Instruments Used in Sensation Play

Sensation Play

Sensation play, like temperature play, is an umbrella term that describes activities meant to impart physical sensations upon a partner, as opposed to mental forms of erotic play such as role-play and humiliation. We’ve already covered some activities that are considered sensation play, like paddling and spanking, but there is so much more. Here we’ll quickly go over a variety of activities and the instruments they entail. It should be noted that sensation play is often combined with bondage so that the sub is forced to surrender to the sensory experience at hand. Also, sensation play can involve heightening sensations or removing sensations. Usually it involves both at once, but we are going to start with sensory deprivation, namely blindfolds.

Instruments

Blindfolds — It might seem hypocritical that only a few chapters ago, I encouraged readers to look into their partners’ eyes and I am now going to espouse the benefits of blindfolds. First of all, if you live in a crap apartment with east-facing bedroom windows, as I do, you know their value as sleep masks. In fact, I cannot sleep past dawn unless I have my blue satin “10 More Minutes Please ...” sleep mask affixed to my head. But sexually speaking, blindfolds are hot. They are also a great way to ease into BDSM since they are generally inexpensive and unlikely to cause injury (assuming you aren’t with a psycho).

Since blindfolds deprive you of sight, they enhance the remaining senses of the wearer, focusing attention on sound, smells, and physical contact. Anticipation of “what is coming next” is heightened, and I think we can all agree that one of the greatest things about sex is the anticipation of it.

Be sure to get a blindfold that fits. Because I have a pinhead, I’ve found that most blindfolds are too big for me and have used this to my advantage by cheating during pinata demolitions throughout the years. But when using one for kinky purposes, I want it to work.

For example ...

During many professional sessions where I had access to fancy blindfolds, I would spend the entire hour in complete darkness. As mentioned previously, I was often blindfolded by Annie and led around on a leash to my Master. I was then asked to caress and undress him. Usually, while this occurred, both Annie and my Master would caress me, and I was unable to differentiate between male and female hands.

During one session, my Master, “Jeremy,” had brought me a blindfold and a leopard print cat suit to wear. Once I put on the cat suit, Annie slipped the blindfold over my eyes and tugged on my leash, leading me to a suspension bar where she attached my wrists and raised the bar. She then tied my ankles to two posts on either side of me.

Jeremy flogged my upper back, alternating between a cat-of-nine tails and a horsetail whip. Meanwhile, Annie worked her fingers over my crotch, and I realized that Jeremy had strategically cut holes in the catsuit. She slipped a finger through a tiny hole in the crotch and played with my clit.

Jeremy ordered her to rip the fabric and she began to tear at it until my entire pussy was exposed. She worked two fingers inside of me, moving them in and out, while Jeremy dug his fingers into the fabric and tore the back open. I was completely disoriented (because of the blindfold), but it felt great.

He took Annie by her wrist-cuffs and attached her wrists to the bar, so that our bodies hung in suspension together. He continued to tear the fabric off me until my breasts were exposed. Annie’s bra had been removed at some point and she thrust her pendulous breasts into my small, pointy ones. I bent my head down and licked them.

As you can imagine, I was eventually freed from suspension and moved to a leather bed where things got a little crazy (and technically illegal). My wrists were cuffed to posts over my head and my legs were tied in the air, spread eagle, to posts at either side of the bed. My two instructors mounted me and, I think, although my eyes were incapacitated, that the two gave each other oral sex over my inert body.

Annie’s shaved pussy landed on my lips as she straddled my face.

“Lick my pussy,” she said and I did as told.

Jeremy then chained Annie’s wrists to a post over the bed so she was just a bit higher up than before, and I had to crane my head to satisfy her. She moaned, and I thought maybe she came. I was so caught up in what I was doing to Annie that I barely realized Jeremy doing his best to bring me to orgasm. His fingers were working on my g-spot and his tongue was on my clit.

Annie climbed off me, and all I could feel was a multitude of limbs and hands on my skin. Cold chains tickled me and fingernails dug into me. Gasps of pleasure filled the room. I heard someone unwrap a condom and in complete darkness I felt skin, tongues, stubble, hair and teeth.

“Do you want to come?” Jeremy asked.

“Yes, Sir,” I moaned.

“Do you want me to luck you?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Say it.”

“Please luck me, Sir.”

Jeremy entered me deftly, although with my legs tied spread eagle, I was an easy target. Annie played with my tits while he moved inside of me.

Delirious, I reached climax before Jeremy, due to the fact that I had four hands, two tongues, and one penis stimulating me, and he only had one vagina—that’s not to put down my vagina or to say that he had a vagina. It’s just that my vagina had been over-stimulated to a point of no return. Though I’m not a screamer, it was so intense that I screamed. Jeremy continued pounding me until I came again.

If this quaint story doesn’t say a lot for blindfolds, I don’t know what will. Go out and get yourself one. If you have a nice silk scarf, you already have one!

No Blindfold At All — Sometimes, you don’t need a blindfold at all. As the Dom, you can tell your sub to simply keep his or her eyes closed, as Mickey Rourke did to Kim Bassinger in Nine and V Weeks. During this fine scene, he feeds her what actually appears to be a revolting array of foods and substances including Vicks® couch syrup and gelatin (What? Were they in a hospital?) but at least she gets some champagne and strawberries before he coats her in honey and bangs her brains out.

Ear Plugs — Just as blindfolds are used to limit a sub’s vision, ear plugs can be used to deprive a sub of his or her sense of hearing. They are not used that often because, presumably, subs want to hear what their Masters have to say.

Erotic Tickling — This one is kind of sweet. Obviously it involves people getting off on tickling or being tickled. Occasionally there are public tickling games or contests, which test the ticklee’s endurance to being tickled, for amusement, for erotic pleasure, or for other reasons. Usually the recipient of the tickling is bound or blindfolded. I really enjoy this one but am too afraid of pissing myself to really get into it.

Gags — Like fetishes, there are as many types of gags as there are stars in the sky, but they all serve one very important purpose: They shut another person the fuck up for a brief moment in time.

Gags, like most other fetish toys, also increase the Dom’s sense of power and the sub’s sense of helplessness, hopefully heightening the intensity of the erotic escapade at hand. Some fetishists get off on the drooling along with the muffled sounds the sub makes while gagged, while still others get off on the visual aspect of the gag. In the case of the open-mouth gag, the accessibility of the wearer’s mouth for doing what thou wilt may please the Dom.

Gags fall into three main categories: over-the-mouth, mouth stuffing, or mouth opening. On Wikipedia alone, twenty-three varieties of gags are listed, though there are certainly hundreds more. The most popular and enduring is the ball gag, which is usually made of rubber or silicone in the shape of a sphere. There are penis-shaped gags so you can literally straddle and fuck your lover’s face, and then there are inflatable penis gags so you can straddle and fuck your lover’s face as the penis attached to their face inflates inside of you. Conversely, there are penis gags where the faux penis goes inside the gagged sub’s mouth and there are double-penis gags where the sub’s mouth is gagged with a small dildo while the Dom fucks the larger dildo on the outside. Just what will they come up with next?!

There are the aforementioned forniphilic gags, also called “humiliator gags” (that come with attachments for ashtrays and toilet brushes), “pony bit” gags, dental gags, ring gags, and several varieties of open-mouth gags that allow your sub to blow you.

Interestingly enough, Mr. Hall suggested that it’s quite possible and economical to make your own gag. This “Martha Stewart of BDSM” bought a two-dollar conical dog toy then, using a leather hole puncher, punched two holes in each side of it. He then strung rope through the holes and voila—a gag!

As with everything else, be careful. Both gags and hoods, which block the mouth, can become asphyxial hazards if the subject vomits or the nose becomes blocked. Yet another reason not to go chugging Jager before a session ...

Hoods — Hoods scare a lot of people thanks to Pulp Fiction’s “the Gimp.” But hoods are really nothing to be afraid of as long as they are worn with the sub’s safety in mind. Velocity Chyaldd recently directed me to Extreme Restraints’ website (www.extremerestraints.com) where I uncovered more hoods than I ever thought possible—total sensory deprivation hoods, animal-shaped hoods, gas mask hoods, less daunting lightweight hoods, and something called a “Cum Bucket Hood,” which features a urinal-style front that you can fill with whatever you wish. Because this hood has an open-mouth, your partner will have to be subjected to whatever you fill in the trough.

Taste — Everybody loves food and, with sensation play, you can eat! (Cuz, you know, taste is a sense ...) You can blindfold your lover and feed your partner while fondling him or her. Maybe make your partner smell each food item and try to guess what it is. If your lover’s not diabetic, buy a bag of jelly beans and have him or her sniff and guess the flavor of each one before feeding them to him or her. Make sure you are aware of any food allergies your lover has because the last thing you want is his or her face expanding like a balloon. Otherwise, playing with food, like a Hungry Man dinner, is certain to satisfy your craving.

Smell — The human olfactory system is complicated and it goes hand-in-hand with food. Otherwise, the smell and taste of a Madeleine cake wouldn’t have lit a fire under Proust’s ass to churn out 1.5 million words. Blindfold your love and (as you would with the food activity above) wave an array of scents under your partner’s schnozz—essential oils, flowers, or other enticingly fragranced items. If you are using flowers, maybe even get crazy romantic and make a bed of them. (Just because you’re getting kinky doesn’t mean you also can’t be romantic.)

Touch — Obviously, we’ve been talking about touch a lot here—almost a touch too much. Spanking, paddling, hot wax, caning ... it’s all part of touch. However, touch is strangely often overlooked.

As mentioned earlier (when I spoke of Dick School) we are all so caught up in our heads that we sometimes forget we have bodies. Sensory play should remind you that you have a body, that skin is your largest organ. People put down skin all the time with phrases like “only skin deep,” and yet they spend thousands trying to preserve said skin instead of just enjoying the hell out of it.

To get back in touch with your body, take a break from some of the kinkier stuff described herein and try this fun activity I used to do with patients at Dick School: Recline with your partner totally naked, eyes closed. Take your partner’s hand and loosely guide it over your body (except for the genitals ... too distracting), giving a “tour” of all the places you liked to be touched. You will undoubtedly discover new places you like to be touched. Do this wordlessly and once you are done, reverse roles.

Often we followed this up with another wacky little exercise called Object Game. In Object Game, I picked out three objects (nothing sharp or dangerous) and placed each item, one at a time, on the patient’s penis. The patient, whose eyes were closed, then had to describe the temperature, texture, and shape of each object. This was to teach him to focus on penile sensation. I remember placing a tissue over the penis of a patient and him telling me it felt like “the dress of a little fairy.”

Both the body tours game and Object Game involved gentle touch, which isn’t something that gets spoken about much in BDSM, but I can’t stress the importance of it enough. When your sub is tied up, caress her, kiss her, and show her love. Appreciate the skin he or she is in and the skin you are in. If you flog someone’s ass, take time to massage that ass. If you are a sub, speak up and ask for that ass massage if you want it.

Now once you’ve shown each other lots of love, there are plenty of implements you can bust out that will bring great pleasure in the touch-too-much department. My fave raves include:

The Wartenberg Wheel — This is the amazing little pinwheel I described earlier. Gently roll it over your partner’s skin and watch all his or her hairs stand on end (along with everything else).

Feathers — The least complex of all BDSM toys? I’d say so. Basically you just run them up and down your partner’s bodacious body ostensibly. There are plenty of great cat toys with feathers on them that you can use to tickle and tantalize your lover while he or she is blindfolded or bound.

And speaking of human bondage, I think it’s time we finally covered this incredibly important aspect of BDSM... .