The (New and Improved) Loving Dominant (28 page)

Later, as I become more familiar with the submissive’s ability to handle this specific stimulation, I may forgo the bondage. However, I always remain acutely aware that a single, unexpected, involuntary movement on the part of the submissive could have serious repercussions.

Always wear latex gloves (or nitrile if you or your submissive is allergic to latex). Not only are you breaching your submissive’s skin, you will also be exposed to his or her blood. In today’s world, anyone’s blood has to be considered a bio-hazardous material. A tiny hangnail or scratch on your hand might expose you to an unacceptable risk. However, keep in mind that gloves do not provide a protection against needles or blades. Anything that can penetrate skin can go right through latex. A moment’s carelessness with a needle or a blade can still be fatal.

The best gloves are surgical gloves that come packaged in separate, sterile containers. Ordinary lab gloves are sufficient, although they do not provide the tactile sensitivity of surgeon’s gloves. Also, remember lab gloves are not sterile, and you should wash your hands with Betadine after putting the gloves on.

Be generous with the antiseptic when sterilizing the part of the submissive’s body with which you will be playing. Betadine is cheap, and the submissive shivers so delightfully both at its chill and what it promises for the future. Some dominants use the surgical antiseptic Betadine for sterilizing the skin. Betadine does a better job than rubbing alcohol but has a distinctly unappetizing color. However, you can first sterilize with Betadine and, then, after a minute or so, clean it off with alcohol, and have a fairly sterile area.

Whatever you use, spread it around with your gloved hands. This is both sensual and helps makes sure that any airborne bacterial that have landed on the gloves will have a short and unhappy life.

In my opinion, the best toy for a cutting is a surgical scalpel. It is easy to handle because it is designed for exactly what we are setting out to do. Also, it is much sharper than art or utility knives. Sharpness is very important. A sharp blade is less likely to result in an unintentional scar. Also, you want to be able to work as smoothly as possible. One piece scalpels are intended to be discarded after each use. Others are made so that the blade can be replaced with a new, sterile one. In any case, you should never use the same edge on different individuals. Straight razors with disposable blades are also used by some dominants. These can be obtained from beauty-shop supply stores.

I met a west coast dominant who carried a tiny knife in a locket between her breasts. Seeing her extract the knife from the hidden scabbard was a distinct turn-on, but I think I’ll still stick with my scalpels.

I like to use acupuncture needles in my pricking scenes. They are very thin and easy to use. For more intense stimulation, I like standard hypodermic needles. Other dominants use medical suturing needles or those designed for carotid angiography or arterial catheterization. The popular sizes of hypodermic tips range from quite small to quite large.

Except for those packaged for medical use, the needles must be sterilized. The ideal sterilization tool is an autoclave, a device that disinfects with live steam. However, if you don’t work in a hospital or a laboratory, you can use a pressure cooker. Keep the pressure up for at least forty minutes.

Needles should be thrown away after each scene, and in no case, regardless of sterilization, should a needle that has been used on one submissive be used on another.

Naturally, neither cutting or pricking should be done in any area where joints, nerves or blood vessels are close to the surface. Safer, but not absolutely safe, places are the upper arms and legs and buttocks.

When cutting, hold the blade perpendicular to the surface of the body. Begin with light pressure and increase it only to the point that the blade breaks the skin. You are doing a shallow, erotic cut, not dissecting a frog in biology class. Take your time, and allow the first cut to clot before you begin the second.

When you are finished, lightly swab the entire surface again with an Betadine-soaked pad. Some people, to make the cutting permanently visible, put a bit of autoclaved ink on the skin before wiping it. The ink is then trapped under the skin when it heals and makes a tattoo-like mark. Remember that this is permanent. It will not go away, and surgical removal is troublesome and not always effective.

In the pre-AIDS/hepatitis era, it wasn’t unusual for a dominant to taste the blood from a cutting. I greatly enjoyed doing this. In the day, it was a powerfully symbolic bit of eroticism. Today, doing such a thing outside a monogamous or fluid-bonded relationship is a form of feeble-minded Russian roulette.

Unlike a cutting blade’s vertical position, needles should be put into the skin at a very acute angle. The intent is not to penetrate deeply, there is little sensation below the skin, but to produce the desired stimulation. Grip the needle firmly close to the tip to minimize any wiggle and insert it smoothly. I use a hemostat to get a good grip. If you want to insert it further slide your grip further back and push again. You can have the tip come back out through the skin. When the needle is removed, it is important to re-disinfect the area.

Some people create further excitement by making several prickings and then connecting them with sanitized thread or monofilament. I’ve observed very erotic scenes wherein several submissives were connected with threads running between their temporary piercings.

Permanent piercings

A friend succinctly summed up the difference between non-pierced people and pierced people. She said, “Pierced people don’t wonder what it would be like not to have a piercing.”

While some people do permanent piercing as part of a scene, I prefer to leave that to professionals because the puncture will remain open for a significant length of time, and because there are considerations regarding placement and such that requires experienced judgment.

You’ll find that most piercing professionals are very obliging if not active members of the scene, and they’ll usually go out of their way to accommodate any ritual or such you want to include with the piercing.

Almost any area of the body can be pierced, but I’ll list the most common types of piercing. For both men and women, aside from the ear, the nipple is probably the most common kind of piercing. Aside from aesthetic considerations, nipple piercings often make the nipple more sensitive.

In India, nostril piercing is as common as ear piercing, and it is becoming more common here. The most customary type of piercing is through the outside of a nostril, but a ring or bar in the skin at the end of the septum, the piece of cartilage separating the two nostrils, is being seen more and more.

The mouth is not a particularly clean place; therefore, tongue and lip piercings require special care when they are healing. However, they are show stoppers. Also, members of the oral sex cognoscenti have been known to rave about the effect of a tongue piercing.

Less common piercings are seen in the eyebrow, on the bridge of the nose and in the navel. The latter is another piercing that requires special attention when healing. Clothing rubbing against sore skin may be exciting for a few minutes, but even the most dedicated masochist can get very tired of it over a few weeks.

There is something about a cock that has drawn the eye of piercers for centuries. The Kama Sutra, India’s equivalent to The Joy of Sex, mentions the apadravya, a vertical piercing of the glans, or head, of the cock. The ampallang is similar but horizontal. The apadravya can also be made behind the glans in the shaft. According to legend, the women of Borneo refused to have sex with men lacking one of these piercings. The dydoe is a piercing through the ridge of the glans. Dydoe piercings are often done in pairs.

Foreskin piercings were developed in ancient Rome as a means of enforcing chastity. According to some authorities, they retain that function today.

The frenum is a piercing through the skin of the cock just behind the glans and often includes a cockring. The Prince Albert is a piercing that goes through the urethra and exits behind the glans. Legend has it that Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, had it done so he could strap his cock tightly against his leg and avoid spoiling the fit of his tight trousers.

A piercing through the outer skin of the scrotum is called a hafada, and it originated in the near east where the piercing went considerably deeper and was part of a rite of passage. Finally, the guiche is a piercing in the flap of skin that connects the anus and the scrotum. Because of its proximity to the anus, there is a significant danger of infection while this particular piercing is healing.

Although a woman’s genitals are less “outstanding” than a man’s, they afford a number of interesting sites for piercings. The hood of the clitoris is often pierced. However, authorities and aficionados have mixed opinions about piercing the clitoris itself. One group holds that it is unwise to puncture something with such a concentration of nerve endings. The others argue that this is exactly the reason to do it. In any case, all agree that piercings in this area increase the sensitivity of the clitoris. However, some women have had the piercings removed, reporting that it is possible to have too much of a good thing.

Although both the inner and outer labial lips can be pierced, most people prefer piercing the inner. Paired piercings on both lips provide an opportunity to put a lock or seal across the opening as both a symbolic and practical chastity belt.

A piercing that goes from the end of the vagina toward the anus (much like a guiche) is called a fourchette. This piercing has the same inherent dangers as a guiche.

Earring jewelry should never be used in a body piercing. The wires that hold earrings can tear the skin if the jewelry catches on clothing or, as has happened, part of your lover. Body jewelry is expensive, because it is handmade in small quantities. However, one piece per piercing is quite sufficient. Body jewelry isn’t changed regularly like earrings. You don’t need different sets for the office, dates and formal affairs.

Generally, jewelry is made from gold, niobium or stainless steel. Other metals can be used after the piercing has completely healed. However, some people show negative reactions even to niobium and stainless steel.

There are several types of common jewelry used with body piercings. The most common is the bead ring, a simple ring that is straightened, inserted in the piercing, and then bent back into a circular shape. The break in the ring is held closed with a bead. Occasionally, the bead is not attached to the ring, but simply held there by tension in the ring. This is called a captive-bead ring.

A barbell is a bar with a screw-off bead at each end. Sometimes the barbell is bent into a partial ring. Another variation substitutes a fine wire for the screw-off beads.

If you choose to have a permanent piercing, remember to carefully follow the piercer’s instructions about afterpiercing care. This may mean a period of sexual abstinence. However, everything nice has its price, and infections are not fun.

As noted, simply wearing body jewelry can add to sensation. However, body jewelry on a submissive has other uses. As with clips and clamps, they provide handy attachment points for weights of various sizes. You can also run strings through them and attach them to each other. By tightening the thread, you create all sorts of interesting stimulation. As with temporary piercings, two submissives can be attached to each other by strings through their body jewelry.

A word of caution though, be very careful of how much pressure you put on a piece of body jewelry. They are threaded through the piercing by a relatively thin wire which can cut the skin. Light pulls with a lot of checking are the order of the day. Never jerk at pierced jewelry and never bind a person by the jewelry when you might expect him or her to jerk. (For example, do not bind a person in this way and then do a spanking or whipping.) A minor drawback to piercings are that they can get conduct an uncomfortable amount of heat from saunas and hot tubs inside the body.

A common question is, “What happens if I have an car accident and get taken to the hospital?” Relax, even if you are in East Podunk, Idaho, emergency room people have seen lots weirder things than piercings. My friend’s stomach ache became full-fledged appendicitis. When she woke up in the hospital after the operation, one of the first things she saw was a bottle on her nightstand, neatly labeled “body jewelry,” with all her rings and barbells inside.

Another common question is, “Won’t the jewelry set off metal detectors at airports?” It depends on how much you are wearing. However, given the current state of paranoia, the security people have been cranking up the detectors until they would probably detect the iron in a leaf of spinach. You have two alternatives. First, take off the jewelry for the trip. Second, you can behave like one of my friends did on her way to Living in Leather. After the alarm went off, a guard used a hand-held detector to localize the “suspicious metal” to the area of her breasts. When he said, puzzled, “Do you have any metal in there?” she smiled, pulled up her blouse and showed him. His jaw, and about a dozen others, hit the floor. As she walked away, the waggle in her hips indicated that she had enjoyed the entire process.

Electricity

In my first fiction book many years ago, I put in a scene where a young woman was tortured by a mad scientist. While she was bound spreadeagled to a frame, he connected wires to her body and gave her electrical shocks until she confessed. Whenever I meet anyone who has read that piece of trash, the conversation shifts around to that particular segment and I’m complimented on how “hot” the scene was.

In the first edition of The Loving Dominant, I warned against using line current (household current). I still stand firmly behind that belief. One hundred and ten volts is simply too dangerous to play around with, and most transformers can short out. This means the “nice tingle” from a phone recharger can become a mind-blowing blast of electricity if a wire frays or a connection comes adrift.