Chained to a Bed



"Obviously if you're watching a scene with a woman tied to a bed while a man forces sex on her, the final act of that movie will involve said man getting shot in the face by Bruce Willis. If, on the other hand, it's a man being tied down and forced into sex by a pretty lady, well, you're watching a wacky romantic comedy."

- From Cracked.com's list of romantic movie gestures that can get you prison time.

It's a tie game with no score.

A guy meets a cute girl. They have drinks, maybe lunch; witty banter is exchanged.

She takes him up to a hotel room. She produces rope (or sometimes handcuffs) and suggests he be chained to the bed and... well... kinkiness will ensue.

The guy always enthusiastically agrees. At which point she cheerfully robs him blind and leaves, leaving the robbed (and naked) guy stuck until someone finds him.

A prime example of Comedic Sociopathy in that the victim is not only robbed (as in a mugging), but deeply, deeply humiliated in a public way while the trope is (almost always) played entirely for laughs at his expense.

Sometimes the setup is used for dramatic, rather than comedic effect, as the person who was chained to the bed is now helpless and at the mercy of the person who tied them up or whoever discovers him. In the comic example the victim is nearly Always Male; in the dramatic example the victim might be male or female. If it is a woman chained to a bed it's much more likely that it's deadly serious.

Compare Chained to a Rock and Bound and Gagged. Often Fetish Fuel. May lead to Cuffs Off, Rub Wrists.

Advertising

 * This is the subject of a credit card advert in the UK.
 * Also the subject of a Capital FM advert where a man gets chained to a bed and can't reach the phone so he can call the station to win the contest.
 * Another British example, a car advert has a couple enjoying an improbably sexy dinner followed by aborted bondage on the stairs. He is left cuffed to the bannister staring at a piece of paper which reads "Ask before you borrow it."
 * This ad for, believe it if you can, a shoe store. No, it doesn't make any more sense to us.

Anime and Manga

 * Done (mostly) non-sexually and dead serious in Zombie Loan.
 * Otome Chibaku Yuugi has this for drama
 * This is similar to Yamazaki Sakura's prefered source of revenue in Blue Seed; she pretends to be a prostitute, insists that the guy take a shower, and then swipes his wallet. Hilariously, when one of them suggests some BDSM, she flips out on him.
 * Played straight in a side story in the manga Mel Kano.
 * In the Please Teacher OVA, Hatsuho drags Kei to a love hotel against his will and ties him to the bed, in order to spice up Kei and Mizuho's married life, or possibly so she could just have video footage.
 * To Love Ru have one episode where Rito is tied up in a bed naked by the Amazon queen, who was about to have her way with him only to be interrupted by Lala.

Comic Books

 * Male on female version: Wallace does this to Delia in Hell And Back, to restrain her after.
 * Tulip does this to Jesse in Preacher (Comic Book) and leaves him tied up for the whole day as revenge for leaving her behind when he went to Masada.
 * Jesse was also tied to a bed by Miss Outlash. But she did knock him out first. And dress him in a Nazi uniform. Which was a bit awkward when his black female deputy encountered him walking around in said uniform.
 * Barry Ween left one of his male enemies dressed in lingerie and handcuffed to a bed in a sleazy motel room. With another man. And no memory of what happened.

Film

 * As seen in the image above, Sherlock Holmes walks right into this trap in the 2009 film. Although in this case he was drugged unconscious first. And to add insult to injury, the key was left under that pillow.
 * In the very dark drug comedy Spun, the protagonist ties a girl to his bed, duct-tapes her eyes and mouth shut, and leaves her there for days.
 * Mr. and Mrs. Smith - the first time we see Jane kill anyone is when she's sent to play dominatrix to an arms dealer.
 * In Heartbreakers, Sigourney Weaver's character is tracked down by her ex-husband (well, the most recent one, anyway) in the midst of her scheming to capture the next one. He begs her to take him back. Being too busy to deal with him just at the moment, she persuades him to let her tie him to her hotel bed blindfolded, then takes off and leaves him to be discovered by the maid. Who doesn't exactly rob him, but does refuse to let him go until he offers her a bribe. Incredibly, he later teams up with this character and her daughter to enact another scheme.
 * Susan Sarandon ties Tim Robbins to the bed in Bull Durham, just to read Walt Whitman to him.
 * Subverted in the Irish film When Brendan Met Trudy. Brendan, who is Genre Savvy has been seriously rattled by news reports that a woman has been running around chaining up unsuspecting men and castrating them. When Trudy (who Brendan already knows lied about her job) turns up with the paraphenalia and starts chaining him to a bed, he not unnaturally panics. Turns out she really was only looking for consensual, kinky sex. In a further twist she does in fact turn out to be a thief.
 * In Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS, Ilsa is tricked into being tied to her bed by Wolfe, believing that he's into S&M. Instead, Wolfe leaves her there, escaping the concentration camp.
 * Sex Drive: Lance lets the gas station attendant he met less than an hour previously handcuff him to the bed in her trailer. She asks if he wants to try the "rolling brownout." He quickly agrees, then asks: "Wait, brown?" he is next seen running naked out of the cornfield, carrying the headboard which he is still attached to.
 * In Wedding Crashers. one of the characters gets tied to his bed and is at the mercy of first his girlfriend and later her brother.
 * The Australian movie Envy has this happen to the protagonist's teenaged son, although the "kinky sex" bit is absent.
 * National Lampoon 's Dorm Daze. The plot involves a handbag full of stolen money. At one point, a guy offers a woman half the money in exchange for a good time. She tells him "By the time I'm done with you, you'll give me all of it." After handcuffing him to a chair: "Okay, I'm done with you."
 * Something Wild. A woman (Melanie Griffith) lures a man (Jeff Daniels) into being handcuffed to a bed, then makes him call his place of work and tell them he's taking the rest of the day while she's sexually stimulating him.
 * In The French Connection Gene Hackman's character wakes up like this and his partner lets him out. Played to suggest this is not a particularly unusual occurrence for him.
 * In the slasher Valentine, Paige (Denise Richards) responds to a guy's advances with this (as well as a blindfold). After asking if he still wanted her to "wax it," she takes one of the nearby candles and pours melted wax on him.
 * In 40 Days and 40 Nights, the protagonist has given up all forms of sex for Lent due to a string of unfulfilling relationships, but as he nears the end of his last day he's starting to crack. So he asks his roommate to handcuff him to his bed so he doesn't give in to the urge to "help himself".
 * In Hostage, Jennifer Smith (Michelle Horn) is tied to a bed by psycho serial killer mercenary Mars (Ben Foster). She's rescued in the nick of time by her kid brother before Mars can do anything rapey. In somewhat of a fulfillment of the quote above, Mars is later killed during a confrontation with Bruce Willis (although not shot in the face).
 * In Idle Hands, when things are getting hot and heavy with Molly, Anton ties his own hand to the bed. He's doing it for her safety, but she thinks he's just being kinky.

Folk Lore

 * A moderately famous urban legend has this happening to a man who is handcuffed to a bed in anticipation of kinky sex. She then leaves the room and a man dressed as Batman jumps out of the closet and rapes him. That's pretty much it.
 * A similar urban legend is about a man tying his wife to the bed so he can play a "Batman saves the girl" role play scene. But during the fun he jumped onto the bed and smashed his head on the ceiling fan, knocking him unconscious. The woman had to call for help until the police kicked in the door to save them. (The Big Book of Urban Legends, a book of short comic-strip treatments of various ULs, had this one illustrated by Kevin Maguire of Justice League International fame.)
 * There is also The Odyssey, where Hephaestus chains Aphrodite and Ares to a bed as revenge for Aphrodite cheating on him. Aesop about 'smart outstrips the swift'.
 * Although there's a difference between 'guy stupidly lets a girl tie him to the bed' and 'guy and girl are busy on the bed when a net of golden chains made by girl's angry husband traps both of them'.

Jokes

 * There is a joke about a man waking up to his wife giving him a silk cord and telling him: "Tie me up and do whatever you wish." He ties her up and goes fishing.

Literature

 * The trope is played not just for drama, but for outright terror in the Stephen King novel Gerald's Game, which begins with a woman being handcuffed to a bed out in the middle of nowhere by her husband, who then dies of a heart attack. And she has about two days before she'll die of thirst. And then Death himself shows up...
 * Happened in Anne Rice's book Lasher. Since that was a woman, it was, yes, deadly serious.
 * In Peter Robinson's Friend with the devil, one of the investigating detectives finds a suspect tied to the bed in a hotel room. She proceeds to interrogate both him and his lover, before letting the lover untie him. It's just as awkward and absurd as it sounds.
 * In Janet Evanovich's first Stephanie Plum book, Stephanie is handcuffed to the shower--an example of this trope being played to comedic effect with a woman. The book gets away with it because the guy who does it is just trying to keep her out of the way so he can search her apartment for something he believes she has. He ogles her a bit, but it's presented as being mostly playfulness (they have "history" together), as well as causing her to get embarrassed and cover up rather than make trouble.
 * In Courtney Milan's Proof By Seduction, Gareth insists that Jenny wear a much fancier dress than the plain fare she prefers, and won't let her voice any objections. She lifts her skirts to above her knees, slooowly peels down one of her stockings, and then climbs on his lap for makeouts. While he's distracted, she uses the stocking to tie one of his hands to the chair behind his back. Then she climbs off his lap and archly tells him to free himself. When he furiously declares that he can't reach the knots with his free hand, she tells him she can't reach the laces on the back of that fancy dress either. She's too poor to hire a lady's maid, and the plain dresses are the only ones she can put on and off by herself.
 * In the short story "Bed of Roses" by Elisabeth Waters, the protagonist's suitor/stalker insists on "a night in her bed" in exchange for helping her to rescue her little brother. He should probably have asked for something else, considering that she's a member of a celibate order of Religious Bruisers, and as such lives in a barracks...
 * Vampire Kisses: Played with in the first book when Raven distracts Trevor by making out with him and then stealing his clothes that he had taken off, thinking that he was gonna score with her. The next day at school, she plays a prank on him by supergluing his underwear to her locker.
 * A very dark example of this is in Less Than Zero where a twelve year old girl is tied to a bed, and given drugs as she gets used as a sex slave.
 * Happens more than once to Lisbeth Salander in The Millennium Trilogy. The first time, she's being strapped down by a sadistic psychiatrist and the second time she's being raped by her court-appointed guardian.
 * In The Sibyl In Her Grave by Sarah Caudwell, bank director Edmund Albany gets found almost-naked and tied to a bed by one of the protagonists. It turns out that he referred to a French dominatrix as tu when she preferred vous.

Live Action TV
"Will I see you again?"
 * Happened to George Costanza in Seinfeld.

"Oh...I wouldn't be so sure of that."
 * Marissa did it to a Jerk Jock in The OC.
 * Mandy did this to her crazy ex-boyfriend in Game On.
 * In Stargate SG-1, an amnesiac and confused Vala escapes from Mitchell by stealing his clothes and handcuffing him to a hotel room bed. The rest of team finds him half naked and covered in junk food.
 * Happened to Greg's father Edward in Dharma and Greg, involving Penn from Penn & Teller. The girl cuffs him and walks out, then Penn comes in. A pause, then Edward says, "Oh, I sure hope you're here to rob me."
 * Used in an episode of Nip Tuck in which Christian's bitter on-again/off-again girlfriend Kimber tricks him into letting her tie him to a bed, supposedly in preparation for kinky sex...then proceed to torment him with a knife (she never hurts him, but takes great pleasure in making him think she's going to), fed up with the crappy way that he treats her--his most recent stunt involved trying to trade her in for a CAR. Afterwards, she leaves him tied up with a parting shot of, "You'll be fine, your maid comes on Monday."
 * In The X-Files two-part episode "Dreamland," Mulder and a MIB have had their bodies switched. When Scully figures out that something's wrong (in part because "Mulder" has been coming on to her), she gets control of the situation by playing along with his advances and then handcuffing him to the bed. (When he tries to talk his way out of it, addressing Scully as "baby", she warns him that if he does so again he will be "peeing through a catheter".)
 * Played straight in Life On Mars. Sam Tyler is drugged by a prostitute (who is, of course, working for the antagonist of the day) and tied naked to his bed, left for his co-workers to find. And she took incriminating-looking photos of the two of them while he was unconscious.
 * Highlander the Series had this happen to protagonist Duncan MacLeod, who was over two hundred years old by then and really, really should have known better.
 * It happens to Richie too. The poor boy never did have any luck with his women.
 * In the 1980s TV Series Crime Story, a guy who is either a member of the Mafia, or some criminal underworld type, has a regular relationship with a woman who ties him up. Unfortunately, some of his peers from another criminal organization find out where he's at, and discover him conveniently tied up as they proceed to pump him full of lead.
 * Happens to Xander, more or less, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Xander is the one to suggest that the rope might be for "kinky sexy fun"; the girl claims she just wants to suspend a canoe in her garage. We're not shown exactly how Xander ends up suspended over the Hellmouth.
 * Adebisi did this to Kenny Wangler on Oz, but that was implied to be a straight-out Prison Rape.
 * The killer-of-the-week in the Criminal Minds episode "Jones" employed this tactic with her victims.
 * As did the UNSUB in "Conflicted". It Got Worse.
 * Used as a joke in another episode. "If a John wants to tie you up, walk away. If he wants to be tied up, do it and steal his wallet."
 * And in the climax of "Paradise", Wil Wheaton the lodge owner ties the woman of a couple to the bed (and her husband to a chair).
 * Stacey does this to a mark in the first episode of Hustle (although its full significance does not become apparent till the end of the episode).
 * Happened in at least the Spanish version of Lalola. Lola hires a prostitute to come to Jerkass Gustavo's house and handcuff him to the bed, making him late for an important meeting. The prostitute then puts lipstick on him, writes "SOY UN CAPULLO" (loosely, "I'm a bastard") on his chest in lipstick and takes pictures, which Lola hangs up around the office. It's fantastic.
 * Something similar happened in the UK comedy series Coupling. Girl cuffed to bed, played for laughs. Only in this case she wound up stuck because.
 * Don't forget Patrick handcuffing himself to the bed in anticipation of his girlfriend bringing back another woman for their supposed threesome. Needless to say, Earth logic need not apply. Again.
 * Inverted in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Favorite Son". Harry Kim is stranded on a planet of Amazon Vampire Succubi that secretly want to suck his life out by having deadly sex with him. He's discovered their plans, so when two of them come to seduce him he suggests to them that he'd like to do it with them tied to the bed. As soon as they're bound, his escape attempt ensues.
 * Inverted in Farscape, in the episode "What Was Lost- Part 2." John Crichton is being interrogated by Commandant Grayza, the fourth season's Big Bad; her interrogations involve pheromone-assisted rape, and it is most definitely not okay. However, after dosing himself with a stimulant to resist Grayza's pheromones, Crichton suggests that the next round involve bondage: as a result, Commandant Cleavage is left tied to the bed, humiliated and seeking revenge.
 * Happens to Casey in Chuck, with the result being that Casey breaks the headboard off and beats down his capturers with the piece of wood. It's also implied that this is not the first time this has happened.
 * And then happened to Chuck in "Chuck vs. the Suburbs".
 * Casey is later chained to a radiator (no seduction in that case). He takes it with him, and uses it to hit someone.
 * In one episode of Archie Bunker's Place, a woman robs Murray at gunpoint in his hotel room and ties him to the bed just to keep him out of the way. When Archie barges in, she hides the gun, pretends that the situation is exactly what it looks like, and leaves with her loot; Murray plays along until he's sure she's gone.
 * Happens to Cliff in the Veronica Mars episode "The Rapes of Graff".
 * On the pilot episode of Crossing Jordan, Jordan flirts with the investigating police officer throughout the episode, and at the end ties him to a bed so she's free to wipe the makeup off his arm and reveal the bite mark that identifies him as the killer.
 * Subverted on NCIS. A girl was tied up by her boyfriend in a hotel (to jokingly stop her from running off with the cute Navy guys having a celebration downstairs) and was left there for days when he got killed in a traffic accident minutes after he left her alone to go get food for them. Humiliated she lies when finally found and says she was raped, her mother goes wacko when the nonexistent rapist is never brought in.
 * Another episode had a Navy programmer die, and while searching for the boyfriend as a suspect, he's found in exactly this situation.
 * On CSI, this is called a "Trick Roll" and usually involves a prostitute drugging her mark into unconsciousness before robbing him.
 * Then there's the version where the prostitute ties the mark to the bed before forcing them to listen to Rick Astley.
 * Subverted in another CSI episode when a police officer with missing uniform was found to have engaged in some handcuff/uniform kinkiness but was not robbed by the woman - it was instead stolen when sent for much-needed cleaning afterwards.
 * In one episode of CSI: Miami, a dead man is found handcuffed to a bed. It emerges the hotel has branded cuffs available for just that sort of thing.
 * Another first season episode had a man anally raped. When the detectives cite how there was no forced entry Horatio drops a rather dark Quip to Black.

""Now there's a man who really understands bondage!""
 * Used chillingly on Shameless, when Paddy is held captive like this and forced to take heroin.
 * Gender inverted in Desperate Housewives, where Gabby, who wants sex with Carlos, agrees to let him tie her to the bed. He's not up for sex and goes off to have a nap. This is played for comedy.
 * A variant is used in the TV version of The Dresden Files, where Harry is handcuffed to the bed by a date post-sex so that she can steal Bob's skull.
 * Used in an episode of Scare Tactics where the "victim" begs the person being pranked to free her, only to have the captor return and threaten the prankee with the same fate before the reveal.
 * Happens in The New Statesman entirely by accident and the (rich female) victim loves the experience, even as Alan gets back to the hotel and concludes that he doesn't have time to deal with her cuffs if he's going to make the flight home. Possibly the only non-serious version with a female victim.


 * Another accidental version in Peak Practice - it's a medical show, so the one with the keys has a bad fall and can't get to the cuffs to unlock them.
 * In Robin Hood, Guy of Gisborne gets tied to a bed...by his sister. She then refers to him as a "present" for Prince John.
 * Subverted in Dollhouse, when Echo only leaves her client this way when her programing glitches.
 * A rare female version occurs in an episode of Friends. Rachel finds Chandler handcuffed to a chair in her boss' office. Cue him insisting she uncuff him, and her wondering whether it's worth the risk of her boss knowing she was in there and firing her (he ends up handcuffed to a completely different piece of furniture before finally escaping). Chandler later gets revenge by leaving the boss chained up, in her slip, for Rachel to discover.
 * A variation occurs, AGAIN involving Chandler, earlier in the show. Julia Roberts guest-stars as a girl Chandler humiliated as a child, and dates him for a while only to convince him to put on her underwear and get naked in a bathroom stall. She then runs away with his clothes. While he is technically not chained to anything, the effect is exactly the same.
 * In Season 2 of Mad Men, Don Draper is having one of his many extramarital affairs when, just before having sex, his Girl of the Week tells him that he has a reputation. Draper is not happy with this; he takes the belt of the bathrobe she was wearing, ties her hands to the bed with it (to which she responds enthusiastically), then walks away.
 * Happens to Rayanne in a My So-Called Life episode.
 * Inverted on an episode of St Elsewhere. Dr. Ehrlich (Ed Begley) hooks up with a slightly kinky young woman who asks him to tie her up. He gets her tied, then goes out to his car to fetch one more item . . . and the apartment door locks behind him.
 * Happens in an early episode of Justified. The US Marshals are tipped off about an escaped con hiding with his girlfriend. Guess how they find them...
 * Boyd Crowder ends up doing this to
 * In season three, Quarles binds Brady to a bed and tortures him to death. The crime was part of Quarles' long history of abusing male hustlers.
 * Happens to Angel all the time since his friends believe that is the practical solution every time he is in danger of having lost his soul. Inversely his vampire ex-friends chain him up for having a soul. Can't really win that one.
 * In Season One after 'happy pills' inexplicably caused a temporary reversion to evil--apparently if he isn't really happy his soul goes into temporary suspension until the fake euphoria wears off?--and they overpowered him, Angel woke up extremely chained to his bed. He and his friends established that yes, he was really okay now and yes, they were willing to forgive him for scaring them out of their wits and nearly killing them. Then they walk off and leave him there indefinitely. Played for Laughs.
 * Sam does this in Las Vegas, before she leaves him to be raped by someone else.
 * How I Met Your Mother, happens with Barney once...or so he says.
 * Mentioned in one episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, where Carlton sets up a prank of this nature on Will to teach him to respect women (somehow). Will escapes being tied to the chair and, having twigged to the plot, calls up Carlton and "explains" the situation, saying that he panicked and killed the woman. Hilarity Ensues.
 * Self-inflicted example occurs in Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps: Gaz is convinced that he and Donna need something to spice up their relationship. Something romantic. So he strips down to a latex posing pouch, covers his crotch and nipples in whipped cream, handcuffs every limb to a bedpost and waits,with a large, flashing noveltry dildo in his hand, for Donna to come home. She takes one look and freaks out, running out of his flat and leaving him there...

Music Videos

 * In the video for the White Stripes song "Icky Thump" the singer and guitarist Jack White is chained to a bed and robbed by a Mexican prostitute with a glass eye. The scene is derived from the lyrics.
 * Happens to Joon of MBLAQ in Kan Miyeon's video Going Crazy. He's later shown with his hands tied with a red rope, which symbolizes exactly what it seems:

Newspaper Comics

 * Happens to a gay couple in the comic strip Chelsea Boys, both tied up in chairs by a kinky guy they met on the internet who then proceeds to rob them.
 * Inverted and parodied in an Anton Dingeman comic: a guy who is wanted by the police for being fatally boring seduces a girl and ties her to a bed. While she is excited over the prospect of kinky sex, he proceeds to bore her to death with his stamp collection and vacation photos.

Real Life

 * Two possible real-life examples are retold on this node at Everything 2.
 * This is why all toy handcuffs have levers on them that allow the wearer to free themselves without a key.

Video Games

 * Happens in the first Leisure Suit Larry game.
 * A variation occurs at the beginning of the sixth game, wherein Shamara (after indeed spending the night with Larry), leaves him handcuffed to a bed and steals Larry's wallet... Then he accidentally sets the hotel on fire.
 * Also two different types of death scenes in the second game - one with "Mama Bimbo", another with any of Dr. Nonookie's "helicopter girls".
 * One of Aurica's cosmosphere levels in Ar tonelico has her tie Lyner up in this fashion in attempt to rape him.

Webcomics

 * Happened to Danny in the webcomic Sorcery 101. Possibly unique in that girl (er, demoness) does not escape scot free. Very much not.
 * Tip in Skin Horse lets Julie chain him to a bed with her police handcuffs for some kinky sex. Afterward, she leaves him chained up "for his own protection." However, the handcuffs don't present Tip with much difficulty in the end.
 * "Honestly. Like I've never been handcuffed to a bed before."
 * Happened to the titular character of Dominic Deegan. Played completely for comedy, because it's Rachel and Dominic. Comic here.
 * What's interesting is the massive amounts of Dude, Not Funny reaction from the fan forum
 * Well, it was very much implied to be non-consensual (as Dominic claims to have had "no choice in the matter"), so treating it as comedy (compared to the male-on-female rape that is treated as drama) has some Unfortunate Implications.
 * Inverted in this Loserz strip where Jodie is the one chained to the bed, but it's after a Wild Teen Party and played for laughs.
 * Last Res0rt uses a downplayed version of this routinely as a preventative measure / enforced "curfew" on criminal players staying in the Executioner's Quarters. Unlike most of the examples here, though, the chains still give them some freedom of movement as opposed to being left spread-eagle and completely vulnerable.

Western Animation

 * And Quagmire in Family Guy. Fortunately he was able to dial the phone for help. And no, he didn't use his hands. Or his feet.
 * In an episode of The Critic, a female projectionist (who happens to be a very obsessed fan of movie critic Jay Sherman) invites him to her apartment, drugs his glass of wine, and when he awakens he finds himseif tied up to her bed with rolls of movie film. By the episode's end, his best friend Jeremy rescues him.
 * The Fairly Odd Parents: In a (possibly) non-romantic example, Vicky does this to Timmy at least once.
 * The Fairly Odd Parents: In a (possibly) non-romantic example, Vicky does this to Timmy at least once.