Cupcake, the ribbon is only spliced to one of the wires on the cord. The cord is plugged into a socket and an appliance is plugged into the female end of the cord and turned on. The current flowing to the appliance runs through the ribbon and heats it. You can touch the ribbon and not get shocked but you CAN get burned even when it's not red. If both ends of the cord were hooked to the eyebolts, the result would be a direct short and some fireworks. I'm not an electrician but that's the best way I can explain it. My father-in-law told me of the idea. He had an electric fence way back when that worked this way. Mike