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

So let’s try another two-part exercise. We’ll explore the possibilities of conscious pain in solo practice first and then with a partner.

Before we begin, here’s a word of caution and an alert to a possible trigger: The solo practice of pain, like the solo practice of sex (masturbation) may come attached to feelings of shame, guilt, and self-recrimination. For example, some people feel they’re mad or bad because they cut, scratch, pull out hair, or bang their wrists. In this next exercise, I’m going to ask you to drop any self-judgment and focus instead on experiencing the sensation of pain. If that’s too difficult for you, or if it triggers bad feelings about yourself, then skip the solo part of this exercise and, if possible, go on to Playing with Pain (For Two).

Get comfortable. Make sure you feel physically and psychically safe. Pain (and sex and most everything else) is seldom ecstatic in unsafe space. Breathe gently but fully, in and out of slightly parted, relaxed lips. With each exhale, imagine all the tension leaving your body through the top of your head and the base of your spine. Squeeze your PC muscle and begin to find the beginning of a turn-on in your genitals. Breathe into that turn-on and imagine it flowing through your whole body, and out into your fingertips and toes.

You are going to practice giving, receiving, and fully experiencing a sensation of pain that you give to yourself.

Find a way to give yourself a stinging or thudding sensation—one that doesn’t damage your body. We want to focus on sensation, not injury. You can give yourself a slap, a pinch, a bite, or use your fingernails on any place on your body you can reach. For those of you who are more experienced with pain, you can use a favorite toy from your collection of sensation-producing devices. If you don’t have a collection of toys, you can use your hands, mouth, a wooden spoon, or some other implement you can find in your kitchen.

You will give yourself a single sensation. This can mean three slaps, or several seconds of a bite. Sometimes a single, effective, painful sensation can only be created with multiple strokes, therefore those multiple strokes count as a single sensation. You’re going to create a single sensation and then dive into that sensation as totally as you can, using your breath, your mind, sound, and PC squeezes to expand the sensation and carry it through your body.

So let’s try it. Breathe. Center yourself. Focus. Give yourself the sensation. Now go completely into it. Become the pain. Ride it as a surfer rides a wave—all the way into the beach until it disappears.

Breathe. Do it again. Deliver each stroke at your Resilient Edge of Resistance—right at the place where the pain is enough to make you gasp, but not so intense that you withdraw from it completely.

Now we are going to try a similar exercise with a partner. The receptive partner will ask the active partner for a single sensation and tell the active partner a) how intense the sensation should be, b) how long the sensation should continue, and c) where on the body they wish to receive it. They will also create a safeword. (Most people play with safewords. Some don’t. In this exercise, a safeword is part of the mindfulness of our giving and receiving, so we will use one.)

Let’s try it: Face your partner. Breathe. Gaze into your partner’s eyes. Drop into the present moment. If you have any physical or emotional limits or boundaries concerning anything in this exercise, share them with your partner now.

The receptive partnerasks for a sensation. The active partnerdecides whether or not this sensation is something they are willing and able to give. If they are willing to give the requested sensation, they do so. Then they do nothing. They breathe and pause, allowing the receptive partner to fully experience the sensation. When the receptive partner is ready for another sensation they ask for it, perhaps specifying that the next sensation be lighter or harder or something completely different. The role of the active partner is to give the sensation and support the receptive partner with breath and focused energy.

Notes for the active partner: Try to give your sensation as quickly as possible. If pain is given in a flash, the receiver does not have a chance to tense up and the sensation is more pleasurable.

Notes for the receptive partner: Alternate calming and charging breaths. Make sounds. Move the energy with PC squeezes. Remember, you are in complete control of this experience. Go as far as you and your partner want to go, and observe your limits.

This is an experiment in how pain and intense sensation build erotic energy within you and between you and your partner. Try to release your expectations of what you think should happen as well as your desire to make something happen. Simply witness each present moment of the exercise.

As with the exercise in power, I strongly suggest you switch roles. Whether you are a top, a bottom, or a switch by nature, this experiment in how to move and transform pain into energy is a valuable (and delightful) exercise.

Now that you have a direct, mindful, solo and partnered experience of pain as an energetic force, feel free to add the sex. Sex is an especially delicious complement to pain. You can alternate deep thrusts and soft strokes with stinging blows. Spanking, nipple biting, and hair pulling make great accompaniments to fucking. Rake your fingernails over your lover’s back, belly, and thighs. Pour the wax from a low-temperature paraffin candle on your beloved’s back as you fuck them. Raid your kitchen for potential kinky toys. Keep a collection of wooden spoons, spatulas, fondue forks, and pickle tongs within easy reach. You can take one favorite sensation to new levels of intensity, or mix it up with varying intensities of sharp, pinchy, thuddy, stinging, hot and cold.

The endorphins and comfort provided by the sex provide the perfect lubricant for expanding levels of orgasmic pain. You can climb to ecstatic heights with pain, then slide down through the valleys with sex, then swoop back up on pain. Your only limits are your imagination and an eventual need for water, food, and sleep.

Now that you’ve visited the place on the erotic map where Tantric sex and BDSM intersect, don’t be a stranger! Stop by often and explore all that the neighborhood has to offer. It’s growing larger and more diverse every day.

Author’s Note: The exercises in this chapter were adapted from workshop exercises I created in collaboration with Dossie Easton, coauthor of Radical Ecstasy: S/M Journeys Into Transcendence . I am grateful to her for all I learned while cofacilitating these workshops and for all the fun I had learning it. I am also grateful to Kate Bornstein for her invaluable insights on the practice of solo pain.

When I am pierced, I feel like a little bit of my spirit is released from my body and is allowed to fly. The needle goes in, it’s like a quick flash of pain, then a slow ache in my skin as it travels in, followed by another flash as the needle comes back out of my skin on the other side. I feel the light, the sensation, I open my eyes and I let go. Intimacy is shared, the outside world disappears, and we melt into each other, together.

Poking needles into flesh is one of my favorite things to do. Really. There are a variety of reasons why a person may want to perform temporary piercings on another. A top may pierce for the enjoyment of the bottom or for her reactions, which might not always be pleasant. Piercing is much more invasive than other types of SM skills. Whereas a flogging is an external kind of stimulation, with needles you are entering the body. This can feel like a different type of penetration to some or an invasion of the body to others, and piercing often creates a more intimate experience between partners. From an artistic viewpoint, piercing allows the top creative expression; one can create different designs with needle configurations and shapes, colors, decorative ribbon, and other items. Imagine putting feathers in the hubs of the needles after they have been placed and transforming your bottom into a peacock.