The Ultimate Guide to Kink

by Tristan Taormino

  For purposes of this exercise, I strongly suggest you switch roles. You may be involved in a D/s relationship where switching just isn’t part of your play. However, that doesn’t have to prevent you from experimenting with active and receptive. My friend and colleague Raven Kaldera and his full-time slave, Joshua, figured out a way to experience both active and receptive roles. As Raven described it: “When I was leading Joshua, he was doing what I wanted him to do; when Joshua was leading me, he was doing what he knew I would want him to do.”

  Playing with Power—Part Two

  Now let’s experiment with combining power exchange with Tantric positions designed for sexual energy exchange. In order to do this part of the exercise, you’ll need to know one energizing breath and one Tantric position. Here’s the breath. I call it the Heart Breath: 1. Yawn. Feel how the yawn opens the back of your throat and stretches out your whole mouth and face? That’s the feeling of openness you want when you do the Heart Breath.

  2. Breathe. Let your mouth fall open slightly. Relax your jaw and face, open the back of your throat, and breathe in through your mouth, gently but fully.

  3. Exhale. Don’t push the breath out; just let it fall out with a gentle little sigh, ahhh.

  4. Take in as much air as you can, as effortlessly as you can, then let it go.

  5. Keep breathing. That’s all there is to it. You can do the Heart Breath as slowly or as intensely as you like.

  Now the position. It is called Yab Yum, and it’s the classic Tantric sex position. One partner sits in an easy cross-legged posture, with a cushion under their tailbone. The other partner sits in their lap, facing them, with legs wrapped around their waist and the soles of the feet touching. Both partners place their right hand at the back of their partner’s neck and their left hand on their partner’s tailbone. Yab Yum can be done with or without penetration. For purposes of this exercise, we’ll do it without penetration, so you can keep your focus on the power exchange. In Yab Yum you are perfectly aligned with your partner, energetically. You can gaze into your partner’s eyes. You can kiss. Or, touch your foreheads together, third eye to third eye. You can draw energy up your partner’s spine, from the tailbone to the neck. As you get more and more turned on and active, you can rock back and forth passionately.

  Now you’re ready to begin part two of the exercise.

  Active partner: Lead your partner over to a soft and comfortable but firm and supported place. Beds are generally too soft. Try some soft pillows placed on the floor. Remove the wrist restraints.

  Both partners: You are going to begin with an even power exchange, then move into active and receptive roles.

  Sit facing your partner in an easy cross-legged position. (If this is difficult for you, arrange some pillows on the floor or sit with your legs in some other more comfortable position.) Place your right hand over your partner’s heart. Then place your left hand over your partner’s hand, which is on your heart. Breathe together using the Heart Breath and look into each other’s eyes. Allow a sigh or ahhh to come out every four or five breaths or so. Begin to rock back and forth, focusing on an evenly balanced exchange of energy. Neither of you is intentionally active or receptive. As the rocking becomes faster and more intense, take your hands off each other’s hearts and hold them together between you in a prayer position, joining all four hands between you. As you rock, move your joined hands in circles—sending energy up the front of your body and down the front of your partner’s. Then reverse, sending energy up the front of your partner’s body and down the front of yours.

  Illustration 7.2. Yab Yum

  Now, move into Yab Yum. The receptive partner sits in the lap of the active partner. You can breathe with foreheads touching, still eye-gazing, as the active partner begins to rock back and forth. Breathe together with the intention of going completely and totally into active and completely and totally into receptive.

  A variation on this is to tie a (strong) sarong, knotted in the front at the breastbone, on the receptive partner. This gives the active partner a “handle” at the heart chakra. The active partner can “throw” the receptive partner away from them, then pull them back in, building intense energy between the two of you. (Warning: If you choose this variation make sure that the receptive partner’s neck and back are flexible enough to withstand the throw. Whiplash is seldom sexy.)

  Be aware that odd things can happen during this exercise. The active partner may feel as if they have grown an energetic cock. The receptive partner may feel as if they are being fucked by that cock. Faces can appear to change. You may feel as if you are flying. You may see visions. You may simply enjoy the physical sensation of being thrown about by your partner. You will find your own authentic ecstasy by simple conscious experience of this exercise.

  When you have landed safely back on earth, take a moment to analyze the results of your experiment. How did things change when you consciously moved from a balanced power exchange into active and receptive roles? What was that like for you? What was easy? What was hard? Was this type of power exchange different from the ways in which you may have played with power before? As you share the answers to these questions with your partner you will be well on your way to creating your own personalized style of power sharing.

  Illustration 7.3. Heart energy exchange

  CONSCIOUS SEX

  Now that you’ve had a taste of conscious active and receptive power exchange, let’s add conscious sex. Some people get so high off the exchange of power and sexual energy that genital sex becomes irrelevant or redundant. They may intentionally avoid genital orgasm to prolong the ride. However, in addition to feeling wonderful and just being fabulous fun, sex is an important energy builder in its own right. How you combine power exchange and sex is completely up to you. In the Yab Yum position, you can use a penis, a dildo, a double dildo or an anal plug for vaginal or anal penetration. Whether your cock is anatomical or strap-on, the combination of the power exchange, the rocking, and the penetration will exponentially intensify all sensations. Vary the speed of your fucking. Fuck really hard and fast. Then just stop. Do nothing. Let the energy run through you for as long as it can. Maintain your active/receptive power exchange even when you are perfectly still. Then fuck really fast again. You can do a variation on this from the rear. In this position, you can play with your partner’s clitoris or cock as you fuck.

  You can also use conscious power exchange to enhance erotic massage. If you are the active partner you can use sensual touch—your hands or your whole body—to communicate the transfer of control. For example your hands on their back might convey the message, “You are my property,” or, you might lie on top of your partner, using your weight to take command. You can dictate the pace of your partner’s arousal, driving them wild by denying them an orgasm or by insisting on multiple “forced” orgasms. By the way, although it might seem logical that the person giving the massage would be the active partner and the person receiving the massage would be the receptive partner, this is not the only viable power-sharing configuration. The person receiving the massage could be the active partner, directing the receptive partner in giving them exactly the right touch, exactly when they want it.

  Power exchange and oral sex are a similarly good mix. As the active partner you could take control of your partner’s cock or pussy with your mouth, teasing mercilessly, allowing orgasm only on your terms, in your own time. If you like vampire fantasies, you could imagine feeding on your partner by sucking out their power and their pleasure with your mouth. As the receptive partner, your mouth could become your partner’s sex toy, to be used as they please.

  Use your imagination. You don’t need specifically Tantric positions or BDSM rituals to play with conscious power exchange. Some fantasy or image may have flashed through your mind as you were exchanging power. You may have caught a glimpse of a scene you’d like to act out. Perhaps your inner hapless victim wants to be overpowered by your partner’s inner evil villain? Whatever your sexual preferen
ces or desires, you can combine them with power exchange. The possibilities are infinite.

  THE TAO OF PAIN

  People who love to play with pain do it for a variety of reasons. For many people, traveling on the intense sensation commonly referred to as pain produces altered and expanded states of consciousness. For others, playing with “good” pain alleviates physical, emotional, and psychic “bad” pain. Many people who love “good” pain—meaning conscious pain—experience it as orgasmic, including those who consciously and compassionately inflict the pain upon themselves; for example, solo SM artists and cutters.

  Conscious pain is not the kind of pain we experience when we stub our toe or bang our elbow on a door frame. Conscious pain is not accidental, nor is it violent. Orgasmic pain is an intense sensation, received by choice by someone who knows how to turn it into pleasure, relief, or empowerment. It is delivered by someone who knows how to deliver it in measured doses, at the right intervals and intensities.

  But still, pain as orgasm? Let’s consider for a moment: what exactly is an orgasm? The most common definition might be “a sexual climax attained by stimulation of the genitals and other erogenous zones.” That seems incomplete. Perhaps we could add “accompanied by a release of accumulated tension and energy.” That’s better, but it’s nowhere near inclusive enough to contain the kinds of expanded orgasms we want to talk about when we combine Tantra and BDSM. Let’s try this: “An orgasm is a release of tension and expansion of energy flowing through the body/mind and connecting us to spirit.”

  According to this definition, conscious pain could certainly produce an orgasm. And how you actually do that is simple: you use all the techniques for moving sexual energy through the body that you learned at the beginning of this chapter. If you combine conscious breathing, focused imagination, sounds, and PC squeezes, you could have an orgasm with no genital stimulation whatsoever. Yes—an actual orgasm. I recently proved that this type of hands-free, breath-and-energy orgasm is an actual orgasm by having one inside an fMRI machine. Just as you can add these techniques to sex to produce hugely expanded genital orgasms, you can combine them with pain to produce exquisite paingasms. Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to leave out the sex. A combined energy/pain/genital orgasm is truly (and almost literally) a mind-blowing experience. You can use all these techniques of expanded orgasm to keep ecstasy flying through you or you flying through it.

  EXERCISE: PLAYING WITH PAIN

  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).

  Playing with Pain (for One)

  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.

  Playing with Pain (for Two)

  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 partner asks for a sensation. The active partner decides 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 w
ith 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.

  CHAPTER 8

  PIERCING SCENES

  FIFTHANGEL