in their social context.
Instilling self-assurance and confidence
Confidence is something you can work on developing throughout your life, and the best way to do so is to put yourself in challenging situations and come out stronger on the other side. You can feel surer of yourself when you realize you can handle more complex situations than you thought you could.
As one goal of BDSM is to safely push sexual boundaries while controlling the atmosphere of one’s sexual exploration so that anxiety can be managed. Bonding presented this phenomenon brilliantly. In the series, Tiff used her dominatrix status to conquer some of the traumas from her past regarding males who preyed on her, while Pete utilized working as her assistant to feel more secure. Shortly, Bonding beautifully elaborated on how BDSM can help you develop a great deal of self-assurance because they encourages acceptance of whatever makes you feel” weird.”
Doms may behave differently outside of BDSM
While it’s true that sometimes people with dominant personalities like to be Doms and people with more submissive characters like to be subs, participating in BDSM doesn’t require your personality to match your chosen role when engaging in play, and you can often have an alter ego.
Take, for instance, the case of Peter. In his day-to-day life, he does not exhibit an exceptionally high level of self-assurance, yet, being Tiff’s partner in the BDSM world enables him to access a more forceful aspect of himself. When it comes to her personal life, whether it be her school or love life, Tiff is a lot more reserved about sharing her ideas and opinions than she is when she is playing the role of a Domme. BDSM is a method that can be used to investigate several facets of your personality, all of which may be present simultaneously.
Significantly, Bonding accords similar weight to moments where a partner expresses discomfort with a particular kink as it does to sequences where toe-sucking is depicted as a delicate act of affection between them. Besides this, the intimacy depicted through the BDSM and roleplay in Bonding is not just a collection of pornographic, and it presumably has fewer explicit sex scenes than many of the other Netflix seasons. Therefore, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that, rather than focusing on the more visually graphic aspects, Bonding emphasizes the sensuality of vulnerable trust, sensitive power relations, and emotional stakes in the BDSM world.
Even though there’s plenty to like about Bonding, and viewers were quite happy with the way BDSM is being portrayed in the series, sex workers and IRL Domes were not satisfied with the series. They believe that that series has done plenty of harm to the community.
Dominatrixes are Criticizing Netflix for Bonding: Here’s Why!
Although Bonding is based on the true life events of its creator, Rightor Doyle, and his experiences give the series a certain amount of authenticity, it has drawn criticism for its inaccurate depiction of the BDSM community’s practitioners and clients. Here is why it went wrong:
Boundaries and consent are disregarded
Consent is a cornerstone value among BDSM advocates.” Safe, sane, and consensual” are the guiding principles of all play. All BDSM activities must be conducted securely and with sanity. However, it appears that Bonding completely disregards these important morals. Tiff doesn’t always bring up the subject of consent during sessions with clients. Consent is a topic that professional Dommes and their clients talk about beforehand so that lines of demarcation don’t get crossed when it’s going to get rough.
Tiff is portrayed as a one-dimensional woman who always cracks her whip and orders people around while she is the Domme. In actuality, conversations regarding consent are more common than sexy talk. Tiff often breaches her clients’ consent and exploits her position of power without giving either of these things any thought, which starkly contrasts to the openly active arrangements made within the BDSM community.
Professional boundaries were not taken care of
A customer has referred to Tiff as one of the “top Doms” in New York City; as such, she ought to have a good understanding of the professional boundaries associated with the position. It is not simply that she has decided to terminate a contract with a customer because of the customer’s lack of professionalism, which makes her feel uneasy. It also addresses how she treats Peter, her assistant, in her professional capacity and how her boundaries with him are affected.
When she tries to use her Dom powers over him as a person, Peter calls her out on it, and he’s correct to do so, but that’s as far as the line between work and friendship gets. Since there was never a scene clarifying their consent, she made Peter do many things he didn’t want to do for clients who might not want to either.
Not to mention, it’s highly unprofessional to force people into something they didn’t know about. For example, no respectable sex worker would force a friend with no BDSM training to act as an assistant, then lie to them about what happens during the session out of fear that they “may not do it.”
Bottomline
Nowadays, when comedies are heavily edited and tragedies are burdened with darkness and sorrow, Bonding is refreshing in that it is simple, enjoyable, and reasonably depicts BDSM despite criticism. Have a look at the official trailer right here.
If you are interested to read a review of the pioneering film Secretary, which is considered to be one of the most beautiful BDSM love stories ever written, continue to our next article.