A moderately popular play-piercing device for male submissives is the butterfly board—a plank of soft wood placed under the scrotum with an opening for the genitals. Needles are passed through the skin of the scrotum and foreskin (not the underlying organs) and then are pinned to the board.
With play piercing you don’t get a heck of a lot of pain. Somebody who’s scared of needles would say, “Oh, God!” but realistically, they’re not that painful. It happens in just seconds. Most people in play piercing want the needles to come out as quickly as possible. I want the needle to come out extremely slowly. I enjoy the feeling of the needle being taken out of my body. I almost consider permanent piercings mutilating your body.… I’ve had needles on my thighs, on the outsides of my arms, all around my breasts. I’ve had needles through the outer bottom edges of my nipples. Once somebody took a bunch of needles and created a necklace that started from my shoulders, went down around my chest, and ended at the other shoulder. She had me look in the mirror, and then she took them out. It came as a total surprise to me that I would be turned on by something like that.
—JEAN L.
ELECTRICITY
For safety reasons many D&Sers object to the introduction of electricity in erotic play. The risks are obvious: High voltage to the body will cause a fatal shock, and electricity—even of a low voltage—applied to the torso may interfere with normal heartbeat or cause a heart attack. Nonetheless, some D&Sers experiment with low-level electrical stimulation because of the unique sensation.
Electricity is often used in interrogation scenarios but may also simply be incorporated into D&S as another form of unusual or intense stimulus. Several interviewees reported that they have experimented with household 9-volt batteries to create a weak shock to skin.
So high and potentially lethal are its risks that electricity is both uncommon and generally confined to play with a few archaic, pseudo-medical machines. Even these, however, cannot guarantee safety.
We have a violet wand. It’s a static-electricity generator. It can generate an arc that jumps out at you, maybe a quarter of an inch at most. If you touch the skin with it, it has no effect at all, because the effect comes from the arc. It’s a little tricky to use because you have to hold it away from where you want the spark to jump. It feels like a vibrating pinprick. I’ve never had a tattoo, but I imagine it might feel like that. It can be very intense if applied to a sensitive spot. It’s supposedly safe to apply anywhere except around mucus membranes.
—JOHN M.
Considerably less common and far more expensive is the TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulator), a static-electricity generator most commonly used in medical settings to relieve chronic pain.
When you receive pain which you interpret as pleasure, there is a point that you find the most erotic. When you get into higher elements of electricity, it becomes pain. If you give somebody a strong jolt, they’re going to jump four inches above the table! … My TENS unit is not plugged into the wall; [it] works on a little square battery [used] for portable radios. I got the TENS from a doctor who was into S&M and electricity. With a TENS unit, you can control how much electricity goes through the wires and the intensity. You can also control how close together the electrical impulses are [and] how long each [lasts].
My favorite is to have an electrical flow through the clitoris. I describe it as the best vibrator. Wires [from a TENS unit] are attached to little pads that have sticky stuff on them. I had one put on my clitoris and then one a little below the clitoris. The electricity travels up from the base of the clitoris. This is the spot on your body that has more nerve endings than any other, and [the current] travels, creating this incredibly wonderful sensation. The other device that can be used is called a Relaxacisor. It was created in the 1940s; I think [it was] originally created for use on submarines [where crews couldn’t exercise. The thinking was] that if the muscles were forced to contract, they would not lose their strength. As always happens, people in S&M take things and use them in entirely different ways.
—JEAN L.
INTERVIEWS
JOHANNA
I’m still pretty young. It’s not that long ago that I was an adolescent. I’m still very visibly and noticeably growing, and [I’m] getting a chance to get what I want sexually. I think for anybody, getting what you want is the most empowering thing that could possibly happen, especially getting something that you’ve been told is shameful your entire life. Getting to do it anyway because it’s what turns you on [is] incredibly empowering.
I never had a problem with [my D&S feelings]. I was raised as a feminist and consider myself a feminist. I know a lot of women have trouble coming to terms with [D&S]—especially heterosexual women who want to be dominated by men. I can understand why it might cause internal problems. But I felt a more external shame, knowing that everyone else thought that this was weird.
I’m a lesbian. [For me], being attracted to women is a separate issue from not being attracted to men. A lot of people don’t see it that way, so I often feel weird identifying myself as a lesbian. It buys into a paradigm that I don’t agree with. The fact is that I’m [just] not attracted to people who are male. I’m not intimate with women for political reasons. Women turn me on. I act on it.
I’m both a masochist and [a] submissive. I don’t eliminate the possibility of wanting to be a top sometime in the future, but being a bottom is definitely what turns me on. It’s only a couple of years since I first started having mild play with my lover at the time—spanking, a little [D&S]. I was much more into it than she, and that was tricky. More recently, I’ve been going to workshops and getting a lot of information. I [now] have a lover who is heavily into S&M. [S&M] is confined to sex play, although thinking about power in the way that you learn to think about it [as a result of] being involved in D&S makes me very attuned to the shifting of power in daily relationships.
I wonder if pain feels different to other people, because even in nonsexual contexts, pain does not bother me. I first started to notice this in high school. Perhaps the masochism is either physical or related to the organization of your perception. Sometimes pain feels like pleasure; [it’s] physically exciting. It’s like when you’re masturbating: The idea that [your] hand is touching [your] clit may not be exciting, but the sensation is; sometimes [the sensation of] pain is like that for me. I don’t have to be thinking about sex. When pain [does combine with] mental arousal, there is a line between masochism and submission for me; then the idea that I’m in pain excites me, as well. The idea that I have to submit to pain [makes me feel] very submissive.
I did one scene with [my lover] where I got to do a lot of stuff that wasn’t directly pleasurable for either of us, but it was very submissive. I licked her boots; she also wore a strap-on dildo—the kind attached to underwear—and had me go down on her with that. So she probably wasn’t getting any direct physical pleasure out of it. Neither was I, but it was very submissive [and] a real turn-on to both of us. I like things like that just because they’re kinky; that is a turn-on [in] itself. There’s no hiding the fact that what’s going on is a purely submissive act. I like that feeling. My present lover has done a couple of things to me like that: held me down and put a nine-volt battery on my tongue. She didn’t have to hold me down; I wasn’t struggling, although I don’t like electricity—it scares me. But the fact that I don’t like the sensation [and] yet I’m letting her do that to me is a turn-on.
A while ago my lover and I went to a party at her friend’s house. It was not an S&M party, but she put a collar on me [and] a locked bracelet on my wrist before [we left]. The symbolism was heavy, and I liked that. I was getting progressively hotter, sexually excited, just having this stuff on me and being in this public situation. When we came home, she had me strip and tied my hands together and started whipping me. It was the first time I’d been whipped for any length of time. She whipped me until I started crying. That’s the first time I ever got to such an intense point. She whippe
d my upper back, which is not usually where I prefer to be hit, until I was on the edge of being out of control. Then she started fucking me and put her finger up my ass. I’d never had that done before, and she didn’t tell me she was going to do it. It triggered a really submissive response! If [she’d] asked me if I wanted her finger there, I would have said no. But I was very glad that didn’t happen, because I liked it overall. We went back and forth like that for a while, and finally I yelled. Actually, I don’t actually remember yelling, though I was sore the next day, so I believe her. All I know is that I was incredibly open to her and out of control, which was really nice. It was really nice when I almost reached breaking point, to hear her behind me going, “Yes!”
It was like a primal victory to get me to that point. [And] that someone wanted that from me was really nice and really helped. And then to be told, “Oh, you’ve been such a good girl! Now you can have whatever you want!” Then she went straight into pleasure stuff, instead of pain-and-pleasure play. I was really open at that point, physically and mentally, and she was able to fist-fuck me for the first time.
After resting a while I was [still] feeling very submissive, and she was feeling keenly dominant, so she had me go down on her and eat her out while she was whipping me. I thought it was great fun. It was incredibly kinky, and I liked the turnaround. I don’t know if it’s true for hetero couples as much, but a lot of times between women there is this thing where, if you’re receiving pleasure, then you’re the bottom. But she was still the top and still beating me, but I was giving her pleasure and making her come. I liked her “making me give her pleasure.” That’s the most intense experience [I’ve had].
JOHN M.
[Authors’ note: We first interviewed John in 1991; 10 months later we did a follow-up with him, and at that time we interviewed his wife as well.] 1991: My whole background is one of a lot of sexual repression. Except for four years at [college], I’ve lived all my life in the South. At home, sex was something you just didn’t talk about—really didn’t talk about. One time that I managed to sneak something by my parents, my father took me to the family physician, where I got the story of the birds and the bees. [In] reading, I came across the word rape and looked it up in the dictionary, which told me: “illicit carnal knowledge,” which was a big help! I approached my mom and asked, “What is this?” I think she said, “It’s when a man makes a woman have a baby.” Well, how can that happen? I mean, when two people get married, they have a baby, right? How can a man make a woman have a baby against her will? Eventually the bare mechanics came out. Because of my mother’s extreme discomfort with the subject, the message I got from her was that sex was such a shameful thing! When I heard that this is what you do when you get married, my reaction was, “I will never get married if I have to do that!” Of course, even then I was having S&M fantasies. I didn’t know what they were. I didn’t even know what sex was; it had something to do with my penis.
The first woman I had intercourse with was the woman that I was later to marry. I was almost 26 years old. In the early days of that marriage I felt like for the first time I was free of all the sexual hang-ups. But our first child changed stuff around. Nothing was as easy, nothing was as free, and before long I ended up back in the same shape. There was one very small S&M event with my first wife. We had so many other things to explore that we just didn’t get back to it. Now [that] I am remarried, we have been exploring. I’m a novice, though there’s certainly been a lot happening within the last couple of years, due to some wonderful people that have come into my life: my new wife and my friends in an S&M support group.
My wife’s even more of a novice than I am, not real comfortable with some of it. The psychological aspects of D&S are less comfortable for her even than whacking me with a whip. She’s letting me push her a little. For example, I’ll come up with an idea, and we’ll do it. It ranges from me getting tied up and whipped a little bit to playing around with pins and needles.
I guess what excites me most is genital torture. I started off thinking that I wanted the pain. I found out that when I got out of fantasy and into reality that it hurts. Kind of obvious! But that didn’t lessen my interest; I’d like to go further. But I’m not quite as sure anymore that it’s actually the pain I want or something else that happens along with the pain. Or because of the pain. Or in spite of the pain.
Among my most exciting real-life experiences, the first thing that comes to mind is something that happened a year ago. It was accidental, which may have something to do with why it’s memorable and exciting. We were playing around with this little whip that I made out of clothesline. I was naked and with my feet far apart and my hands tied behind my back. She was hitting me with some force. The end of the whip caught the tip of my penis and caught it pretty good. I hollered. My wife dropped the whip because it scared her. I said, “Grab it [the penis] and hold on,” which is exactly what I would have done if my hands had been free. She did. At that moment I felt the most overwhelming feeling of love. It was terrific.
I haven’t acted on my sexuality very much. What’s caused me to change is [Sara], with whom I have had a friendship relationship for about 15 years. It took time, but eventually I got where I could open up to her about my problems and my hang-ups, my strange desires. It was a real healing force. I regret that I have wasted so many years … but better late than never.
1992: A number of things have happened this year. One of them is that my relationship with my wife has gotten to the point where there’s very little now that she isn’t willing to do to me. I think it was just a matter of getting comfortable with it, beginning to understand that sometimes pain is not pain—it’s something else, too. And to trust that when I said I wanted her to whip me, that’s really what I meant. I wanted it to hurt. It’s a hard thing to believe sometimes.
At first, Sara was uncomfortable and uncertain, [but] I think it was always her intent to be supportive. [Now] we can do some fairly heavy scenes. I think she has come to see this process as one which she has an interest in and a stake in, also.
Since we talked [last], I have developed an immensely higher comfort level with this sexuality. I’ve come out to my brother and sister. [My daughter] expressed not a great deal of surprise and not a great deal of interest when I warned her and her boyfriend about some videotapes of porn that they might find in the back of the cabinet. She thought it was okay: “Whatever turns you on.” She and I have a fairly deep relationship. We’ve always been pretty open talking about sex.
All of this had really given me a whole lot of confidence. I’m not ready to hang up a whip on my wall at work—not quite!—but I do wear a leather armband virtually everywhere now.
[My wife] can tie me up quite thoroughly and whip me till I’m screaming. I also like sharp-pointed things in certain sensitive spots. She’s willing to make me jump and squeal with needles, and she has a very sharp pair of tweezers that she has fun with.
More and more since we’ve been able to really get into stuff, we’ve gotten into cock-and-ball torture of various sorts. That includes putting on clothespins and pliers and even alligator clips to pinch. Cock-and-ball torture and genital torture generally have been part of my fantasy life since I was a kid. When I was growing up, there were some little kind of thorny things—we called them sandspurs or bulldogs. I used to thread them on a string and wrap them around my penis. I remember one time I got a pair of underwear and put a bunch of these inside. That turned out to be a little too much, but I then took an old pair [of shorts] and cut a flap where the crotch was so that it wouldn’t be tight—it’d just rub and bounce. That worked out real well.
I think we have a ways to go before we really have a good D&S dynamic in our play. What lacks [now] is me feeling submissive. I feel that very rarely with my wife. [She] knows it. That’s one of the real strengths of the relationship: We talk very candidly about all this stuff. I’m hoping that it will come simply with increasing comfort. I’m hoping that we will begin to spend
some more time on the head-trip aspect and not just on what you can do with the body.
I think the secret of our success is simply that we have a very open relationship; we are as honest with each other as we know how to be in all areas. We talk about sexual matters very easily and openly, and very often when we have had some D&S play, we’ll go over it later on [and] talk about it. It’s really helped us.
SARA K.
[Before meeting John], I was aware that this sort of stuff went on. In fact, I had a relationship with someone who probably would have liked this sort of thing, though we did not do very much. I’m not quite sure how this information was conveyed to me, but I knew that he would like to be whipped. I was very reluctant to do that sort of thing. My own sense of myself is of a person with needs for power, and I find this scary. So seeing myself as someone who would like very much to dominate other people [is something] I try and step back from.
At a certain point John was willing to share with me that he had fantasies which involved mainly submission. I had a mixed response. At times some of the things that he might fantasize about people doing, or even himself doing, were repellent. Some other things were just interesting.
I was initially willing to try bondage and had interest in both directions—not only in binding but in being bound. When I was a preteenager a male cousin and I had a game of tying each other up. The idea was to see who could tie someone up so that they could not get loose. I recall enjoying that game and being good at it and able to tie [him] up [so] that he could not get loose, whereas he could never do that to me. So the idea of bondage as such probably was not as strange as it might have [otherwise] been.
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