Whipping.

Ropes have a tendency to be rather uncomfortable at the ends. This is because they're often cut using a heat-knife, which means that the rope is melted over, instead of being cut. This is a very good way of keeping the ends from fraying, while you carry them home from the store.
However, the chunk of melted nylon, is not a good idea to play around with, in terms of bondage. That's the reason that serious sadists whip their ropes - or have their masochists do it !

1/ A 'fresh' end of a rope, right out of the store, with an ( slightly exaggerated ) lump of melted nylon at the tip.

2/ Lay a piece of whipping line like this on the rope..

3/ Start winding the whipping line around the rope, and make it TIGHT.

4/ Repeat this some 7-8 times. ( At least )

5/ Pull the long end of the whipping line through the loop.

6/ Now pull the short end carefully, until the connection is somewhere near the middle of the whipping, underneath the windings of course.

7/ Cut away the remaining ends of the whipping line, and cut away the melted lump of nylon, from the rope. Finally you deliberately fray the end of the rope, in order to keep the whipping in place.

Now you've got a rope-end, which will not scratch you ( or your partner) and if you made the windings tight the whipping will keep the rope from fraying for ( almost ) ever !

This is how it looks in the real world.

-a little trick: As you become more and more entangled in bondage, you'll most probably end up having several hundred miles of rope, in all different lengths and sizes.. In order to get a little order in chaos, you can apply different colors of whipping line to the different lengths. Maybe red whippings for the 10 feet pieces, green to the 20 feet pieces, and so on.