Surrender in an age of endless choice

From the mainstreaming of BDSM to the growing visibility of Japanese rope bondage, practices once considered marginal are increasingly part of contemporary culture. What does it mean when surrender becomes something people actively seek in societies built on autonomy, performance and self-mastery?

Philosopher, journalist and author Doortje Smithuijsen immersed herself in the world of shibari, not primarily as an exploration of sexuality, but as a way of looking at a wider cultural shift. Why are practices built around restraint, vulnerability and giving up control becoming increasingly compelling?

Joining her is Lee, a Brussels-based performance artist who has practised as a shibari model, with varying intensity, since 2019. Through their own experience with ropes, Lee explores how rope captures, restricts and shapes the moving body, and what emerges through the exchange of trust, communication and control between the people involved.

What is the relationship between surrender and submission? Why can giving up control feel so different from simply losing it? And what might the growing appeal of BDSM and shibari reveal about the way we think about freedom, intimacy and control?

In this conversation, Doortje Smithuijsen and Lee explore power, exhaustion, intimacy, control and the growing appeal of surrender in contemporary culture.

The conversation will be moderated by TheMerode member and cultural entrepreneur Sergio Roberto Gratteri, founder of DAS HAUS.