The Twisted Monk Review: Where I'd Buy a First Bondage Rope

Hemp is the house fiber, and it's the one I'd buy. It comes in Natural, Black, Crimson and Violet, in 4, 6 or 8 mm, at the same price for every width: $24.99 for 15 feet, $49.99 for 30, $67.99 for 40 and $84.99 for 50. That's about $1.67 a foot, a little more in the two longest lengths, so buying long saves you nothing.

Their case for hemp is that it brush-burns less easily than cotton or synthetics and that the twisted ply holds a knot and still unties easily. It also smells, sweet and grassy by their description. The smell fades with age and washing, but three buyers who reviewed the natural hemp this year found it strong enough to complain about. A $5.99 working sample (7.5 to 10 feet, not offered in 4 mm) settles the smell and the texture before you spend $50.

Cotton is the soft one: 100% unbleached, made in the USA, 6 mm only, and cheaper at $17.99 for 15 feet or $34.99 for 30. Soft and stretchy makes it forgiving to learn on, but cotton knots can pull very tight after a hard pull, and Twisted Monk doesn't sell it for suspension.

POSH is their synthetic, a spun polyester at $19.99 for 15 feet or $39.99 for 30. It's the only fiber their care page sends through a normal machine cycle, and the rope they sell for suspension uplines, though on October 25 only the black 30-foot length showed as in stock. They don't sell MFP, the cheap washable synthetic a lot of people practice with.

The hand-spun fibers cost more. Silk is $69.99 for 30 feet, the one rope in the catalog that isn't vegan, and the new silk carries a full money-back guarantee. Bamboo, spun in-house at about 6 mm, is $57.99, and Swaledale wool from a woman-owned UK company is $66.99. An e-stim bamboo with steel fiber for TENS units up to 9 V DC ($63.99 for 30 feet) comes with its own warning that e-stim play is "not recommended for novice players." I agree. None of these are sold for suspension.

What you won't find is jute, the fiber a lot of Japanese-style tying is done in. A customer quoted in a 2010 profile mentions their jute, but the FAQ now says they couldn't find jute that met their standards, because most of it is softened with kerosene and Jute Batching Oil, and that jute wears out sooner than hemp. Monk sends European customers to BindMe, the jute he picks himself when he ties with jute. If jute is your fiber, shop elsewhere. For learning, hemp does the job, and it's what our rankings recommend.

Buy the Curiosity Kit first. It's one 30-foot and two 15-foot lengths of 6 mm hemp with EMT shears for $94.99. Bought separately, the same rope and shears would cost $107.96, so the kit saves about $13 and includes the one safety tool you need anyway.

Where I'd start

Curiosity Kit

One 30-foot and two 15-foot lengths of 6 mm hemp with whipped ends, plus EMT shears.

• $94.99for the kit
• 60 ftof 6 mm hemp
• $107.96for the same rope and shears bought separately

Also in the lineup

• White Cotton Curiosity · $59.99
• More Than Curious · $189.99

Why 6 mm? Their FAQ calls it the width to start and learn on, and every kit comes in it. Go up to 8 mm and the rope spreads pressure over more skin, which some people prefer for larger bodies, but the knots get bulkier and use more of each length. The 4 mm is for small ties on hands, feet and genitals, and it feels more intense because the same pull lands on a narrower line of skin.

The FAQ also has the length math, and it's worth doing before you order. A chest or hip harness takes about six times the hip measurement of the person being tied, so 40-inch hips need around 20 feet, and at 60 inches you've used the whole 30-foot length. A full-body harness takes six to seven times a loop from the shoulder, between the legs and back up. Wrist or ankle cuffs need 10 to 15 feet. That makes the Curiosity Kit one harness rope and two cuff ropes, enough for some of the harnesses and limb ties in their free videos.

The White Cotton Curiosity ($59.99) is the same kit in cotton, and the one I'd pick for skin that doesn't get along with hemp. The Robust Kit ($109.99), sold as size inclusive, has two 15-foot lengths and a 40-foot one in 6 or 8 mm. More Than Curious ($189.99) has two 30-foot and four 15-foot lengths, and it's the best-reviewed kit on their site, 4.92 from 12 buyers. Its page says it covers hogties, a tie our bondage guide tells beginners to leave for later. The Silk Starter ($114.99), Rosy the Ropemaker's kit ($274.99) and the Twisted Windows kit ($499.99) round out the line, all with shears.

I'd skip the two Value kits ($69.99 and $125.99) unless you plan to whip the ends yourself. Their ends are taped, so the lifetime whipping guarantee has nothing to cover, and neither comes with shears. Anyone building a set from single lengths should add their EMT shears: $7.99, or $8.99 for the left-handed pair, shipped free in the US.

All their hemp goes through what they call a 10-stage finish, with commercial-grade dyes and allergen-free vegan oils, and the ends are whipped by hand in black thread about an inch from the cut. Monk prefers whipping to knotted ends because whipped ends are more compact and less likely to jam while you untie, emergencies included. The whipping is guaranteed for the life of the rope, as long as any trimming leaves at least one rope-width of tuft below it, about a quarter inch on 6 mm.

They put the life of their hemp at five to seven years for people who tie regularly. If you react to hemp, the FAQ says the conditioning oil is often the cause and that theirs is allergen-free, and cotton or POSH samples cost $4.99.

Wash hemp as rarely as you can get away with. Washing and age both lower a rope's tensile strength, which matters the moment rope takes weight. When it does need a wash, their care page, updated in February 2025, is specific.

1. 1

   Chain it and bag it

   Chain-knot the rope, put it in an old pillowcase and tie the pillowcase shut.

2. 2

   Short, cold and gentle

   Run the gentlest, shortest cycle in cold water with a little color-safe detergent. Wash colors separately for the first couple of washes, because hand-dyed rope can bleed.

3. 3

   Give it four or five days

   Hang it, still chained, for about two days, because wet hemp is next to impossible to untie. Then unchain it and hang it loose for a few more days. Full drying takes four to five.

4. 4

   Oil it only after washing

   Body oils keep rope soft while you use it, so re-oil only after a wash: a dime-sized amount of food-grade mineral oil or unscented baby oil, worked along the length. Never plant or animal oils, which go rancid.

Cotton, silk and bamboo get a cold hand-wash and never any oil. POSH goes through a regular machine cycle, and their pages disagree about the dryer (the updated care page allows one, the POSH product pages say no heat), so air-dry it. Wax comes off if you freeze the rope for at least an hour and flex the waxy spots until the wax flakes away.

Twisted Monk's own care page says it plainly: suspension bondage is dangerous, and you get proper training before you try it.

The product pages back that up fiber by fiber. Cotton, silk, all of the bamboo (the e-stim rope included) and wool are marked as not for suspension. POSH is the rope they sell for uplines, with a manufacturer rating of 554 kg, or 5.44 kN. I found no published load rating for their hemp. A 2024 post on suspension kits asks for support lines with a breaking strength of at least ten times the suspended person's weight, recommends 6 mm POSH for them, and wants all the rigging hardware climbing-rated. The care page adds that you inspect rope and hardware before every use and replace them when in doubt.

Their hardware shelf is mostly empty right now. The Triskele Suspension Ring ($149.99) is 304 stainless steel and "proof-tested" to 1,200 lb in their words, but it's special order and showed as unavailable on October 25. The Original Suspension Ring ($59.99) was unavailable too, with no load rating published, and the Z-Hook isn't load-bearing at all.

Warning

Read all of this as information for after you've found a teacher. Suspension is learned in person, with someone experienced watching the rigging and the person in it, and nothing on a product page or in a video does that job, however good the numbers look.

Fifteen business days. That's the minimum between your order and the day it ships, because every order is dyed, cut and finished by hand, and weekends and federal holidays don't count. Several fibers or colors in one order can add more, and so can exotic rope and steel. With 5 to 7 business days of US transit on top, a first kit arrives roughly a month after you order it, which is a long damn time when you've just decided you'd like to be tied up.

The packaging is discreet: USPS Priority packaging or plain brown boxes, nothing on the outside about what's inside, and a return address that reads "TTM" and a name instead of the company's. Shipping is priced at checkout, with tracking and insurance included. US orders over $200, and any with limited-edition rope, need a signature, and there's no local pickup. Abroad, UPS takes 3 to 9 business days and you pay the duties.

Returns are strict. Anything that isn't defective needs their approval before you send it back, rope or steel out of its packaging or bundle counts as used, and you pay the return postage unless the item was defective or they got the order wrong. Shipping isn't refunded. Report a defect within 30 days of delivery and they replace the item.

Then there's the policy I'd like every rope maker to copy. If you ever have to cut Twisted Monk rope to get someone out in a hurry, they replace it free, whether you bought it from them or from another store, or got it as a gift. It rewards exactly the right instinct, which is to cut first and think about the rope later.

There's a phone line for orders on weekdays from 10am to 4pm Pacific, and the newsletter takes 10% off a first order.

"We recommend in-person education whenever possible." That's on Twisted Monk's learning page, from a shop that gives its own videos away.

Their store lists 30 tutorials at $0. The tutorials page covers a single column tie, a two column tie, a simple wrist cuff, chest harnesses, a karada and even untying your partner, plus guest lessons with Midori and Sir Dart. A few are adapted for larger bodies and limited mobility. Start with the single column tie, on your own leg, until you can tie and untie it without looking. Our bondage for beginners guide explains why that one comes first.

The YouTube channel, @TheTwistedMonk, has 59K subscribers and 55 videos, though nothing new has gone up since August 4, 2025.

Every order also ships with two cards from Twisted Windows of BondageSafety.com, Quick Tips for Bottoms & Tops and Know Your Nerves. The person being tied should read them too. I lean sub, and I'd want to know the warning signs in my own hands before anyone else has to spot them.

Warning

Keep wraps off the outside of the upper arm above the elbow, where the radial nerve runs close to the bone, and off the thumb side of the wrist. Run a finger under every wrap, stop at the first tingling or cold fingers, and keep the shears from the kit within reach every single time.

For classes, the learning page names Midori, Twisted Windows, Seattle's Full Circle Kink, Lee Harrington and Hitchin' Bitches, and in August 2026 Twisted Monk offered its own one-day intensive with Midori and Monk near Seattle, eight pairs at $850 a pair.

Product by product, the natural hemp averages 4.32 from 25 reviews (20 five-star, 3 one-star), the Curiosity Kit 4.54 from 13, and More Than Curious 4.92 from 12. The Robust and Value kits have five reviews each, averaging 3.8 and 3.6, too few to read much into. The low-star reviews cover the wait, the hemp smell, a wrong color or missing shears, whipping set too far from the ends, and bamboo rope that didn't hold up.

The press record starts in April 2005, when Dan Savage quoted Monk in a Savage Love letter, and Savage profiled him in The Stranger on April 29, 2010. That piece says Monk cashed in his 401(k) to go into the rope business, and that the shop had sold about half a million feet of rope online the year before. Oh Joy Sex Toy's May 28, 2013 rope comic listed Twisted Monk as a vendor, and its July 23, 2024 comic used rope Twisted Monk sent, so that one isn't independent.

The independent hands-on worth reading is Pete Riggs's review on Rope Connections. He paid for a kit himself in May 2018, and it arrived in seven days, discreetly packed, with no dye coming off on his skin when he rubbed the rope hard and very little shedding. Twisted Monk now sells two Rope Connections eBooks and reposted his bamboo review in 2024, so they're closer today than they were then.

Twisted Monk says it sponsored Shibaricon and Fat Con in 2024. Web searches turned up no controversy. I couldn't search Reddit for this profile, and Trustpilot has no page for the shop, so the buyer picture rests on their own reviews, the press and Riggs.

Anyone ready for rope. If cuffs already do something for you and you want to learn ties, the Curiosity Kit, the free single column tie video and a local class make a complete start for under $100 before shipping and the class fee.

Bigger bodies. Their own advice points to 8 mm and longer lengths, which is what the size-inclusive kit and Rosy's kit are for. Measure the hips and do their six-times math before you pick one.

If you haven't tried restraint yet, start with cuffs. My first restraint kit was a Sportsheets set, and an under-the-bed system shows you what restraint does for you without a single knot. When cuffs need to hold a hard pull, Stockroom's leather is the upgrade, and our beginner BDSM kit guide builds a whole first kit for about $100.

Look elsewhere if you tie Japanese-style and want jute, if you need rope this month, or if you want the option of sending opened rope back.