Chicago

The Chicago scene

Chicago holds an early place in American rope history: ShibariCon began in the Chicago area in 2004, and by 2013 Lee Harrington could describe it as the hub of a rope community that had not existed before it; ROPECRAFT now holds its main edition there. That story is told in Kinbaku in North America. This page describes the scene that meets in the city week to week.

A Japanese-style school

Heartland Kinbaku, a rope school in Logan Square, describes its teaching as rooted in traditional Japanese rope bondage and its classes as supportive and professional. It says it has spent the last five years making itself a North American base for Kinbaku Luxuria, the style developed by the Italian teacher Riccardo Wildties, whom the school describes as the first student of Naka Akira. Its founder, Zach, first encountered Japanese rope in San Francisco in 2015, has taken Kinbaku Luxuria as his main influence since 2019 and is a certified educator in the style. ClaraRosa, who has tied and bottomed since 2016 and has organized rope events in the city since 2018, teaches the school’s bottoming classes. Beginners start in a weekday-evening foundations module; experienced pairs take graded weekend workshops, and the school regularly hosts Wildties and his partner Red Sabbath, as well as the teachers Kurogami and Shiawase.

Club nights

Much of the city’s rope practice happens at members’ clubs that host many kinds of kink. At Galleria Domain 2 (GD2), Rope Bite is a monthly Friday lab and party for members and their guests: after a meet-and-greet, people split into breakouts for rope bottoms, fundamentals, technical progression and free-form lab, and later scenes gather under the club’s main suspension frame. GD2’s calendar also lists a self-tie night, which in November 2026 offered an introduction to self-suspension, and a group called Bight Club. LRA, which describes itself as the oldest organization of its kind in Chicago open to every sexual orientation and gender identity, is a volunteer-run 501(c)(3) nonprofit with its own club space and regular educational events open to the public. GD2 shares its address only with people who have signed up as members or free visitors. For how jams, munches and salons differ, see Rope jams, munches and salons.

Affinity spaces and long courses

Some groups are built for people who often feel out of place in general clubs. The Ivy Chicago Collective, started in 2023 by a group of queer women of color, set out to give the city a rope studio reserved for BIPOC people, where they can practice among their own community and take courses from BIPOC instructors. It presents itself as queer- and trans-friendly, with room for people of any build, experience or role in rope. It has held mixers, jams and workshops on safe practice, and its fundraiser for a permanent studio names regular courses, paid BIPOC educators and suspension points as its next goals.

Second City Kinbaku takes a slow approach. Its free course is open by application, runs for eighteen months and starts from the basics of Japanese rope bondage before working up to suspension; the group also hosts rope socials. It says its goal is to make rope in the city more inclusive through accessible, thorough teaching.

The convention weekend

ROPECRAFT still brings the wider American scene to the city. Its 2026 edition ran over Memorial Day weekend, from 22 to 25 May, and sold out. Its program combines Western and Japanese styles for tops, bottoms and switches, and adds Ropenspace, a peer-education track run on the Open Space method with all of the event’s instructors present, and an evening cabaret hosted that year by Shay Tiziano. The groups’ websites are in English.