The New Bottoming Book (12 page)

Please do remember that in changing your perception of pain, you may also lose your normal way of knowing when your body is being damaged. The top must keep a close eye on physical safety, because you may not be able to. Tops may also find that as they hit harder and harder in response to your increasing excitement, their control and accuracy may diminish. We suggest that tops in these scenes regularly check the red marks on your hide to make sure that whips are landing on well-padded body parts.

When you come to the place where you actually want things to hurt more, you are ready for really intense stimulation. Now is the time for your top to break out the sting-iest cat, or the heaviest canes and riding crops. An excellent stimulation for the "pain slut" is a brief, very intense pain followed by some recovery time, during which the bottom can actually feel the endorphin release: many bottoms go down with a scream and come up giggling. We especially like canes for this.

It may help you to know that there is an end point, so you can choose to stretch yourself to handle a greater intensity as long as you know its not going to last forever. So a caning scene might start out at one at a time, then the top might suggest three at a time, then maybe five... always with the reward time in between, so it becomes like going on the roller coaster, getting off staggering, and getting back in line to go round again, and again, and again.

Another way to do a pain scene is with clothespins or any other clip or clamp that will hold a pinch of skin. Clips can be placed just about anywhere you can pull up a pinch of skin. Sometimes a clip gets put on a particular spot that is intolerable, maybe because there is a nerve there. It is normal and acceptable to request that an overly painful clip be moved to a better spot, often only half an inch or so away.

The interesting thing about clips is that they hurt somewhat when they are put on, and then that spot gradually becomes numb as the circulation is reduced. The most intense sensation comes when the clip is removed, gently or harshly, and blood flows back into the area. (Clips with teeth or ridges should not be yanked off.) So putting the clips on becomes the warm-up and taking them off is the roller coaster... frequently with a bit of sexual or affectionate touching during the break between clips.

As in a caning scene, the bottom may want some resolution time after each clip is taken off. This time may be an excellent opportunity for some sensual touching or sexual stimulation between the moments of agony. A particularly nasty way to intensify the sensation of clips being removed is to tie them at intervals along a cord so you can yank several of them off at once; these are called "zippers." What we like about zippers is the contrast between the flash of excruciating pain as they come off — pain that's over so fast that by the time we realize it happened, were already screaming - and the intense endorphin rush afterwards, that often leaves us giggling uncontrollably and feeling very silly.

Other pain sluts prefer long, slow-building, intense pain, without the rollercoaster effect. Clips can give these bottoms the unremitting sensation they need. To build intensity, the top can pull on the clips, weight them or

attach them to another body part with tension in the attachment; she can also twist them or use fingers to stretch the skin on either side of them. Removing a clip and then replacing it on the same spot is extremely intense... replacing it with a heavier clip is even more so. Yanking a clip off is a "jolt" of pain that may not work as well in this type of scene, since it may interfere with sustained slow build-up.

Whips. The impact of whips on flesh can provide an immense range of sensation — from gentle and sensual, through deep massage, all the way out to full-tilt-boogie thrash-and-scream intensity. So if you have never tried them, the first thing to know about whips is that they don't need to hurt at all. Soft doeskin and glove-leather whips can be purely sensual, or can thump like a firm massage, or warm up skin to make it rosy and sensitive with no pain. Dossie recalls:

When I first came out into S/M, I had very negative feelings about whips. I am an abuse survivor, and the idea of being hit made me a little sick to my stomach; my fantasies were about bondage, intense sensation and nonconsent. I remember at my first Janus meeting tremulously asking the assembled scary-looking leatherpeople if I could be into S/M if I didn't want to get hit. They gave me good support, and agreed that I could. My first experience with a whip, more than a year later, was actually with a belt, administered by a top who understood how scared I was - and was I surprised! This didn't feel bad, it didn't feel like punishment, it felt nothing like the abuse I had known - it did feel intensely warm, sensual and deeply sexual.

So whips do not have to be about pain and punishment. They can be sensual and sexual in and of themselves, and they don't need to hurt unless you want them to.

Basic safety info about whips: don't allow yourself to be hit with anything hard on bone or over organs, or on any other part of your body that could be easily damaged; save heavy whips for well-padded flesh like the ass and thighs, or the big muscles of the upper back. Safer sex requires that whips be cleaned between uses, particularly if skin has been broken or abraded, or if they've come into contact with semen or vaginal fluid.

Remember, you can't always know for sure whether a whip has been contaminated, so when in doubt, clean. If you cant clean it, put it aside for a month in a dry, cool place.

Sensation sluts tend to collect lots and lots of whips, because each has a slightly different feeling when it lands, and when you keep changing the feeling you can make a whipping interesting for a really long time. What this means for the novice is that if you don't like the feel of the whip that is being used on you, just try a different one. With any new toy, start out with light taps and build up as you get to know the feel of it.

You will probably eventually want to own some of your favorite whips - that way they'll always be on hand, and you can take responsibility for their cleanliness. Most new players start out enjoying thick heavy (loggers with lots of tails, and avoiding thin stringy whips that sting - sting is a taste which some acquire quickly, some later, and some never acquire.

Dossie, in her pilgrims progress from terrified novice to pain pig, for a while said that she didn't like pain but did like intense stimulation. Toward the end of this period, a potential top introduced herself at a party, saying that a mutual friend had told her that Dossie was into pain. Dossie replied, "No, I'm not, but you won't be able to tell the difference.''

She notes:

Recently I received a lengthy flogging on my ass with a deep thuddy flogger, so I could feel the reverberations of the strokes deep inside shaking up all my sexual parts. To my amazement, and with no other stimulation, I came three times.

Surfing the Pain. There is a particular way of breathing and timing that works well in pain scenes; Dossie calls it "surfing the pain." Make your top read this part too -you II need someone to remind you when to do what, like a labor coach. This strategy involves relaxing your body so the pain sort of flows through you: you 11 find you can ride it like a wave.

The most important single physical skill for the pain slut, we think, is breathing. Its almost impossible to get in trouble in a scene - panicky, hysterical or out of control - if you re breathing deeply and regularly. If you sense yourself losing control, the first thing to do is try to regulate your breathing. Sometimes your top will remind you verbally to breathe, or place a hand on your chest to remind you to breathe, or simply breathe the way he wants you to, encouraging you to pace your breathing together.

You are at your most relaxed physically when you breathe out, so your top can tell you — in words or by example - when to inhale and exhale, and arrange to hit you or pull off a clip while you are breathing out. Striking at the very end of an exhalation has the added advantage of helping to prevent screaming if you don't have a soundproof playroom - its hard to shriek if you have no air in your lungs.

Making sounds such as screaming or moaning can keep your breathing regular and help release some of the energy your body is taking in. (If you're a screamer or a moaner, and you're playing in a non-soundproof environment, ask for a gag, a pillow, or a piece of leather or cloth to bite, and make all the noise you want into it.) Janet says, "The pitch of the noise I make is a reliable indicator of how tense 1 am: A deep moan or growl means my neck and throat muscles are relaxed and I'm basically dealing well with the sensation, whereas a high-pitched scream means I may be heading for trouble."

Along with deep, regular breaths, focus on relaxing your muscles. You might be tensing up muscles in the area that's receiving sensation - say, for example, your ass. The taut muscles make the area being stimulated feel "harder," and may make the sensation tougher to take. Or you might be tensing muscles elsewhere in your body, typically your neck and shoulders, stomach or face. This tension makes your breathing shallow, increases the likelihood that you'll panic or suffer an emotional upset, and prevents you from accepting as much sensation as you'd like. With practice, you can stay very still and relaxed and achieve a trancelike state. A good top can help you relax by placing a hand on the tense part and sending some energy into your muscles, possibly even moving the pan back and forth to loosen it up.

This can serve to move your attention away from the focal point of pain or sex, and get you reconnected to your entire body, not just the spot that's getting done to. You can do this yourself by taking in and releasing your breath, and letting your attention cruise your whole body, starting out with toes and fingers and gradually letting your attention move back into your center. You may find interesting sensations out there on the periphery that you haven't been noticing: Do your toes tingle? Do your fingers itch to knead something, like a cat? When you're ready to focus back on the sensations your top is providing, you'll be surprised with a happy increase in intensity.

Once you have learned to surf the pain by staying relaxed, it is interesting to tense up your muscles on purpose, in order to feel the strokes even more intensely. You can do this yourself, or your top can instruct you when to relax and when to tense. So you can let the play come in waves, each convulsion of pain followed by feelings of warmth and pleasure. This is how some bottoms giggle or laugh with joy in the midst of horrible "torture." Such bottoms can go on for a very long time like this, so tops should be prepared to have stamina or put together a relay team.

If the sensation you're feeling is strong, particularly if its a rhythmic or steady sensation without too much variation, you may be able to leave your body for a while, assuming this is OK with your top. Music provides a convenient, friendly "boat" on which you can float away. Or focus on a light, an object, a mantra — anything that lets you drift. It may help to imagine that the sensation is happening to someone else, not to you. (A warning on leaving your body: It's very easy to lose touch with what's going on to the point that you allow damage to be done to you. Be sure you trust your top, and that you've negotiated limits very thoroughly, before you go on any pleasure cruises.) Your top can bring you back into your body with hands on skin, massage, physical closeness or calling your name.

As we mentioned earlier, all these skills can be consciously learned as "head" skills. Your body also learns to process sensations differently over time: both of us have noticed that our endorphins flow much quicker than they used to.

Most bottoms also find that they bruise much less as they bottom more. However, if you get to where you enjoy heavy pain scenes, you will sooner or later have to face the reality of bruises, welts and scratches — commonly referred to as "marks." Some bottoms love marks and feel disappointed if they don't have any after a session: we know one who keeps a scrapbook full of Polaroid photos of the aftermath of her pleasure. But if you don't like to be marked, you have a dilemma — we don't know any way to play with heavy pain without running a risk of marking. You can reduce the probability of marks by avoiding aspirin and other anti-inflammatory drugs the day you play, and by putting ice on the affected areas immediately after the scene.

Your body may let you know that you've gone far enough with symptoms of dizziness, nausea or trembling. You need to let your top know when this happens, and either take a break, change stimulation or bring the scene to a close. Sometimes changing from a standing to a lying-down position will solve the problem and you can continue without difficulty. A drink of water, and perhaps a bite to eat, can be a very good idea too. Other times, these are symptoms that you are getting ready to faint, which is kind of rude. You may be shaky and cold after an intense pain scene - we recommend blankets and warm bodies.

The reward of a good pain scene is a transcendent and blissful high that persists for at least an hour or two, and maybe even into the next day — be prepared to relax and enjoy it. This may not be a good time to drive a car, but it is probably a great time to make love.

Body modification refers to piercing, cutting, tattooing, branding and scarification, as well as body sculpting through corsetry and related practices, often intended to permanently mark or alter the body. These practices are currently very popular, and piercing and tattooing "parlors" are now found in most large and many smaller cities. People who are into piercing, cutting and tattooing may or may not be into S/M, and may or may not take masochistic pleasure in the sensation involved. Some mark important events or transitions in their lives by having another tattoo or piercing, while others acquire multiple piercings and cuttings over time just for the sake of having the decorated body that results.

Rings in permanent piercings through the nipples or parts of the genitalia can also be looked upon as installed toys: interesting sensations result from pulling or twisting, or warming the metal by dripping wax from a white paraffin candle on it. Piercings tend to increase the sensitivity and arousability of the part of the body they inhabit, and some people get rings installed so they can feel more sensation in that particular area. We also find the gleam of metal in unlikely places very attractive.