BDSM Digest

Archive for August, 2010

Breathplay is a form of edgeplay that is a hard limit for some BDSM players. However it comes in many forms and you may find a variety you enjoy. This article discusses the various forms of breathplay, risk and safety and how breathplay feels.

There are many ways you could break down these forms, below breathplay is devided into three categories.

- Compression of the carotid arteries

- Compression of the trachea or wind pipe

These two are often combined, for example when trying to stop bloodflow in the carotid arteries you may be applying pressure to the trachea.

Throttling with the hands and strangling with a rope share the same risks however when using the hands pressure can be controlled more easily. A hanging scene is more dangerous again with the subs body weight applying the pressure to the neck, tip toes will work as well as being off the ground. First the sub needs to be firmly on the ground then the rope removed. You cannot trust that you will be able to remove the rope with your hands. Always have EMT scissors ready. Never drop a sub into hanging as this could damage the spinal cord.

If the purpose is to reach unconciousness a stranglehold is very effective and can achieve this in roughly three seconds. This is much more comfortable for the sub.

- Other play that restricts airflow

Hand over mouth – putting your hand over a partners mouth during sex is probably the most common form of breathplay. The hand can form a tight seal with the option of blocking the nose to increase the intensity. This is a good place to start for beginners to breathplay especially in the missionary position where the Top can watch the bottoms reactions.
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The rack is probably one of the most infamous torture devices since it was in use for a very long time. This device was more of an actual machine than anything. No torture chamber would be complete without the rack, known throughout the world by different names: to the Romans it was “equuleus” (young horse); the French named it “Banc de Torture”, to the Spanish it was “escalera” (ladder), Germany knew it as “Streckbank” (stretching frame) or “Schlimme Liesel” (fearful Eliza), Italians named it “La Veglia” and the British nickname was “the Duke of Exeter’s Daughter”. Whatever the name, it was a fearsome device that broke countless prisoners. Indeed, a person stretched on the rack presented the ultimate spectacle of the body in pain. A victim would often be placed on the rack naked or nearly so, and their taut skin would run with the sweat of their agonies.

Probably the most widely used instrument of torture, the rack is to date back to the ancient Greeks. The basic idea of the rack may have originated in the Greek legend of the giant bandit Procrustes. It was rumored that he possessed a bed made of iron that was the right size for any guest. After luring unwary travelers to sleep on the iron bed, he would stretch them to fit – tall travelers had their legs or head lopped off and fed to a giant tortoise. The rack was used since antiquity, being used on St. Vincent and mentioned by the Church Fathers Tertullian (on extraction of confessions from criminals and on persisting Christian “sacrilegers” against the state religion) and St. Jerome (used on a woman according to his first letter).
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