Live Bondage Art Displays at Charity Fundraiser “Bound & Beautiful” During CLAW 22

May 17, 2022
MEATY PANDA

CLAW is a non-profit organization dedicated to the leather community and has raised nearly $1 million for community charities since its founding in 2001. CLAW stands for Cleveland Leather Annual Weekend, the organization’s fundraising conference each spring that hosts sex and kink education classes, sex and dance parties, and special events like the cornerstone Bound & Beautiful fundraising event.

PUPPY PACK: Pup Kobol, Alpha Gunner Pup and Captain Spandex tied up and bound by Jeremy Rigger.

Bound & Beautiful is an exhibition and fundraising event at CLAW with its goal to showcase the Shibari and Rope Bondage talents from around the world and to instigate more interest in learning this kink while providing exposure for the talent within the leather/BDSM community. This very special event was created by Sebastian007 in 2014 and hotdogdew has helped every year. Check out this Bondage 101 episode of “Watts The Safeword” hosted by CLAW partners, Kristopher Weston and Pup Amp from San Francisco.

Bound & Beautiful Coordinator, @TygerYoshi, with @JosephOxXXX

The store Torso in Columbus, Ohio, in partnership with Los Angeles-based brand CellBlock13, sponsored this year’s Bound & Beautiful event with donated jockstraps worn by demo rope models. The original fundraising method was to auction off private sessions with participants for winning bidders to have later during the event and has evolved to presently auctioning the demo model bottoms’ jockstraps, providing more opportunity for attendees to physically interact with the bondage models as they closely inspect the merchandise to bid on. Negotiation and consent are always required and standard practice in the leather/BDSM community (more on consent and kink in this “Watts The Safeword” episode hosted by Pup Amp and Bolt).

Demo model bottoms wearing gear sponsored by Torso and CellBlock13.

Bound & Beautiful was coordinated this year for the third CLAW conference in a row by sadistic rope bondage top, Tyger Yoshi, who has been a CLAW educator and volunteer since 2007 and has been recognized by CLAW with the “Digital Frontier - MVP Award" at the Los Angeles conference in 2021 and the “Frontier Award - Volunteer of the Year” at this year’s Cleveland conference.

“As a quiet, introverted Asian, I love breaking stereotypes. Events like Bound and Beautiful and CLAW help provide opportunities to people like me to gain visibility in the leather/BDSM community and to display the diversity of individuals and interests,” says Tyger. “I’m so proud to have been given the opportunity to show that kinksters come in all shapes, sizes, and colors; and that our interests and capabilities are just as widely diverse on the spectrum.”

Check out my photos below and be sure to follow all of the models and talented bondage tops from around the world who made Bound & Beautiful possible this year at CLAW 22.