Tristan Taormino - The Ultimate Guide to Kink - BDSM, Role Play, and the Erotic Edge

What starts as a playful little diversion can became a supercharged sexual romp with a little imagination and a few toys. I’m talking about a practice commonly called cock and ball torture , or CBT. Now, don’t let that word torture stop you. Most of what we call CBT is playful and fun, and it can be as wild or as tame as you and your partner desire.

A man’s genitals are both very sensitive and very resilient. This means they can take a lot of stress as well as be delightfully responsive to sensations both intense and mild. Add to this the emotional investment men have in the equipment between their legs and you get an ideal playground for a creative partner with a kinky streak.

Before trying any kind of CBT, it’s important to establish good communication with your partner. If you are a man playing with another man, you can use your own experience to gauge how sensations might feel for your partner, but remember that everyone experiences sensations differently. Just because you have a penis, you can’t assume your partner’s penis will react the same way as yours. Communicating about what is working and what is not working is important.

For a woman playing with a man, it’s even more essential to keep channels of communication open during the scene. It might not conform to your fantasy of what should happen, but for the first few times it’s better to have a good dialogue while the scene is going on. This will make future encounters easier and give you and your partner more confidence. Once you have this experience, adding more elaborate fantasy elements will be easier and more rewarding.

A cock and ball torture scene is something you build up to—not jump into. Now, if that sounds overly cautious, so be it. I never like to play recklessly with my partner’s genitals, since I usually want the opportunity to play with them again. Therefore, I err on the side of caution, even when I have confidence in what I am doing. As the person in control of a scene, it’s my job to be responsible for my partner’s safety and well-being. If you break your toys, you can’t play with them again.

Cock and ball torture, or cock and ball play , as I think it is more aptly called, requires nothing more than a pair of hands and a good imagination, but a wide variety of toys are made specifically for this kind of fun. Since you may not want to invest a lot of money in toys you might use once and find you don’t really like, I suggest the following for a beginner’s collection: a coil of braided nylon rope, some wooden clothespins, an elastic bandage (like an ACE bandage), and a toothbrush. With just these few items and your imagination you and your partner can explore almost all the basic sensations in CBT.

Nora had planned a special evening for Bob. They had been dating for many months and spent a lot of time talking about their fantasies, both sexual and otherwise. Bob had expressed an interest in letting Nora take the upper hand in their bedroom play and he told her some vivid stories of what he imagined could happen. She was not only attentive, but enthusiastic. Nora relished the idea of taking a dominant role with Bob during their sex play, so she prepared to make at least a few of his fantasies come true.

“Lock the door,” she told him in a breathy voice. She stood waiting for his compliance like a female drill sergeant, hands behind her back.

Bob paused for a second and then snapped into action. He picked up on what was going on and was eager to comply.

“Now, I want you naked before you go any further into my house!”

Bob couldn’t undress fast enough. Shedding his clothes with speed, he left them scattered around the entrance hall. When he had finally removed the last garment, his underwear, he stood before her feeling aroused and very vulnerable.

“You will not leave your clothes all over my house. Fold them neatly and bring them with you.”

She turned her back and moved away from the door. Bob did his best gathering up his stuff and at least made an effort to fold it into a single bundle. Then, like an obedient puppy, he followed Nora into the bedroom.

“Where do you want me to put these?”

Nora looked at him standing there naked, his cock already almost completely hard.

“What did you say, boy?” She put a special emphasis on that last word.

Bob took a few seconds to process her question and then it dawned on him.

“Where do you want me to put these, Mistress?”

Nora smiled and pointed to the dresser and tried to stifle a grin. She had never seen Bob so naked and vulnerable. She was almost as excited as he was.

“Now kneel on the bed facing me.” Nora pointed to the bed.

Bob scrambled onto the bed and knelt facing his partner. Anticipating what was coming, he spread his legs slightly and held his hands behind his back, giving Nora a full view of and full access to his now fully erect cock.

After a little more dialogue, Nora was satisfied that Bob was ready for the games to begin. She made sure he understood how he was to address her and how he was to let her know how her play was affecting him.

“I will satisfy my desires,” Nora said, getting into the mood of the character. “If at any time you feel you can no longer submit to my desires, you will ask for ‘mercy.’ Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mistress, I will ask for mercy.”

CBT can be great fun when combined with a dominant/ submissive scene or dynamic. You can incorporate the learning curve into the play while maintaining the power exchange. For example, as the scene progresses, the dominant partner can demand responses from the submissive partner: “Do you like that, boy?” or “Does that make you horny, boy?” Not only does it give both partners a sense of who is in control, but the back-and-forth dialogue lets the submissive give honest feedback.

One word of caution: injuries to the male genitals can result in some serious repercussions. It’s a good idea to let the partner on the receiving end have the ultimate say in matters of pain and sensation. A man, even one who is aroused and eager to please his partner, knows when something feels wrong with his genitals, and that means you need a signal that things have progressed beyond tolerable levels. You should always have a safeword. In addition, I like to use this method of communication: I tell my partner that as long as he is having fun he should address me as “Sir,” and if we need to talk, he should call me by my real name. That way the flow of communication can keep going without bringing things to a screeching halt.

Once you and your intended playmate have established some method of communication, it’s time to get down to business.

Nora began by taking a piece of rope and making several wraps at the base of Bob’s penis, looping behind his balls with each wrap. As she wrapped the rope she made sure it was tight enough to be confining but not so tight as to be painful. After three or four wraps, Bob’s penis was harder than ever. Then she took the ends of the rope and tied them together. The remaining rope she pulled up and inserted between Bob’s teeth.

“Hold that tight, do you hear me?”

Bob answered with a garbled, “Yes, Mistress.”

It can be more fun than you might imagine to tie up someone’s cock; the feeling of taking power from your partner by immobilizing his genitals is hot, and for him, the sensation of having the tight rope around the base of his cock and balls is very erotic. I suggest using a coil of braided nylon rope that is about nine feet long. Take one end of the rope, leaving about a foot of rope free to tie the end. Wrap the rope around the base of the cock several times; loop the rope behind the balls with each wrap. The coils of rope should be tight and coiled closely, as if you are winding it around a spool, to actually stretch the skin of the genitals away from the body. Be careful not to pinch this skin between the coils of rope—that is not an erotic experience. After you have about five or six wraps, tie off the rope using the one-foot length and the remaining rope. When done, you should have several feet of rope left (as Nora did in the passage above). Doing this also allows your partner to tighten or loosen the tension on the rope, and that gives him yet another safety valve if the sensations get too intense.