The Ultimate Guide to Kink (17 page)

Removing her mouth from his head, she lifted his dick almost up to his belly, the clothespins protruding toward her face. This time, as she looked up at him, she had a slightly evil grin. She opened her mouth and, using her teeth, delicately took the uppermost clothespin in her mouth.

The sensation was like white-hot lead coursing through his body. Bob grimaced. “Motherfucker,” he said, almost dropping the rope.

“Motherfucker, who?” Nora demanded.

“Motherfucker, Mistress?”

“Much better, boy,” she said, chuckling as she approached the next pin. Each one she removed with care so as not to damage the delicate skin of Bob’s penis. Each one brought a new invective from Bob, followed by a polite “Mistress,” right up to the last one.

“Mercy, Mistress,” Bob panted, feeling as if he could take no more.

“Unfortunately,” Nora said, “that clothespin has to come off and it’s going to hurt, so why don’t I let you take it off?”

Bob thought for a moment and then closed his eyes tight. “No, Mistress, go ahead.”

“Go ahead, what?” she questioned. “Have you forgotten your manners?”

“Please, Mistress, take it off.”

She smiled and bent down, taking the final pin between her teeth. She slowly squeezed the pin, releasing the tension and letting the last bit of skin pull free.

For a moment Bob didn’t make a sound. Then he began giggling uncontrollably. The combination of adrenaline and natural opiates had him higher than a kite.

“Thank you, Mistress.”

Nora slowly unwrapped his balls from the bandage and reached up to remove the rope from his mouth. Untying it, she carefully removed the coil of rope, making sure not to pull too much hair in the process.

Once free, Bob’s cock was still erect. Nora intended to make good use of it over the course of the night. Now it was time for his reward. Both Nora and Bob knew it would be a scene they would enjoy again, but now it was time for just plain lust.

CHAPTER 7

KINKY TWISTED TANTRA

BARBARA CARRELLAS

The place on the erotic map where the paths of Tantric sex and BDSM intersect was once as lonely and obscure as a tiny no-pub town in the Australian outback. Not only was it nearly impossible to find, hardly anyone looked for it because no one believed it actually existed. In recent years things have changed dramatically. Some Tantric practitioners are now combining elements of power and intense sensation with traditional Tantra in a variation sometimes referred to as Dark Tantra. Longtime BDSM players are coming out of the closet as spiritual seekers and creating scenes intentionally designed to welcome god/goddess/universe/all-that-is into the dungeon. Communities in which kinky people and Tantrikas meet, mingle, and play together are growing and now can be found all over the world.

It’s not surprising that it’s taken a while for these two communities to find common ground. From a stylistic point of view, it would appear that people wearing leather and wielding floggers would have little or nothing in common with people wearing sarongs and stroking each other with feathers. But like most everything else in life, outward appearances and preconceived notions have little or nothing to do with the essence of an erotic or spiritual art form.

Tantric sex and BDSM have much more in common than may seem apparent at first glance. Both are erotic arts of consciousness. Both arts add intensity to life and sex. Both embrace a wide variety of powerful consensual practices. Both Tantric and BDSM rituals are about raising erotic energy. Both practices involve conscious giving and receiving. Both encourage risks—either physical or emotional. Both erotic arts encourage personal freedom, individuality, and imagination. And both produce trance states, and transcendental, transformational experiences.

Why has it taken this long for BDSM aficionados and Tantrikas to discover each other’s charms? One of the stumbling blocks has been the lack of a common language. The two communities have traditionally described what, how, and why they do what they do in language that has sounded off-putting, inflated, or obscure to anyone not in the club. One of the primary missions of my work has been to translate words, actions, and intentions across sexual boundaries. So before we go any further, let’s define some terms.

WHAT IS TANTRA?

Tantra is the ancient Eastern spiritual practice that embraces sex as a legitimate and effective path to enlightenment. Tantra is an embodied spiritual practice. It embraces all elements and aspects of life—including but not limited to sex—as a way to experience direct knowledge of the divine. Notice I call it a spiritual practice, not a religion. Religions tend to approach spirituality in a controlled, ordered manner. There is usually a hierarchical organization and an emphasis upon a particular set of rules. If you follow the rules, you are promised a predictable goal of salvation or enlightenment or peace.

Can you have a wild, ecstatic, spiritual experience within a religion? Absolutely. You can have a wild, ecstatic, spiritual experience within the context of almost anything. For many of us, however, spiritual experiences are easier to create within the context of a spiritual practice. A spiritual practice is just that: practice. You consistently practice a way of being and seeing in the world that invites the unknown, the unexpected, and the chaotic. Spiritual practices encourage you to step out of your ordinary reality into a realm of infinite possibilities where you are likely to find that there is no separation between you and everything else, including god—goddess—universe—divine—all-that-is.

What Is Consciousness?

Tantrically speaking, being conscious simply means that you are in a relaxed state of awareness with a quiet mind able to focus gently and easily on what’s going on in the present moment. It’s mindfulness. It’s putting your attention on your intentions. To be conscious is to go totally into whatever you are doing—whatever it is you are experiencing. When I talk about conscious sex, I am talking about a sexual encounter in which you are focused on each successive moment of your journey through pleasure. It is not a goal-oriented activity. In Tantric sex not even orgasm can be a goal, because there is no goal. Orgasms certainly do happen—all the time, in fact. But you are likely to find other erotic moments as exquisite as orgasm on this goal-free path.

What Is Tantric Sex?

Tantric sex is a way to explore and experience sex that includes and encourages a spiritual experience. Tantra (and Taoist sexuality, which started as a branch of Chinese medicine) sees sex as an energy rather than an activity. In Tantra we use techniques such as breath, touch, sound, and movement to move the sexual energy that starts in the genitals into the rest of the body, effectively turning the entire body into a sex organ. During sex with a partner, we build and exchange this energy with a beloved. Consciousness plays a vital role in this exchange, because as you increase your level of consciousness, you increase the intensity of the energy within yourself and between the two of you.

TANTRIC SEX TECHNIQUES

There is an entire universe of possibilities to be discovered when we blend Tantra’s focus on energy, consciousness, and spiritual connection with BDSM’s traditions of consent, negotiation, and intensity. In order to experience the deep erotic sensations that can carry us into prolonged ecstatic states of arousal and altered states of consciousness, we first have to slow down and get back to basics. In that sentence we find the first of these basics:
Slow down!
In Tantra, we do not slow down just for the sake of making sex last longer. Rather, slowing down is the natural consequence of being more conscious. So as you practice the following basics, remember that it’s not about how fast or how intensely you practice, but how much consciousness you bring to your practice.

We’re going to begin by focusing on the physical, nongenital components of a great sexual experience. Nongenital? Aren’t genitals the most important part of sex? Well, no. In fact, you can have amazing, prolonged, full-body orgasms by combining the following nongenital techniques. And these basic elements are not just essential in the practice of Tantra—they are actually the building blocks of all erotic experiences. So let’s take a deep breath, drop into our bodies, and discover all the ways that we can generate, enjoy, and share massive amounts of sexual energy.

Breathe

Our breath is our greatest source of energy and aliveness, yet most of us breathe just enough to stay alive. If you are not already a dedicated erotic breathwork junkie, I strongly suggest you become one. Deep, full conscious breathing can take you higher and deeper and farther than any other sex toy or technique. Regrettably, instead of breathing more, most of us tend to
stop
breathing in intensely erotic situations. I attribute this to a rule that almost all of us learned as adolescents. I call it the Quiet and Quick Rule. When we were first masturbating on a regular basis, we had to be quiet so that other members of the family would not hear us. We had to be quick so that we could get to orgasm before we were discovered. How did we manage to be quiet and quick? We held our breath. There was no chance of accidentally making a sound if you weren’t breathing. Unfortunately, the constant repetition of the Quiet and Quick Rule imprinted in it on our muscle memory, in much the same way that we learned to type or ride a bicycle. So now when we approach orgasm or any other peak erotic experience, we tend to hold our breath. To reach the level of erotic heights we long for, and to get the most out of the commingling of Tantra and BDSM, we need to break this habit and reprogram our bodies with breath.

There are many different breath techniques that can bring you to a great variety of ecstatic states. But all you really need to know is this: breathing in and out through your nose is relaxing, particularly when you make the exhale longer than the inhale. Breathing in and out through your mouth is energizing. You can alternate the two to produce states of relaxed, alive awareness. The most important thing to remember is to
just keep breathing
. If all you do is keep breathing a bit more fully and deeply than you usually do, you’ll be well on your way to a delightfully altered state of consciousness.

Begin by practicing on your own. As you masturbate, breathe in and out through your mouth fully and deeply. Keep your throat and mouth relaxed, and don’t force the exhale. If conscious breathing is new to you, you’ll inevitably find that you go back to holding your breath. Don’t criticize yourself, just bring your attention back to your breath. You’ll probably notice that it takes you a bit longer to orgasm when you’re breathing like this. Imagine your body as 30-gallon container waiting to be filled with erotic energy. When you hold your breath while trying to orgasm, you are only able to generate enough energy to fill up an area around your genitals about the size of a coffee cup. When you breathe fully and consistently for longer, you generate enough energy to fill your entire 30-gallon tank. Now, which container of fuel would you rather have to power your orgasm? Breathe.

Give Your Mind Erotically Constructive Things to Do

Our minds wander. They jump from thought to thought. It’s not a bad thing; it’s just what minds do. If we don’t deliberately keep our attention on the erotic present moment, our minds will dance us right out of the room into some mundane anxiety, or into a fantasy that takes us out of our body and away from what’s actually happening right here, right now.

One of the most effective ways of seducing our minds into becoming our erotic allies is to focus on the creation and movement of erotic energy. This is not as difficult or as boring as it may sound. For example, if you are flogging someone, you might imagine erotic energy pumping up from your genitals into your heart, through your arm, out the tips of your flogger, and into your partner’s heart. When your partner exhales, you can imagine their erotic energy flying out of their heart and coming back to you.

With some practice you will actually be able to see energy running through other people’s bodies and feel it running through yours. For example, if you are the one being flogged, you can imagine your heart being cracked open with each stroke. Or you can imagine the fiery strokes of a cane lighting your own inner fire and burning away limitations.

As with the breathing, practice by yourself first. As you masturbate, imagine breathing the turn-on in your genitals up into your heart, then into the top of your head. Feel it sliding into your arms and hands, legs and feet. You might feel the energy move, or see it, or even hear it. It doesn’t matter which way you imagine it. And feel free to fake it until you feel it. Energy follows thought. When you pretend the energy is in your heart or your hands, chances are you’ll be feeling it there soon after.

In both sex and BDSM we can become overly concerned with technique. We worry that we’re not doing it as well as it should be done, or as well as it could be done, or as well as it was done by our lover’s last partner. If you focus on breath and energy, there will be a lot less room in your mind for this kind of self-criticism. And, if you follow the energy instead of your critical mind, you won’t have to figure out what to do next. You’ll already be doing it.

Play at the Resilient Edge of Resistance

This is not really a technique. It’s a magical piece of awareness, crystallized and named by my beloved late teaching partner, Chester Mainard. As with most energetic practices, it is very simple but it may take a little practice before it becomes easy, natural, and automatic.

Although the Resilient Edge of Resistance applies to any kind of connection, especially emotional and psychic connections, it is most easily understood when applied to touch. The Resilient Edge of Resistance is a touch that is neither too hard nor too soft. The touch is deep enough that the body pushes back just a little, but gentle enough that the body does not go rigid. When you are touched at your Resilient Edge of Resistance you are lulled into a place of deep comfort and surrender, yet you remain awake and eager for more.