If you tell someone that you found some handcuffs in your friend Bill’s sock drawer (why were you snooping in there in the first place?!) or that you discovered a set in the glovebox of Granny Betsy’s car, it’s highly likely that you’ll see an eyebrow raised into a hairline and an appreciative-slash-knowing smirk rather than a look of horror at the news. 

I must confess, I am intrigued by this thinking. What is it about them that makes them so palatable to so many? Do they denote an ‘acceptable’ (and please don’t for one minute interpret my use of that word here as symbolising my own personal views on what is and isn’t acceptable between two consenting adults) brand of kink? One that it is ‘okay’ to indulge in? Most people seem to think nothing of a little restraint in the bedroom – bondage by any other name would feel as sweet – even if they don’t identify as kinky. But I suspect the reaction you’d get from a vanilla individual coming across a cane or a vampire glove amongst your personal items would be rather different. (Double-take and a step backwards rather than a blasé smirk?) I wonder if it’s because handcuffs don’t, generally speaking, involve any sort of pain on the wearer’s part and are thus far less confrontational than other forms of kink, which may have some sort of marked sensation component attached to them?

Funnily enough (and despite my initial assertion), I don’t personally include ‘traditional’ handcuffs – by which I mean the metal kind you’d expect a policeman to carry and see bedecked with horrid, fake fur on occasion – as part of my on kink landscape. They are uncomfortable, dig into the skin and are, in my experience, really only good for show or roleplay. A toy or gimmick that I don’t associate with safe, fun bondage, basically. Leather cuffs or even a warm set of hands wrapped around my wrists? Now that’s a different story entirely …

Image: Houdini in Handcuffs, 1918, Bettmann/Corbis, through The New York Times photo archive

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I’m not sure that I can fully express how much I love pants (sorry – I just can’t bring myself to call them ‘panties’; as a Brit-Antipodean hybrid, that word always makes me giggle) but given that I’m someone who’s a tad – okay, a lot – lacking in the chest department, they’re the one item of lingerie that I know I can really go to town with. There’s no worrying about how I’m going to go about filling them out, no stressing about how ridiculously over-padded they might look, no wondering if I’m going to end up with two underwires swinging around my neck the moment I lift my arms in the air. In short, they’re my trump card when I take my clothes off.

My love of knickers started pretty early on; my mum has always maintained the most amazing pants drawer and her love of sexy lingerie has rubbed off well and good. Her motto? ‘You can’t wear bad underwear. What if you get hit by a bus?’ Seems rather random, I know, but her point is that you want to be looking your best if you end up in a situation that requires you to divest yourself of clothing unexpectedly.

I hate to think how much I’ve spent on pants over the years. Before I had kids – and thus had two shiny pennies to rub together (oh, and time to handwash rather than throwing anything and everything into the washing machine) – I used to fork over ridiculous sums on bits of silk, satin and lace. However, these days, with less disposable income and a washing mound the size of Vesuvius, I have to be a little more restrained and discerning. Now I have an everyday pile (still nice, but can be washed mechanically with regular detergent) and an ‘other’ pile. Okay, a kinky pile. Actually, a box. And this is my little treasure chest of treats. Although I pilfer it regularly enough, there is nothing better than when my OH goes into said box (no pun intended) and lays out a little morsel on the bed for me to wear. When he does that, it’s a very clear signal to me that we’re shifting into ‘play’ mode.

Standing in front of someone in a pair of provocative kickers and nothing else. Being told to take them off or having them stripped from you. Leaving them at mid-thigh or tangled around your ankles during sex. No piece of clothing that I can think of has the ability to make me feel sexier.

Our respective favourites? Well …

His are these tie-sided lovelies – easy to remove and they have a see-through back (the perv!):

Mine are the ouverts pictured in the title image.

And we both rather like these ones, which are at once kinky and amusing. (You need a Hollywood to wear them successfully, though. These are definitely not a ‘between waxes’ option!):

Who else has a thing for knickers? Click on the Kink of the Week banner below to find out.

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Me!

Roleplay. It’s not a kink I know a lot about or tend to indulge in. Not because I have anything against it but because it just doesn’t really push any of my hot buttons. Why not? Well, I’m kind of inclined to think that because it’s taken so long to get to the point where I’m comfortable with the kinks that do rev my engine, I don’t want to pretend.

I want to just be me.

Raw.

As I am.

In fact, the things that I tend to find the most powerful in a D/s context involve being stripped back to nothing, all ‘other’ gone, both mentally and physically.

We once attended an impact play class that, unexpectedly, included a small roleplay element and, of all the things my other half and I have tried and done together over the years, adopting alternate personas proved to be one of the most difficult and challenging. Discussing the merits of a wooden paddle in front of ten others? No problem. Pretending to be a helpless stowaway on a bad-ass pirate ship? Well, let’s just say I got pretty desperate for him to make me walk the plank and put us both out of our misery. Tongues became tied, faces red, and all of a sudden we weren’t quite sure what to do with one another. Quite simply, roleplaying threw us.

Is it, perhaps, a personality thing? Maybe. I was never the kid who auditioned for the school drama production; playing another person just doesn’t come naturally to me and I think the need to be myself overrules everything else, no matter how titillating or deliciously debauched the scenario. Says Mollena Williams, who wrote a really fabulous piece on roleplaying in Tristan Taormino’s The Ultimate Guide to Kink:

‘I am, among many things, an actor and a performer, and I have been practicing my craft professionally since I was about four years old. But even for me, with a lifetime of formal training and experience under my belt, turning up the heat in bed by playing make-believe games can sometimes feel awkward, vulnerable, or difficult.’

This sums it up perfectly. There’s a certain vulnerability to roleplaying and I just don’t think I’m fearless enough to put myself out there like that. Yep, I’m a scaredy cat.

Do I think that engaging in D/s is a form of roleplay? I can’t answer for others but for me it’s most definitely not. I don’t step into another personality or adopt a character that isn’t already a part of me. I simply let another side of my regular self loose.

Having said all this, though, I should make it clear that I absolutely have fantasies; things and situations that I imagine or dream about. Some of which will remain in my head as lovely dark secrets and others, less fanciful, that will, perhaps, see the light of day. But all of these imaginings tend to involve me being, well, me – faults, flaws and all.

Title image: Th. van den Brink (Beeld en Geluidwiki – Gallery: Pipo de clown)

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‘Someone once described the use of blindfolds to me as “BDSM-lite” and claimed that since everyone has tried them at least once, he doesn’t even really classify them as “kinky” play. Would you agree with that? Why or why not?’

‘BDSM-lite’? Yeah, I disagree. This humble little item has an awful lot of power over me.

It doesn’t leave physical marks.

It doesn’t cause pain.

It doesn’t make a noise.

But each time it’s used I’m completely in its thrall, because it puts me totally and utterly into the hands of the person who’s placed it over my eyes.

Without sight, I cannot move freely.

Without sight, I cannot see what is coming.

Without sight, all my other senses become more acute; taste, touch, smell.

Without sight, I am infinitely more vulnerable.

Without sight, the level of trust I have in my partner deepens because he becomes my eyes.

Is that sound I can hear him getting out a feather? Or is it him picking up the crop? He hasn’t moved or said anything for what seems like forever – is he standing watching me, an implement ready in his hand, or merely sitting reading a book? Psychologically, the blindfold has the ability to place the wearer in some very interesting places and gives the person Topping them the golden opportunity to play with their head. La Crimson Femme did a wonderful write-up on a class she attended a while back, The Sensual Sadist, conducted by a Dom named Haven (he has a great blog, Kinky As I Am, by the way) and shared an example of how a blindfold can be used to devastating effect:

Haven confessed to a love of mindfucking his sub with the senses. When a person is blindfolded, it is not always easy to tell the difference between hot and cold. He sometimes tells her he’s going to burn her and he sticks an iced implement on her instead.

One of the most unsettling but satisfying blindfold experiences I have had involved being blinded, stripped, and ‘walked’ over an un-even surface. Even though I knew roughly where we were going, I had to absolutely trust that he wasn’t going to let me fall, trip or bang into anything. And when we eventually came to a halt, I had no idea what lay in store for me. I’m curious by nature, and (ironically) like to run the show when I am not playing. Taking away my ability to determine – or at least make an educated guess – as to the course a session might take is a very, very effective way for him to exert control and get me off balance.

BDSM-lite? No. I believe that this simple scrap of material allows for a kaleidoscope of sensual and erotic possibilities.

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I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Put simply, a spanking can be many, many things. That’s the beauty of this wonderful act; the interpretations of it are endless and so very, very personal.

*Thank you to Molly Moore for letting me know about Kink of the Week and for showing me how effective a word cloud can be. (This one was inspired by the one she used in her Myth busting: the submissive woman lecture at Eroticon 2013.)

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