B.E.S.T. slave Training

BDSM Lifestyle

I have included the fol­low­ing list of def­i­n­i­tions for lifestyle terms.  

 

BDSM Glos­sary

 Terms From: Miller and Devon’s Glos­sary in: Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns: The romance and sex­ual sor­cery of sado­masochism (1995) (p.226–240).

 

Age play - A type of role play to grat­ify a fetish sur­round­ing age; typ­i­cally daddy/child or mommy/child fan­tasies [see also: Infantilism].

 

Algo­lagnia - The act of trans­form­ing pain into sex­ual plea­sure. A syn­onym for sado­masochism ℠. [see Sadism, sadist; Sado­masochism; Masochism, masochist].

 

Alter­na­tive sex­u­al­ity - A sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion that dif­fers from a pref­er­ence for vagi­nal inter­course (with minor vari­a­tions) within a monog­a­mous het­ero­sex­ual relationship.

 

Alter­na­tive lifestyle - Hav­ing a sex­u­al­ity that dif­fers sig­nif­i­cantly from the “norm” (see Alter­na­tive sex­u­al­ity) may make an alter­na­tive lifestyle nec­es­sary or desir­able. A sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion less com­mon than the norm may stig­ma­tize the indi­vid­ual push­ing the per­son to seek a more accept­ing sub­cul­ture. An exam­ple is homo­sex­u­al­ity and the for­ma­tion of the gay community.

 

Anal play - Any sex­ual or fetish prac­tice con­cern­ing the anus and/or rec­tum, chiefly includes: anal sex, rim­ming, enema play, and anal fisting.

 

Anal train­ing - Prepa­ra­tion of the anus for anal play.

 

Anilin­gus - Anal-oral sex. Den­tal dam or plas­tic wrap is help­ful for pre­vent­ing exchange of harm­ful organisms.

 

Ani­mal play - Role play­ing wherein one or both part­ners assumes the role of an ani­mal, chiefly: puppy, dog, and pony.

 

Asphyx­i­a­tion play - Restrict­ing air (and/or blood) flow by chok­ing to enhance the sen­sa­tion of orgasm. Very dan­ger­ous play, we don’t rec­om­mend it.

 

BDSM - Once upon a time this was all called Sado­masochism (SM, S/M or S&M) and we were all deemed very bad, sick, per­verted peo­ple. We were just peo­ple though, as horny as every­one is, with a lit­tle kink to make us spe­cial. But some of us didn’t want to be called sick, bad per­verts and these peo­ple invented names like Dom­i­nance and Sub­mis­sion (D&S, DS or D/s). Love Bondage (Love Bondage) and Bondage and Dis­ci­pline (B&D) to make them­selves and the plea­sure police think that what they did was dif­fer­ent from what those sad, twisted, nasty old sado­masochists did, no no! Then we all got online with our per­sonal com­put­ers (well, a lot of us did) and began doing what peo­ple do best when they’re not hav­ing sex: argue. For months argu­ments about labels for our kinks clogged up the com­puter networks.

Finally, the term BDSM was born. This made many kinky peo­ple happy because it incor­po­rated Bondage and Dis­ci­pline (BD), Dom­i­nance and Sub­mis­sion (DS) and Sadomasochism ℠.

 

Black light­ning - A com­mon nick­name for a black fiber glass or resin rod that is used as a cane. Denser than rat­tan, it can inflict deeper dam­age and the feel is described as “cut­ting.” [see Cane]

 

Black snake - A type of single-lash whip that is flex­i­ble all the way to the knob.

 

Blood­sport - SM prac­tices that result in draw­ing blood. Can include whip­ping or can­ing that breaks the skin, brand­ing, cut­ting, and piercing.

 

Body fluid monogamy, body fluid bond­ing - A prac­tice of shar­ing body flu­ids only between two part­ners in order to observe safer-sex rec­om­men­da­tions. Com­monly, the part­ners have been tested neg­a­tive for HIV, some­times also for hepati­tis B and C. The part­ners may or may not play with oth­ers out­side their

rela­tion­ship, but only by observ­ing strict safer-sex rules. [see Safer Sex]

 

Bondage - Any prac­tice involv­ing restraints placed on the body to restrict free­dom of movement.

 

Bondage and dis­ci­pline, B~D - A clas­sic term refer­ring to sev­eral sex­ual prac­tices includ­ing: bondage, slave train­ing, cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment, and dominant/submissive role play.

 

Bondage belt - A belt, usu­ally leather with metal rings attached, to assist in per­form­ing bondage.

 

Bondage frame - Any sta­tion­ary device used to assist in per­form­ing bondage.

Bondage har­ness - A con­fig­u­ra­tion of straps, usu­ally leather or nylon designed to: 1) orna­ment the body, and 2) aid in bondage and sus­pen­sion bondage.

 

Bot­tom - An SM prac­ti­tioner who sub­mits to bondage, train­ing, role play, cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment, etc., but who is not nec­es­sar­ily emo­tion­ally com­mit­ted to his/her dom­i­nant part­ner (top).

 

Bot­tom­ing from the top - Orig­i­nally a deroga­tory term for a top who allows his bot­tom to run the scene, “bot­tom­ing from the top” has become a valid style of play. Most tops expe­ri­ence some scenes where they pre­fer to take at least some direc­tion from their bot­toms. Some even pre­fer this style of play and may call

them­selves sub­mis­sive sadists. [see also, Top­ping from the bottom]

 

Bottom-space or sub-space - A type of erot­i­cally altered con­scious­ness (EAC) iden­ti­fied with feel­ings of falling into a state of sub­mis­sion. Gen­er­ally, bot­tom– or sub-space may be char­ac­ter­ized by, dimin­ished ego aware­ness, less active cog­ni­tive behav­ior, sur­ren­der­ing of will, and/or inabil­ity to ver­bal­ize. Frequently

these func­tions are assumed by the dom­i­nant part­ner who becomes the submissive’s cen­ter of focus.

 

Brat - A bot­tom who enjoys strug­gling against con­trol or chal­leng­ing the top. Brat­ti­ness has a wide spec­trum from the play­ful “uppity bot­tom” to the smart-ass masochist (which see). Some brats are “test­ing” their dom­i­nant, oth­ers have a desire to be “con­quered and tamed,” while some sim­ply do not wish to be con­trolled. [see Smart-ass masochist]

 

Brain fade - A state of con­fu­sion and/or inabil­ity to rea­son expe­ri­enced by the sub­mis­sive. This effect usu­ally results from psy­cho­log­i­cal dom­i­na­tion, the mind-fuck, or a deep­en­ing sub­mis­sive state. [see Bottom-space, Sub-space]

 

Breast bondage - Tying the female breasts with cord, string, rope, rub­ber bands, scarves, etc. as a part of SM or erotic play. May include nip­ple bondage or clamping.

 

Breath con­trol - Con­trol of breath­ing by the dom­i­nant through use of a gas mask or sim­i­lar appa­ra­tus, by chok­ing, or by cov­er­ing the mouth and nose.

 

Body mod­i­fi­ca­tion - The gen­eral term for prac­tices that reshape or orna­ment the body for rit­ual, erotic, dec­o­ra­tive, or fetish pur­poses. The prac­tices com­monly include tat­too­ing, pierc­ing, brand­ing, cut­ting, and corsetry.

 

Bound­aries - Usu­ally refers to lim­its (which see) nego­ti­ated prior to SM play.

 

Brand­ing - Burn­ing the skin, usu­ally with heated metal, to pro­duce scar­i­fi­ca­tion. Brand­ing can be a part of a scene, rit­ual, or body mod­i­fi­ca­tion. The design often con­sists of sev­eral uncon­nected lines and curves, each requir­ing a sep­a­rate strike with heated metal, bent to form its part of the design. The rea­son for the uncon­nected lines is to assure that ele­ments of the design do not scar into a shape­less mass; human skin heals dif­fer­ently than the hides of livestock.

 

Bug­gy­whip - A sin­gle thong whip with a rigid core and a flex­i­ble cracker at the end.

 

Cage, bondage cage - Yup, a cage is a cage. These are big enough to hold the whole submissive.

 

Cane - Tra­di­tional canes are flex­i­ble rat­tan or bam­boo option­ally hav­ing a leather wrapped han­dle. Mod­ern canes may be plas­tic or fiber glass.

 

Can­ing - The art of using a cane on a bottom.

 

Cat or cat o’ nine tails - The term orig­i­nally referred to a whip used by British navy. Now, cat usu­ally to refers to all multi-thonged whips.

 

Cathar­sis - Pur­ga­tion of emo­tions and or stress through an SM scene may or may not be intentional.

 

Checking-in - Ask­ing the sub­mis­sive how they are doing, feel­ing, etc. dur­ing a scene. Spe­cific ques­tions get more use­ful answers. An affir­ma­tive response to “Are you ok?” may merely indi­cate that death is not impend­ing, but there still may be prob­lems, par­tic­u­larly with a macho sub. “Would you enjoy heav­ier (or lighter) sen­sa­tions?” is a bet­ter ques­tion. In SM play “is this good for you?” is asked dur­ing a scene rather than the typ­i­cal “was it good for you?“afterwards. Checking-in should not replace a dominant’s own obser­va­tion and focus, it is another part of the safety net.

 

Cinch­ing – 1) Wear­ing of a cincher, a gar­ment sim­i­lar to, but less encom­pass­ing than a corset. 2) A bondage tech­nique, for exam­ple, to tighten coils of rope hold­ing the wrists together by wrap­ping the coils between the wrists by one or more “cinch loops” of rope.

 

Clamp, clamp­ing - Nip­ple clamps, clothes­pins, and binder clips are used to pinch or squeeze a small bit of flesh. The tar­get areas for clamp­ing are nip­ples, cocks, vul­vas, and other erot­i­cally sen­si­tive areas such as the sides of the torso and inner thighs. Weights can be added to increase the rigor.

 

Clip - [see Clamp, Clamping]

 

Clean - A code word used to describe a con­di­tion of being dis­ease free. [see Code word]

 

Cock and ball tor­ture or CBT - Tor­tures are inflicted on these body parts using clothes­pins, clamps, cock cages, weight, and var­i­ous kinds of bindings.

 

Code word(s) - Word(s) used in per­sonal ads to dis­guise sex­ual pro­cliv­i­ties that may be unac­cept­able to main­stream soci­ety, eg: Eng­lish cul­ture, French cul­ture, Greek, clean, dis­ci­pline, strict, leather, etc.

 

Col­lar, col­lared - 1) A sym­bol of sur­ren­der worn by a sub­mis­sive. A col­lar is given in a rela­tion­ship as a pro­found sym­bol of a com­mit­ment and bond. A “col­lared” sub­mis­sive is con­sid­ered to be owned (which see) or part­nered with a dom­i­nant player. 2) A piece of bondage equip­ment worn around the throat.

 

Con­di­tional com­pli­ance - The SM one-nighter, a lim­ited exchange of power nego­ti­ated by a dom and sub for a sin­gle scene or brief period of play, such as overnight, one day, or one week­end. [see Power exchange levels]

 

Con­di­tion­ing - The term used in psy­chol­ogy for the delib­er­ate process of cre­at­ing a psy­cho­log­i­cal link between a desired response and an unre­lated stim­u­lus. Much of what peo­ple in the SM com­mu­nity refer to as train­ing or slave train­ing uses clas­sic con­di­tion­ing techniques.

 

Con­dom - A latex sheath used on a penis or toy as a bar­rier to pre­vent the trans­mis­sion of dis­ease or preg­nancy. Nat­ural lamb­skin con­doms are also avail­able, but don’t func­tion effec­tively to pre­vent the spread of viral ill­ness. [see Safer Sex]

 

Con­sen­sual - Behav­ior or activ­i­ties agreed to by all par­ties involved. True con­sent is informed con­sent and requires a rea­son­ably accu­rate knowl­edge of pos­si­ble risks.

 

Con­trap­o­lar stim­u­la­tion “Hurts so good!” — A type of phys­i­cal stim­u­la­tion that Incor­po­rates feel­ing of both plea­sure and pain.

 

Cor­po­ral - Activ­i­ties that involve the strik­ing of one indi­vid­ual by another are called cor­po­ral from the term cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment. Typ­i­cally cor­po­ral activ­i­ties include spank­ing, flog­ging, pad­dling, and caning.

 

Count­ing - The rit­u­al­ized count­ing of strokes received. The sub may be required to thank the dom­i­nant with each count. Exam­ple: “One, thank you Sir. Two, thank you Sir, etc.” A typ­i­cally dia­bolic prac­tice is to start the count over again each time a mis­take is made. Some masochists never seem to get the count cor­rect, even with their shoes off.

 

Covenant of dom­i­nance and sub­mis­sion - A deeply com­mit­ted sym­bi­otic rela­tion­ship between a dom­i­nant and a sub­mis­sive. [see Lev­els of power exchange]

 

Cross­dress­ing - Dress­ing in clothes of the oppo­site gender.

 

Cru­ci­fix­ion - Bondage incor­po­rat­ing a sta­tion­ary cross. The submissive’s arms and legs are tied, not nailed. Care must be taken to ensure that the torso is prop­erly sup­ported, oth­er­wise, stran­gu­la­tion may occur.

 

Cuff, cuff­ing - 1) Plac­ing hand­cuffs, man­a­cles, or sim­i­lar restraints on the wrists and/or ankles. 2) Also refers to the restraints in the noun form. For exam­ple: “That is a nice cuff you’re wear­ing,” or “This cuff­ing is very comfy.”

 

Cut­ting – I) slic­ing the skin as a part of body mod­i­fi­ca­tion, rit­ual, or scene. Most fre­quently, designs are trans­ferred to the skin as they would be for the cre­ation of a tat­too. Then either scalpels, razor blades, art knives, or other cut­ting tool incise the skin at a depth of 1/16″ to 3/16. Cut­tings can include color by means of tat­too inks or cigar (not cig­a­rette) ash rubbed into the fresh wounds. Care should always be taken to insure ster­ile con­di­tions. 2) The break­ing of skin by use of a cor­po­ral instru­ment. Sin­gle lash whips, canes, crops and oth­ers can cut if used improp­erly. 3) The deep stingy feel of some toys.

 

 

Den­tal dam - A latex bar­rier used for cun­nilin­gus or anill­n­gus to pre­vent dis­ease trans­mis­sion. Plas­tic food wrap is an inex­pen­sive, but sat­is­fac­tory, substitute.

 

Deriv­a­tive plea­sure, immediate/delayed - Cor­po­ral strokes that are painful at impact, but plea­sur­able fol­low­ing ini­tial exe­cu­tion. An imme­di­ately derived plea­sure stroke feels good right after the impact. Delayed deriv­a­tive plea­sure is an accu­mu­la­tion of painful strokes that explodes into sex­ual heat some time later.

 

Dis­ci­pline - The “D” in B&D that can mean; 1) pun­ish­ment 2) struc­tured train­ing of a submissive.

 

Do-me queen/king - A bot­tom that takes pas­sive delight from the phys­i­cal activ­i­ties of scen­ing with­out a desire to give sub­mis­sion or plea­sure in return.

 

Dom­i­nance, dom­i­nance & sub­mis­sion, D/S, D&S - The con­sen­sual empow­er­ment of one part­ner by the other for erotic enhance­ment. Dom­i­nance and sub­mis­sion are the psy­cho­log­i­cal and emo­tional under­pin­nings of SM. [see Power exchange]

 

Dom­i­nant, Dom, Domme, Dom­ina, Dom­i­na­trix - The per­son who is given con­trol in a con­sen­sual exchange of power. Domme, Dom­ina, and Dom­i­na­trix refers to women. Dom­i­nant, or Dom can refer to either gender.

 

Edge play - Erotic role play near or at the edge of a submissive’s or dominant’s lim­its. The term also refers to activ­i­ties that carry a higher than usual ele­ment of risk.

 

Electro-torture - The use of elec­tri­cal stim­u­la­tion to cre­ate a desired phys­i­cal sensation.

 

Emo­tional but­tons, emo­tional trig­gers - Asso­ci­a­tions with words, behav­iors, or activ­i­ties that pro­voke a strong emo­tional reac­tion. Dom­i­nants will do well to become famil­iar with the unique trig­gers of his sub­mis­sive. It is impor­tant to know, as much as pos­si­ble. which but­tons evoke pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive responses.

 

Endor­phins, endor­phin high - Endor­phins are sub­stances cre­ated by the body to help endure pain or stress. Entirely nat­ural, but the­o­ret­i­cally sim­i­lar in feel to opi­ates. The body’s release of endor­phins may cre­ate a feel­ing of well-being, even intox­i­ca­tion, which is called an endor­phin high. Peo­ple dif­fer dra­mat­i­cally in their abil­ity to release endor­phins. The pos­si­bil­ity of addic­tion to endor­phins has been conjectured.

 

Enema - The instru­ment used for, or the act of inject­ing fluid into the anus to flush the lower intestines. Some peo­ple include ene­mas in SM scenes for humil­i­a­tion, for prepa­ra­tion for other activ­i­ties (such as fist­ing or anal sex), and/or sim­ply because they may enjoy the sensation.

Eng­lish - A code word for spank­ing or cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment some­times used in ads. We will have achieved social accep­tance when ads in main­stream papers can say, “Roman­tic sadist seeks masochist lover,” instead of non­sense like, “devo­tee of Eng­lish cul­ture seeks recep­tive partner.”

 

Erotic power - Erotic power is like poten­tial energy, becom­ing sig­nif­i­cant only when it is exchanged or used to empower a dom­i­nant by the trans­fer of con­trol. [see Power exchange]

 

Erotic pain - Stim­uli that are painful under nor­mal cir­cum­stances, but are plea­sur­able or arous­ing in a sex­ual context.

 

Erotic restraint - Restrict­ing move­ment for erotic play. Also, refers to the devices used for said purpose.

 

Erotic sur­ren­der - The sex­u­ally moti­vated gift of con­trol of one’s self (within nego­ti­ated lim­its) to one’s part­ner. A more accu­rately descrip­tive phrase for submission.

 

Erot­i­cally altered con­scious­ness, EAC - Any one of sev­eral altered states of con­scious­ness achieved by erotic stim­u­la­tion. [see: Bottom-space, Sub-space; Endor­phin high, Fly­ing, Top-space]

 

Fetish - A sex­ual fix­a­tion on an activ­ity or object.

 

Fetish com­mu­nity - The name given to that group of peo­ple hav­ing an alter­nate sex­ual or gen­der ori­en­ta­tion, but exclud­ing the (vanilla) gay and les­bian communities.

 

Fire & ice - The use of hot and cold for sex­ual stim­u­la­tion, espe­cially hot wax dripped from a can­dle and ice applied to the skin.

 

Fist­ing - Inser­tion of the entire hand into the vagina (vagi­nal list­ing) or the anus [anal fisting).

 

Fla­gel­la­tion - The act of whip­ping a human being.

 

Flog­ger, flog­ging - An unbraided multi-thonged whip is a flog­ger. To whip using a flog­ger or other cor­po­ral instruments.

 

Fly­ing - A tran­scen­dent state of con­scious­ness some­times achieved dur­ing an SM scene. This rap­tur­ous state has been so often described in a sim­i­lar man­ner by inde­pen­dent sources that we have no doubt of the valid­ity of the expe­ri­ence. Feel­ings described by the sub­mis­sive seem sim­i­lar to that of out of body expe­ri­ences and often include a psy­chic link to the dom. Most com­monly, this link is felt as either a tether to the dom­i­nant or as a feel­ing of being sur­rounded and pro­tected by the dom’s pres­ence or con­scious­ness. Ela­tion and spaci­ness expe­ri­enced after fly­ing may be felt for hours, even days after the ses­sion has ended.

 

French - A com­mon code word for kiss­ing involv­ing the tongue, cun­nilin­gus, and fellatio.

 

Foot fetish, foot wor­ship - A sex­ual obses­sion directed toward the feet and/or shoes.

 

Forced oral, forced sex - Sex­ual role play where the dom pre­tends to force an activ­ity that the sub pre­tends they are under duress to per­form. It involves a shared sus­pen­sion of real­ity. (A dom only “forces” the sub to per­form activ­i­ties he or she has requested.)

 

Gag, gag­gage - devices that are inserted in or cover the mouth to muf­fle sound.

 

Gear - Toys, props, clothes and what-have-you used for scene purposes.

 

Gen­der com­mu­nity - Peo­ple with cross-gender fan­tasies or cross-gender iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. Cross-dressers, trans­ves­tites, and trans­sex­u­als make up the gen­der community.

 

Gen­der ori­en­ta­tion - Gen­der ori­en­ta­tion is an issue apart from sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion. It is self-identification and feel­ings of male­ness or female­ness, rather than issues of sex­ual attrac­tion. A per­son with an alter­nate gen­der ori­en­ta­tion may or may not have an alter­nate sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion. For exam­ple; a trans­ves­tite or a trans­sex­ual may be either het­ero­sex­ual or gay.

 

Gen­der play - To dress up or take the role of the oppo­site sex dur­ing a scene. [see Sissification]

 

Ger­man - A code word for Sado­masochis­tic desires.

 

Golden shower - Uri­na­tion on or in another person.

Greek - The code word for anal sex­ual activities.

 

Hand­cuffs - These metal shack­les are used to bind wrists by law enforce­ment per­sonal, legally, and by sado­masochists, covertly. Hand­cuffs are con­sid­ered weapons and ille­gal to own in most states, but are easy to buy and com­monly used.

 

Head games - 1) Dom­i­na­tion where the focus is pri­mar­ily men­tal, such as humil­i­a­tion, rather than phys­i­cal, such as bondage or whip­ping. 2) Non-consensual psy­cho­log­i­cal manip­u­la­tion to make a per­son respond in a par­tic­u­lar way for one’s own purposes.

 

Heavy - 1) Intense SM play or whip­ping. 2) A term describ­ing an SM toy such as a flog­ger or cane that is capa­ble of deliv­er­ing intense sensations.

 

Hood - A cov­er­ing for the head. Hoods used in SM are made of var­i­ous mate­ri­als, espe­cially; leather, span­dex, and rub­ber. Some hoods are con­structed as orna­men­ta­tion, oth­ers are used as a part of bondage to con­trol or restrict sight, sound, speech (by incor­po­rat­ing a gag), and/or breathing.

 

Humil­i­a­tion - Play­ful embar­rass­ment or hum­bling a per­son by teas­ing them about their sex­ual desires can be part of erotic con­trol. Humil­i­a­tion in SM can para­dox­i­cally build a person’s self-esteem rather than tear­ing it down by rein­forc­ing their sex­u­al­ity. Real attacks on a person’s self-worth or sex­u­al­ity, or manip­u­la­tions designed to break their spirit are abuse not within the appro­pri­ate prac­tice of SM.

 

Infan­til­ism - Role play involv­ing infant-like behav­ior such as dia­per wear­ing, nurs­ing, etc.

 

In-role - Assum­ing the per­sona of a sex­ual arche­type or fan­tasy character.

 

Iso­la­tion - 1) A fear of inter­re­lat­ing with oth­ers. Peo­ple are often; a) afraid to “come out” about their attrac­tion to SM out of fear of soci­etal reper­cus­sions, or b) they may think that no one shares their attrac­tion to a par­tic­u­lar SM (or other sex­ual) prac­tice. In both cases, this can lead to feel­ings of inad­e­quacy, self-doubt, depres­sion, and/or lone­li­ness. 2] A tech­nique of sen­sory depri­va­tion, bondage, and trick­ery to make a sub­mis­sive feel as though he or she is being left alone.

 

Japan­ese bondage - [see Ori­en­tal bondage, rope dress]

 

Kather­ine wheel - A piece of dun­geon equip­ment that looks like a large, ver­ti­cally mounted wheel to which a sub­mis­sive is bound, allow­ing her to be turned or spun. Warn­ing: not for use with the sub that is inclined toward motion sickness.

 

Knife play - Play that includes the use of a knife (does not nec­es­sar­ily imply cut­ting). Knives are more often used as props for psy­cho­log­i­cal effect, to scrap wax from a body after a fire and ice scene, to remove cloth­ing, and end­less other devi­ous purposes.

 

Latex - Latex and rub­ber are used to make cloth­ing, sheets and other fetish items.

 

Leather butt - 1) A term that describes a per­son who has been beaten so often that only intense whip­ping has any effect. 2) The con­di­tion of the but­tocks after heavy pad­dling. The skin com­presses and becomes stiff or “leath­ery” to the touch. The com­pres­sion effect is most pro­nounced with pad­dles, so leather butt can be avoided by using a mix­ture of implements.

 

Lifestyler - A per­son who lives a lifestyle that sup­ports rather than con­flicts with his SM fan­tasy arche­type. Some lifestylers object to the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of their SM iden­ti­ties as fan­tasy role play, feel­ing that it is inte­gral to their per­son­al­i­ties rather than a sex­ual game. It is easy, and often attrac­tive, to con­fuse real­ity and fan­tasy. [see Alter­nate sex­u­al­ity; Alter­nate lifestyle; In-role]

 

Limit - The bound­aries of SM activ­i­ties set by both dom­i­nant and sub­mis­sive dur­ing nego­ti­a­tion defin­ing what each is will­ing and unwill­ing to do within a scene. Lim­its must be respected and never inten­tion­ally breached by either part­ner. Lim­its apply to roles, lev­els of dom­i­nance and sub­mis­sion, and dura­tion of time, as well as phys­i­cal activ­i­ties such as whip­ping, pad­dling, etc.

 

Live-in slave - A lifestyle sub­mis­sive in a com­mit­ted rela­tion­ship who lives within the con­text of a slave/master (or mis­tress) fantasy.

 

Macho sub - A sub­mis­sive with a reluc­tance to show dis­tress, use a safe word, or who feels a need to sto­ically endure what is not plea­sur­able. The macho sub may be moti­vated by a desire to prove her met­tle, show devo­tion, or reflect her inter­nal fan­tasy. The macho sub must make sure the dom is aware of her incli­na­tions dur­ing nego­ti­a­tion. The dom of a macho sub­mis­sive should rely more on a checking-in tech­nique and less on spon­ta­neous feed­back. The macho sub’s sav­ing grace is a strong desire to obey. Order­ing her to com­mu­ni­cate clearly about stress, as it occurs can over­ride some of her reluc­tance to “be a wimp.”

Masochism, masochist - The erotic enjoy­ment of pain, humil­i­a­tion, and/or of being dom­i­nated. One who enjoys pain, etc. Some­times the terms are used to describe one who enjoys heav­ier pain.

 

Mas­ter - A male that takes the dom­i­nant role in SM role play. The title may be bestowed upon the male dom­i­nant in appre­ci­a­tion of his skill. It may be a term of endear­ment or a lov­ing trib­ute to a dom by a sub­mis­sive in a rela­tion­ship. Equally often, the term is self-aggrandizement by a male with dom­i­nant fan­tasies, not infre­quently with “true” or “real” tacked in front.

 

Men­tal bondage- Rope­less bondage by com­mand. A sub­mis­sive instructed by her dom­i­nant to remain in posi­tion will feel bound to obey.

 

Mis­tress - A female dom­i­nant. [see Dom­i­nant, Dom, Domme, Dom­ina, Dominatrix]

 

Mum­mi­fi­ca­tion - A bondage tech­nique of com­pletely or almost com­pletely wrap­ping a sub­mis­sive in restric­tive mate­r­ial, such as; plas­tic wrap, span­dex, elas­tic or gauze ban­dages, etc.

 

Nego­ti­a­tion - The process of deter­min­ing the prac­tices and bound­aries of sex­ual and SM activ­i­ties between a top and a bot­tom. It may apply to the whole rela­tion­ship or just a spe­cific scene. Nego­ti­at­ing is an ongo­ing process that is repeated as the play­ers’ needs change.

 

Nip­ple clamps, nip­ple clips – [see Clamp, Clamping]

 

Nip­ple play/torture - Stim­u­la­tion of the nip­ples for cor­po­ral or erotic pur­poses. Often includes; suck­ing, pinch­ing, clamp­ing, fire and ice, or piercing.

 

Non­con­sen­sual - SM play that is not sanc­tioned by either player.

 

Nos­tril strap - A device, usu­ally of bent wire, with a string attached for hook­ing into the nos­trils for humil­i­a­tion and tor­ment. Com­monly used in Japan­ese SM.

 

Novice - A per­son with an inter­est in SM, but lack­ing in experience.

 

Ori­en­tal bondage, rope dress - Any of a num­ber of styles of rope bondage stem­ming from styles used in the Far East. Typ­i­cally, the bondages are highly dec­o­ra­tive, uni­form, and symmetrical.

 

Over the knee, OTK - A clas­sic spank­ing posi­tion. Also a code word for same.

 

Own­er­ship, absolute own­er­ship - 1) Within master/slave role play own­er­ship means hav­ing con­trol of the sub­mis­sive. 2) Loosely used in the SM com­mu­nity to mean an ongo­ing dominant/submissive rela­tion­ship. 3) Absolute own­er­ship is a lost-in-fantasy rela­tion­ship based on sado­ma­somythol­ogy and fic­tional lore.

 

Pad­dle, pad­dling - A rigid flat-surfaced imple­ment usu­ally of leather or wood used for spank­ing a fanny. Pad­dling is the act of using a pad­dle. A pad­dle is also the imple­ment that a wise-ass masochist often finds her­self up the creek without.

 

Pain slut - A masochist who derives plea­sure from phys­i­cal pain.

 

Pan­sex­ual- Non­gen­der spe­cific sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion. A group that encom­passes all sex­ual and gen­der ori­en­ta­tions is said to be pansexual.

 

Pierc­ing - Pierc­ing the skin with a nee­dle in an SM scene, as rit­ual, or as body mod­i­fi­ca­tion. Most fre­quently, pierc­ings are accom­pa­nied by the instal­la­tion of jew­elry. An excep­tion to this is play pierc­ing. In play pierc­ing, the nee­dle is inserted into, or through, the skin as a part of a scene, but the wound(s) are often allowed to heal with­out jew­elry being introduced.

In play pierc­ings, many parts of the skin may be pierced at the same time. Some­times, the nee­dles are left in the skin through­out the scene, tied together by string, thread, or rope, then removed at the close of the scene.

Pierc­ings that are intended to be per­ma­nent usu­ally are placed in sites com­mon among peo­ple of the Near East for orna­men­tal and erotic value. These sites are, typ­i­cally: nos­tril and sep­tum of the nose, ears (in the lobes, tra­gus, and helix), lips, nip­ples, along the shaft and head of the penis, the scro­tum, inner and outer labia, and the hood of the cli­toris. Some newer fash­ions of pierc­ings include the webs between the fin­gers, the eye­brows, and the bridge of the nose.

Erotic pierc­ings are said to enhance sen­sa­tion to the body parts that are pierced. Rae­lyn Gal­lina, body mod­i­fi­ca­tion expert (she per­forms pierc­ings, cut­tings, and brand­ings) and jew­eler from Oak­land, CA, invented a pierc­ing called the “Tri­an­gle”, which pen­e­trates the cli­toral hood on both sides, and under­neath the cli­toris, Thus, the ring installed con­tacts the cli­toris in a place totally beneath the skin.

Peo­ple seek­ing pierc­ings are warned not to use pierc­ing “guns”, sewing nee­dles, or safety pins. It is best to seek pro­fes­sional assis­tance which is avail­able in most parts of the United States, Canada, and Europe. Very often, tat­too shops will be asso­ci­ated with pro­fes­sional piercers. These peo­ple have the equip­ment to pro­vide ster­ile pierc­ings and the knowl­edge to rec­om­mend proper after care.

Pil­lory - Handed down from the reign of the Puri­tans, a pil­lory is usu­ally wooden-framed, free-standing stocks that impris­ons the head and wrists for immo­bi­liz­ing a per­son. For use with the humil­i­a­tion of your choice.

 

Piz­zle - The dried and stretched penis of a bull, or other large ani­mal, formed into a whip. These are actu­ally deadly toys.

 

Plas­tic wrap - Reg­u­lar, old plas­tic food wrap can be used for encas­ing the body for bondage. Unlike food, it will not keep your sub­mis­sive fresh. [see Mummification]

 

Play - Par­tic­i­pat­ing in an SM scene or SM scene activity.

 

Play­room, Pray space - Any area you des­ig­nate in which to per­form an SM scene. Hotel rooms, secluded woods, and deliv­ery vans qual­ify as well as a per­ma­nently fur­nished base­ment or dun­geon. Also referred to as dun­geon space.

 

Play pun­ish­ment - The use of pun­ish­ment as an excuse for an erotic encounter. She burnt the toast that morn­ing, for­got to say, “Sir,” or some other triv­ial mis­deed and, alas, must be cor­rected. Some­how, both end up get­ting what they crave. As a game, this beats the heck out of strip monop­oly. Pun­ish­ment is an erotic game that should never be used to address seri­ous problems.

 

Pony­girl, Pony­boy - A clas­sic SM fan­tasy immor­tal­ized in the draw­ings of John Willie and used in the Sleep­ing Beauty Tril­ogy by Ann Rice. Typ­i­cal pony garb includes a horse­hair tail attached to a buttplug, a bit gag and/or bri­dle head­har­ness, and reins. Often very high heels, a corset, and feather plumes in the hair are added. The arms are typ­i­cally bound behind the back. Pony activ­i­ties range from being dis­played and directed by rein to being rid­den or pulling a cart.

 

Pony train­ing - The fan­ci­ful trans­for­ma­tion of a girl (Or boy) into “pony” to be rid­den, to pull a car­riage, or to per­form as a well-trained horse in obe­di­ence and deportment.

 

Posi­tion train­ing - The train­ing of a sub­mis­sive to assume a given posi­tion upon com­mand or under cer­tain circumstances.

 

Post-scene plunge - Feel­ings of let-down, depres­sion, fear, dis­gust, remorse, etc, after par­tic­i­pat­ing in SM play. Can be expe­ri­enced by either dom­i­nant or sub­mis­sive. Jay Wise­man, author of SM 101, uses the term “Top Drop” to describe these feel­ings on the part of the dominant.

Power exchange - The empow­er­ment of the dom­i­nant by the submissive’s sur­ren­der to his/her con­trol. Power exchange is con­sen­sual and should be well nego­ti­ated. The depth of the power yielded by the sub­mis­sive is equal to level of respon­si­bil­ity assumed by the dominant.

 

Power exchange lev­els - A sys­tem for link­ing emo­tional involve­ment and depth of feel­ing with degree of power exchange. The Five Lev­els are: one — Con­di­tional com­pli­ance, two — Restricted ongo­ing acqui­es­cence, three — Pro­vi­sional sub­mis­sion, four — the Covenant of dom­i­nance and sub­mis­sion, and five – Absolute own­er­ship. The first four lev­els are based in reality.

 

Pro­vi­sional sub­mis­sion - An ongo­ing rela­tion­ship nego­ti­ated between a dom and a sub char­ac­ter­ized by power exchange and emo­tional involve­ment, but lack­ing seri­ous com­mit­ment. [see Power exchange levels]

 

Psy­cho­sex­ual - Emo­tion­al­ity, atti­tudes, ori­en­ta­tions, or mind sets asso­ci­ated with erotic behav­ior or sex­ual fan­tasy life.

 

Puni­tive pain - Pain that by inten­tion is designed to hurt for nonerotic pur­poses, usu­ally for pun­ish­ment. This is abu­sive and often moti­vated by a mis­un­der­stand­ing of appro­pri­ate con­trol mechanisms.

 

Push­ing lim­its - 1) A care­ful process of grad­ual expan­sion of lim­its. 2) Intense play that comes close to the unbear­able. [see Edge play]

 

PVC — poly-vinyl-chloride - 1) A type of plas­tic used for fetish cloth­ing. 2) The PVC pipes made for plumb­ing that can be con­structed into bondage devices.

 

Quirt - A cor­po­ral toy that looks some­thing like a crop with a flex­i­ble, whip-like cracker at the end.

 

Restricted Ongo­ing Acqui­es­cence - An agree­ment, nego­ti­ated by a dom and sub, to play casu­ally for an extended period of time with­out seri­ous emo­tional involve­ment. [see Power exchange levels]

 

Rim­ming - Com­mon term for anilin­gus (anal-oral sex).

Role play - 1) Elab­o­ra­tion of one’s sex­ual incli­na­tions by cre­at­ing a fan­tasy frame­work for them. 2) Peo­ple with com­pat­i­ble sex­ual fan­tasies tak­ing on com­pli­men­tary per­sona to inter­act with each other.

 

Rope dress – [see Ori­en­tal bondage, rope dress]

Rub­ber - [see Latex]

 

S.A.M. – [see Smart Ass Masochist]

 

Sadism, Sadist - Deriv­ing sex­ual plea­sure from the giv­ing of pain, humil­i­a­tion, and/or dom­i­na­tion. The hon­or­able sadist only gives pain or humil­i­a­tion to those desir­ing it, respects lim­its, is car­ing and careful.

 

Sado­masochism, SM - Advanced sex­ual prac­tices incor­po­rat­ing the con­sen­sual use of pain, humil­i­a­tion, and power exchange for erotic enjoy­ment. SM includes dom­i­nance and sub­mis­sion, bondage and dis­ci­pline, love bondage, and erotic spank­ing. The term is fre­quently mis­used to indi­cate heav­ier or more extreme practices.

 

Sado­ma­somythol­ogy - The mis­con­cep­tions of soci­ety in regard to what sado­masochism actu­ally entails. Also, an ill-informed idea about a par­tic­u­lar prac­tice within SM.

 

Safe, sane, and con­sen­sual - Char­ac­ter­izes the accept­able play within the SM com­mu­nity; play­ers adhere to safety pre­cau­tions within their activ­i­ties, do not par­tic­i­pate in prac­tices that will injure their part­ners (men­tally or phys­i­cally), and obtain con­sent by nego­ti­at­ing scenes and scene related activ­i­ties before

car­ry­ing them out.

 

Safe sex, Safer sex - Prac­tic­ing sex wherein no body flu­ids are exchanged; includes the use of con­doms on inser­tion toys as well as penises, den­tal dams, or plas­tic wrap for cun­nilin­gus, clean­li­ness with regard to cor­po­ral toys, absten­tion from pen­e­tra­tion, etc.

 

Safe word, Safe sig­nal - A word, a phrase, or an action (like drop­ping a bail by a gagged sub­mis­sive) used by the sub­mis­sive as a sig­nal to stop the scene or reduce the intensity.

 

St. Andrew’s cross - An upright cross in the shape of the let­ter “X” to which peo­ple are bound for flog­ging or torture.

 

Scat - Feces, also, play with feces.

 

Scene - 1) The SM or fetish com­mu­nity; or things asso­ci­ated with it. 2) An occur­rence or ses­sion of SM play.

 

Scene friendly - Famil­iar­ity with, and accep­tance of the SM scene and SM play­ers, usu­ally refers to a professional’s atti­tude (-ther­a­pist, –lawyer, etc.)

 

Scene gear - The SM (and often vanilla) toys we play with. [see Gear]

 

Sen­sory depri­va­tion - Restrict­ing or dilut­ing a submissive’s abil­ity to use one or more of his/her senses of touch, hear­ing, sight, taste, or smell as a part of an SM scene.

 

Sen­sory relo­ca­tion - Trans­fer­ring the feel­ing of a stim­uli to a dif­fer­ent body loca­tion than it is received.

 

Sen­sual play - SM play that focuses on stim­u­lat­ing the senses with­out the use of pain.

 

Ser­vice - Acts, chores, or labor, sex­ual or oth­er­wise, per­formed by a sub for the ben­e­fit of a dom.

 

Ses­sion - A scene. [see Scene]

 

Serpent’s Tongue - A type of slap­per made of a thick strap of leather, two or three inches wide, with a deep “V” cut into most of the length of the piece. Com­monly, the han­dle will have a dou­ble thick­ness with a ring stitched at the end. This is a very nasty toy.

 

Sex­ual imprint­ing, reim­print­ing - There is a school of thought stat­ing that sex­ual responses result from imprint­ing based on past asso­ci­a­tions, expe­ri­ences, back­ground, and envi­ron­ment, often dat­ing back to early child­hood. Alter­ing sex­ual behav­ior by chang­ing responses and cre­at­ing new asso­ci­a­tions is a tech­nique called reimprinting.

 

Sex­ual magic, sen­sual magic - Pos­i­tive descrip­tive terms for sadomasochism.

 

Silent alarm - A safety pre­cau­tion used by play­ers who are new to one another. For exam­ple: a sub­mis­sive, play­ing with a dom­i­nant for the first time, might arrange for a friend to be near a tele­phone at a pre-arranged time. If the sub­mis­sive does not call at that time, the friend will be alerted that some­thing has gone wrong and will take steps to see that the sub­mis­sive is safe.

 

Sis­si­fi­ca­tion, fem­i­niza­tion - A prac­tice desired by a male sub of “forced” cross-dressing and/or gen­der reassignment.

Slap­per - A flex­i­ble semi-rigid strap used like a paddle.

 

Slave - 1) In the scene com­mu­nity some­times used loosely as another word for sub­mis­sive. 2) A sub­mis­sive involved in a com­mit­ted rela­tion­ship incor­po­rat­ing a shared slave/master fantasy.

 

Slave con­tract - A writ­ten agree­ment elab­o­rat­ing the terms, goals, and lim­its of an SM relationship.

 

Slave train­ing - The processes of: instruct­ing a sub­mis­sive in a dominant’s pref­er­ences, and, con­di­tion­ing the submissive’s behavior.

 

Sling - A cross between a swing and a ham­mock in which a bot­tom may be com­fort­ably suspended,

 

SM pos­i­tive - A sym­pa­thetic or accept­ing atti­tude toward sado­masochism and/or SM play and play­ers. [see Scene friendly]

 

SM vir­gin - A per­son with lit­tle or no expe­ri­ence in SM practices.

 

Smart Ass Masochist, SAM - A bot­tom, who rather than sub­mit­ting, chal­lenges or annoys to entice a dom to pun­ish her. [see Brat]

 

Span­dex· — A very stretch­able syn­thetic cloth used for fetish cloth­ing and bondage gear.

 

Spank­ing - Strik­ing a sub­mis­sive, usu­ally with an open hand, on her fanny. Some use this term to include pad­dling, as well.

 

Spank­ing bench - A piece of sta­tion­ary equip­ment with attach­ment points to designed to secure a sub­mis­sive in prepa­ra­tion for a spank­ing. Prop­erly bound or posi­tioned on a spank­ing bench, the submissive’s arse is in an acces­si­ble, con­ve­nient angle for a spank­ing or whipping.

 

Spank­ing skirt - A skirt or dress with cut-outs over each fanny cheek, designed to allow bare-skinned spank­ing. The spank­ing skirt is a clas­sic piece of scene-wear that enhances humiliation/exhibitionism aside from its prac­ti­cal application.

 

Spreader bar - A strong bar, usu­ally wooden, bam­boo, or metal, with rings or holes on each end, used as a bondage tool to keep a submissive’s arms or legs apart.

Sting - A sharp bit­ing feel to the sur­face of the skin.

 

Stocks - A device (usu­ally wooden) with holes designed to imprison a submissive’s wrists and head, or wrists and ankles. [see Pillory]

 

Stop­light safe words - A com­monly used sys­tem of safe words wherein red means stop the scene imme­di­ately and release the sub, yel­low warns the dom­i­nant that the cur­rent prac­tice is push­ing the submissive’s endurance, and green lets the dom­i­nant know that what is hap­pen­ing is awfully nice and should be continued.

 

Straight - 1) Code word for het­ero­sex­ual. 2) Adjec­tive for some­one or some­thing that is not SM ori­ented. In this sense, a syn­onym for vanilla.

 

Strap - 1) As a noun, this is either a bondage restraint (usu­ally leather with a buckle) or an instru­ment of cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment (also, usu­ally leather sans the buckle). 2) As a verb, it is the act of bind­ing or beat­ing a sub­mis­sive with a strap.

 

Sub­mis­sive, Sub - One who sur­ren­ders con­trol of her body and behav­ior (within pre-defined lim­i­ta­tions) to another for erotic play.

 

Sub-space- [see: Bottom-space]

 

Sub­mis­sive uni­form - A com­mon mode of dress worn by sub­mis­sives empha­siz­ing their sex­u­al­ity, usu­ally very short skirts, reveal­ing tops, high heels, and stock­ings sup­ported by a garter belt or bustier.

 

Sus­pen­sion - A bondage tech­nique wherein the submissive’s weight, totally or par­tially, is borne by the restraints used in the bondage. Great care must be exer­cised in this prac­tice; usu­ally, bondage har­nesses and sus­pen­sion cuffs are used in suspension.

 

Sus­pen­sion cuffs - Wrist and/or ankle restraints designed specif­i­cally for safe sus­pen­sion. [see Cuff, Cuff­ing; Suspension]

 

Switch - 1) A per­son who enjoys tak­ing either side in SM role or phys­i­cal play; i.e. top or bot­tom, dom or sub. 2) A slen­der flex­i­ble branch from a tree or bush used for cor­po­ral punishment.

 

Tam­pon train­ing - Rec­tal inser­tion of tam­pons by male sub­mis­sives to empathize with the female men­strual cycle.

 

Tantric Yoga, Vajrayana Bud­dhism - Indian means for achiev­ing a tran­scen­dent spir­i­tual state that incor­po­rates sex­ual and med­i­ta­tive tech­niques. There are many paths to enlight­en­ment and erotic explo­ration is one.

 

Tawes. taws - Thick rigid leather with a length­wise slit (or slits) in it used in a paddle-like fashion.

 

Thud - A blow that is felt at a deeper level than sting, Thud is usu­ally eas­ier to tol­er­ate, but may actu­ally be more dam­ag­ing as it can cause deeper bruising.

 

Tit tor­ture - Erotic play involv­ing the breasts.

 

Tol­ley­boy - A lock­ing chastity belt made in Eng­land of rubber-lined stain­less steel.

 

Top - One who takes the active role in phys­i­cal scene, but not nec­es­sar­ily emotional/mental control.

 

Top’s dis­ease - A state of self-delusion wherein the top believes his own fan­tasy of dom­i­nant superiority.

 

Top­ping from the bot­tom - Main­tain­ing the fic­tion that the top is in charge, where the real con­trol and direc­tion of a scene rests with the bot­tom. [see also, Bot­tom­ing from the top]

 

Top-space - A state of erot­i­cally altered con­scious­ness (EAC) achieved dur­ing a scene by the dom­i­nant or top. It is char­ac­ter­ized by feel­ings of intense focus, clar­ity of thought, a sense of extreme power or high energy, and/or exhil­a­ra­tion. Feel­ings of dis­tance and objec­tiv­ity, as if one where com­mand­ing from a moun­tain­top, may para­dox­i­cally accom­pany feel­ings of con­nec­tion to the sub­mis­sive, as if there were a psy­chic link. A dis­pas­sion­ate per­spec­tive may com­bine with erotic ardor. Top space may be fol­lowed by either a con­tin­ued sense of well-being or by feel­ings of fatigue, depres­sion, or lethargy. [see Post-scene plunge]

 

Tor­ture - Actions that would be painful out­side of their erotic con­text used to enhance sex­ual plea­sure for a bottom.

 

Total con­ver­sion or the “ouch­less ouch” - Whips strokes or cor­po­ral stim­uli deliv­ered dur­ing an erotic scene that begins light and rises grad­u­ally. The level of sex­ual arousal is always kept at a high enough level so that the blows are never expe­ri­enced sub­jec­tively as pain.

 

Train­ing - Any of many dis­ci­plines wherein the dom and sub act together to mod­ify the sub’s behav­ior, con­di­tion, and/or atti­tude. Includes, but is not restricted to; pony train­ing, anal train­ing, posi­tion train­ing, voice com­mand response, and so on.

 

TS, Trans­sex­ual - A per­son who born in a phys­i­cal gen­der that does not match his or her per­sonal psy­chol­ogy. These peo­ple are com­monly going through “gen­der reas­sign­ment” by means of coun­sel­ing, hor­mone treat­ments, and surgery to cor­rect their sit­u­a­tion. A TS is called a “pre-op” before sur­gi­cal mod­i­fi­ca­tion and a “post-op” afterwards.

 

TV, Trans­ves­tite - A man or woman dress­ing in the cloth­ing of the oppo­site gender.

 

True Master/True sub­mis­sive - A term of self-description usu­ally used by incom­pe­tent new­com­ers or lost-in-fantasy oth­ers to entice a peo­ple to play with them. The “True Sub­mis­sive” (or more typ­i­cally “Tue slave”) is one who buys into the non­sense that the “Tue Mas­ter” is sell­ing. “True sado­masochism” is also used to allude to a non-existent, “gen­uine” stan­dard of SM excellence.

 

Vam­pire glove - Vam­pire gloves are most often thin leather dri­ving gloves that have sharp, metal tines or tacks lin­ing the palms. The tines are typ­i­cally snap, or rhine­stone set­tings that are poked through the leather from the inside and glued in place, though some very mean gloves uti­lize thumb or car­pet tacks. Fur mitts can be embell­ished with tines in the same man­ner, yield­ing tex­tures from very nice to yowee!

 

Vanilla - Describes things, activ­i­ties and peo­ple who are not part of the SM scene, for exam­ple; “We had vanilla sex last night,” mean­ing, “We had sex with­out includ­ing any SM scene elements.”

 

Ver­bal humiliation/abuse - The use of sex­ual epi­thets and sim­i­lar ver­bal­iza­tions to excite or hum­ble one’s part­ner. Ver­bal humil­i­a­tion is good when it is used to sup­port the value of the sub­mis­sive. It becomes abuse when it is used to tear down the self-esteem of the sub. The line between the two is not always clear and may vary within one person’s psy­che depend­ing upon mood. Use with cau­tion and sensitivity.

 

Vir­gin rap­ture - Period of time (often years long) wherein new­com­ers are so over­whelmed by SM that they think the world revolves around it and can never imag­ine return­ing to any other form of sex­u­al­ity. When the infat­u­a­tion ends feel­ings of dis­ap­point­ment and loss are com­mon. It may be reas­sur­ing to know that this is a nor­mal process as SM is inte­grated into a person’s sexuality.

 

Vinyl - A mate­r­ial used for fetish fash­ions. [see PVC]

 

Vio­let wand - A sta­tic elec­tric­ity gen­er­a­tor, fre­quently with mul­ti­ple glass attach­ments includ­ing: globes, thin tubes, fork-shaped tubes, etc., used to send vir­tu­ally harm­less, violet-colored sta­tic “light­ning” to a submissive’s skin.

 

Visu­al­iza­tion - The use of story-telling and ver­bal fan­tasy shar­ing to achieve a mood or desired mind set prior to, or dur­ing a scene.

 

Water sports - Sex­ual play involv­ing urine or ene­mas. [see Golden Show­ers and Enema]

 

Weights _ Lead fish­ing weights or other weights hung from clamps that are attached to the body to increase tor­ment. [see Clamps, Clamping]

 

Whip - A whip is an object used to beat on a sub­mis­sive. Many peo­ple in the scene use the term whip to include canes, crops, pad­dles, slap­pers, etc., as well as sin­gle– and multiple-lash whips.

 

Whip­ping - 1) The act of beat­ing a sub­mis­sive or bot­tom. 2) Fin­ish­ing a rope-end to pre­vent fray­ing by wrap­ping it with thread or string.

 

White light­ning - A com­mon nick­name for a white fiber glass or resin rod often with a leather or rub­ber han­dle that is used as a cane. Being much more dense than rat­tan, it can inflict deeper dam­age and the feel is described as “cut­ting.” [see Cane]

 

Wor­ship - 1) To lav­ish atten­tions upon a part of the body, usu­ally feet, pussy or cock. 2) A role play­ing atti­tude toward a dom­i­nant, typ­i­cally of a male sub toward his goddess/mistress.

 

Wrap­ping - Allow­ing the tips of a whip or cane to strike parts of the body other than the intended tar­get. For exam­ple, aim­ing for the fanny and hit­ting it, but the tips of the whip wrap around the fanny and strike the hip. Bruis­ing on the hips is often a sign of a care­less or incom­pe­tent top who is fre­quently unaware of the dam­age that is occurring.

 

Wrist cuffs - Restraints designed to fit the wrists. [see Cuff, Cuffing]

 

X-frame - A sta­tion­ary bondage frame in the shape of an “X”, usu­ally mounted in a hor­i­zon­tal posi­tion. [see St. Andrew’s cross]