The Ultimate Guide to Kink

by Tristan Taormino

  What to Do if You Have Been Exposed

  Should an exposure occur, remain calm. If you stick yourself with a needle that has been used on another person, or are otherwise exposed, immediate treatment is essential.

  For exposure as a result of broken skin, clean the exposed area with soap and water. Squeezing blood out of the wound has no added effect.

  If exposure is to the mucous membranes, flush the affected area with water for 15 minutes.

  Contact your primary care physician immediately. If there has been possible exposure to HBV, medical treatment needs to begin within 24 hours. Opinions vary as to when prophylaxis treatment should begin for possible exposure to HIV: from 30 minutes to 4 hours has been recommended.

  Exposure to infectious diseases must be taken very seriously—they can be life-threatening. Get tested for HBV, HCV, and HIV for your own sake and for the safety of those you scene with. Positive HBV, HCV, or HIV status does not preclude future scenes involving blood so long as standard precautions are taken. Be open to your partners concerning your medical status. It is inexcusable to have an infectious disease and not tell your partner about it.

  NEEDLE WORK AFTERCARE

  If a wound is going to become infected, it will usually happen in the first 24 to 72 hours. This statistic is based on infections arising from open-wound trauma that required closure. Infection rates for a “clean wound,” such as the ones created from operating on intact skin without entering any internal organs, is 2.5 percent. These rates are compiled from surgical incisions, not tiny holes from a needle. What you are doing is puncturing normal healthy tissue. To prevent infection, clean the area twice a day with clean gauze and a mixture of equal parts hydrogen peroxide and water. (It’s not necessary to use sterile gauze.) If desired, and if there is no allergy, apply Neosporin to the area one to three times a day.

  Consult a physician if you develop any of these signs and symptoms of infection: • Slight redness around the insertion site is normal, but redness should not spread beyond the site. Red streaking leading away from the wound is a definite sign of infection.

  • Pain and tenderness and mild bruising are normal, but the pain and swelling should be greatest during the second day and should then diminish.

  • Increased redness or warmth

  • Any drainage from the site

  • Any fever above 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit

  PIERCING IN A SCENE

  I love everything about play piercing: the desire to develop and maintain an advanced skill, the intense intimacy during the scene, the visceral animalistic emotions brought on by blood, and the satisfaction of pleasing my partner. Piercing play requires trust between partners, and the feelings of vulnerability, anticipation, and the power exchange provide just as much of a rush for the piercer as the physical sensations do for the one being pierced. There is an element of performance art to it as well. I do not consider myself an artist, but when working with needles and a willing exhibitionist, I can explore that part of my personality.

  —DOUG

  Please keep in mind that this is an introduction to needle work. There are many places to go from here. You can combine needles with other types of scenes—here are just a few ideas. To add some more pain to the equation, spray 70% isopropyl alcohol on the fresh piercing holes to make them sting. If your bottom likes humiliation, have him walk around a public dungeon all bandaged up or with a hundred elastic bandages stuck all over his body. Piercing can easily be combined with virtually any other type of scene. Once a person is in bondage, needles can be placed anywhere that you can access skin. The needles themselves can be used for bondage by looping a string around the ends and attaching the other end of the string to a stationary object.

  For a more artistic flair, needles can be placed to create various shapes and designs. Some folks layer the needles to make a “button.” This is accomplished by inserting a needle in regular fashion and then inserting another needle just under the first, but at a 90-degree angle to it—think of a pinwheel. Multiple needles can be placed in the same area using this technique. Just use one of the needles you already inserted to lift up the skin to ease placement of subsequent needles. After the needles are in place you can press on the “button” with a gloved hand or finger to increase the intensity of the piercing. Be extra careful not to get poked. After you’ve pierced the flesh and the sharp end of the needle has come out the other side, you can carefully put the end into a sterile cork or decorative “cap”—it’s a great way to prevent getting poked.

  Are you getting the idea that there is more to needle work than simply placing the needles? Of course there are more things to do to up the excitement. Rotating the needles, pulling on the needles, and using larger-gauge needles are ways to be a little more sadistic. Just use your imagination and have fun.

  I want to share one more thing about the story I told earlier. As I write this, Katie and I are waiting for her nipple jewelry to arrive. You see, Katie asked me to permanently pierce her nipples. But she gets to watch me do it. Funny how that worked out.

  CHAPTER 9

  BRUTAL AFFECTION: PLAYING WITH ROUGH SEX

  FELICE SHAYS

  The sweet intersection of slap and kiss. The rough and tumble of pound and caress, of commanding voice and gentle stroke, of laugh and growl. Welcome to the intense and gorgeous world of rough sex.

  Rough sex is not one person deciding desires and limits. Rough sex is not one person accepting whatever is done to them or when it stops. Rough sex is not polite. Rough sex is not abuse. Rough sex is not payback or punishment.

  Rough sex is consent and desire.

  Rough sex treads on taboos, giving them a wink and the finger.

  Rough sex is the clear permission to take and give power.

  Rough sex doesn’t care about what gender you are, how you look, who you fuck, or who others say you’re supposed to be.

  Rough sex is release, dominance, resistance, objectification, humiliation, imagination, role play, giving in, giving over.

  Rough sex is connected, laughing, loving, silly, growling, playful.

  Rough sex is awareness, calculating, tender, self-confident, respectful.

  Rough sex is primal, raw, spiritual, animalistic, unruly, breathless, ruthless, famished, predatory, ecstatic.

  Rough sex is unfolding and claiming your desire.

  Rough sex is using your hands, genitals, mouth, heart, toys, and brain.

  Rough sex is passion and ache.

  In this chapter, we will explore how to find and express your own desire, push through fears, communicate, negotiate, and define your physical and emotional limits and release. Plus, I’ll let you in on a compelling assortment of techniques, ideas, and safety tips so you can get busy expressing your brutal affection.

  CLAIMING YOUR DESIRES

  There are lots of reasons why people want to have fierce, power-imbued, consensual sex. Say you lead a complicated life that requires you to make endless decisions and keep control of your home, work, or school. The opportunity for someone who respects you, likes you, or loves you to come in and “relieve you” of your power by running the show for a few hours is liberating. Maybe you’ve always been a scrappy kid—wrestling with your sisters and brothers and the kids at school. To feel the force from someone aching to be pounded into by you, or they into you, feels like being put back into your flesh in a most exquisite way. Perhaps, for you, gentle is only part of your story. Expressing physically the power, passion, and heat you carry is what links you to your lover and connects you both in a spiritual, emotional way that tenderness doesn’t always reach. Maybe it’s more primal: you like to slap people while fucking them with all your strength. You get rock hard and slippery wet fantasizing about being tied spread-eagled to the kitchen table, gagged and blindfolded. Like other kinds of BDSM, rough sex releases endorphins—chemicals from the brain which block pain and create feelings of euphoria; many people thrill at the rush and high they feel from intense physical sensations
.

  Something shifts in me. Something shuts off—some internal voice is silenced. I don’t see my stretch marks, or the dirty clothes on the floor. No, I’m aware of something shoving the critics out of the way, displacing them. To think this is only about body parts is a mistake. It’s like my brain gets quieted by the roar of my hunger, ache, need. I take what I want knowing she wants me to take her again and again. I become so tall and strong—like a mother pushing a car off a baby stuck in a stroller. It is absolutely a spiritual undertaking. Not like god but yes, like god. Tapping into an essence that only comes when you let go—when you are relieved of your life in its everyday trappings and wrappings.

  Mainstream society delivers a constant barrage of restrictive, prescriptive, and often conflicting messages. Although ads and movies are filled with images of rough sex, it is still considered deviant behavior. We’re taught confusing lessons like Have, desire, and love one partner forever; Make yourself sexy to your man but don’t be a slut; Desire what everyone else does; Strike out and be an individual—but don’t deviate too far from what is acceptable.

  None of these precepts translate well to the bedroom or to creating an arsenal of fantasies. Even the powerful, long sought after achievements of feminist equality that must be intrinsic in a society committed to equality can sometimes wreak havoc in our sex lives. When you first get together with someone, the unknown newness of the other creates an erotic tension that is the cornerstone of sexual desire. Over time the ease, equality, and comfort we strive for in our intimate relationships can be the very undoing to this necessary positive tension. Add roughing up or being roughed up by this person you love and with whom you derive comfort, and it’s easy to feel confused.

  Rough sex demands respect and equal voice—even if that’s not how it looks when you’re in it. Fantasizing or craving to be “raped” by your lover does not make you a sick person. You don’t need to be cured of anything. You might need therapy for other reasons, but getting off on someone calling you “a filthy set of holes” doesn’t necessarily signify deep, unresolved psychological issues. On the other hand, being belittled or denied the things you need and want at the hands of your lover is not foreplay—it’s abuse. Being violent with someone who has said no in any form is abuse. Actual rape is an invasion and a crime.

  “How Do I Figure Out What I Want?”

  The biggest challenge in the search to discover and name your desire is keeping an open mind. Do not judge yourself or think that what you want is perverted or wrong; silence the voice in your head that tells you you’re alone in your desire, or that your lover (or potential lover) will reject you. Don’t apologize for your desire. And don’t confuse fantasy with reality. As long as your fantasy of seducing the newspaper boy is acted out with another consenting adult, you’re lucky to be in touch with your desire. And no, you’re not messed up.

  For the past decade I’ve taught and worked with thousands of people across North America who occupy radically different places in the world: in their experiences, in their proclivities and repulsions, in how they look, who they like to be sexual with, and how they get off. (Long ago, when I learned that one of my then new kinky friends worked as a flight attendant, my world shifted on its axis. Now every time I fly I assume there is a raucous lover serving me my peanuts.) But regardless of class, level of education, gender, and orientation, one question always comes up: How do I figure out what I want?

  Start with what you already know you like: being pinned down while being fucked, say, or squeezing your balls to the point of pain when you come. Let your mind wander. In a fantasy, what might come before and after that? Do not edit or censor yourself. Write it down.

  Go to your local sex toy store in person or online and peruse book and DVD titles that you find intriguing. Remember, there is an inexhaustible flow of bravado and misrepresentation online and in porn. Get ideas, be turned on or horrified—just don’t think you are supposed to be that bendable, invincible, or stretch that wide! Check out the resource guide at the back of this book to find a plethora of smart, reliable websites and educators filled with intelligent, responsible, sexy ideas and information.

  Do any of your friends talk about or allude to being into rough stuff (whatever that means to them)? There are far more “naughty” people out there than you might imagine. When you find chat rooms and like-minded people, don’t only lurk—engage, ask questions, answer queries, challenge, listen. If you are trying to suss this out in tandem with your partner, the process is similar: each of you discovering and revealing what makes you squirm is half the fun. Share links and images (I’m a fan of “I want this” images sent via text or email, or left in the medicine cabinet). Read erotica to each other, or using different-colored ink, take turns underlining passages in a shared book. This idea works because you don’t have to say out loud what might feel too embarrassing at first. Ask your partner to write a list of turn-ons—from the benign to the hard-core. You can compare notes or just certain parts if revealing the whole list might be too scary.

  COMMUNICATION AND NEGOTIATION

  I love when you, my lover, let me be small—yes, let me—because I know you will respect me and my limits, hold me, without judgment, keep me safe. We think each other the hottest things on two feet (we tell each other so often—and not just in bed). So even when, during sex, you are calling me names, or fucking me so hard, or pushing me to take more, you know it’s exactly what I crave. Thank God we’ve talked about this so often. I love your ferocity and won’t let you hurt me in ways I don’t want to be hurt. Please, take care of everything for a while; know where we are driving. Yes, I will help pay for gas, help you decide the route, but you drive and I will let go.

  I’m hungry to keep you safe and hold you strong. Push you to see that you are mighty and tender and can take yourself even further than you ever thought you could. I have told you countless times how I adore you and think you are breathlessly sexy, and you too tell me that I’m crazy hot so we don’t need to do that now. During sex I may call you names or hold you down; we’ve talked about all of this already. I know it makes you weak with need—hell, me too. I can give you sensations that rough up your brain and release endorphins. And you can know that I’m driving. Trust that I know where we are going or at least when we need a rest stop. And though I’m holding the wheel, I don’t for a minute stop glorying at the scenery. And you—you can let go.

  It doesn’t matter if you are hooking up for a night or a lifetime, the one non-negotiable element is permission—getting it and respecting it.

  If you’re on the receiving end of rough play, remember that you are not a passive vessel. If you want something harder, faster, slower, started or stopped—tell your lover. “Oh god, yes!” counts as feedback. So does “Ow, stop, wait. Damn, that’s big. Let’s try this, baby.” You are not timid or imperfect for speaking up. On the contrary, you are proving yourself to be a trusted lover who is committed to having connected, hot sex. Nothing changes unless you make it change. And though it looks as if the person who is meting out the roughness is in power, that is just the opposite of what’s happening. The one being roughed up is the one who has the final word about what does and doesn’t happen.

  If you’re doling out the rough play, you are not a fucking machine, aiming to please only yourself or your lover. Start slowly, building up and discovering your own and your partner’s desire and tolerance for more intensity. If you go from zero to 60 in no time flat, your lover may not be able to keep up, or be interested in it. Someone giving herself to you is a gift; take your time discovering what’s inside. This does not mean that a slow buildup is an “always” rule. Sometimes, you need to throw someone against a wall and take what you want. Pinning his hands to his side, you clamp down on his neck with your mouth and bite—long and hard. Sometimes, while his cock is in you, you reach your arms up and pound his back with your fist as he growls and leans down to kiss you. But you know jumping into it at full speed is right for both of you bec
ause together you have experimented, talked, and listened with clarity and respect.

  “Now That I Know, How Do I Get What I Want?”

  All relationships, whether you’ve been together 10 minutes or 10 years, have radically different histories of experience, trust, and disappointment, but the basics of getting clear, brave, and open are the same. Do you know what it is you want? Have you articulated specific activities to yourself? Have you experienced things with a previous lover that you want with this partner? It’s okay to have only a sense of what you want—just remember that your partner can’t know till you know. Getting what you want in any avenue of life involves risk. You and your sex are worth it. Over a drink, on a walk, or on the subway, say a thing or two that you love about your sex or sensuality together. Say something you want to try. You can also (but you don’t have to) have a lengthy talk or write a list of what you want or don’t want.

  Talking can be sexy—sometimes simply introducing the idea unlocks the taboo door. “I love it when I’m going down on you and you hold my head exactly where you want it—not letting me move around a lot.” Or “Remember that scene in the movie where he pushed her against the car, slapped her face, and then kissed her? Oh my God, that was hot.” Bring home erotica or porn with stories or images that turn you on. Share it with your lover on a date. Ask what she thinks about when she masturbates. Tell her what you think about too.