Bondage is a conceptual look on the programming that victims are subjected to in the grooming and honeymoon phases of trauma bonding. Grooming occurs prior to the abuse and creates secure attachments. Bonding occurs during both the grooming phase and periods between the abuse, which the victim interprets as kindness and proof of her abuser’s humanity.
This intermittent reinforcement of reward and punishment creates powerful bonds that are resistant to change, enabling the victim to become attached to the abuser and to minimize the extent of the abuse that cyclically follows.
Employing these pruning techniques, the abuser gains control over his victim by mechanization: creating a framework of secure attachments by which he can reel in his victims to ensure that she remains loyal to him.
Pruned and Groomed
Molded and Sculpted
Reeled right in
With acts of kindness
In bondage by a framework
of secure attachments
She beats herself with a whip
A whip of film strips
He told her she liked it
She’s convinced she likes it
To romanticize and minimize...
She was mechanized
A man-made construction
A paradoxical victim
Blind to her exploitation
By rewards after punishment
He rewired her arousal template
It’s time to retire this script
You never deserved this.
You never liked it.
Rewind and see how little you were
How big he was
How powerful
He molded and sculpted you
He warped your beliefs
and distorted your views
He blamed you
and shamed you
and framed
you and forced you
You didn’t want to.
You had to.
So realize, these are programmed lies
You are not like him
Don’t identify
And feel no shame
Process the frames
You’re not to blame
Even if you came
There is no shame
