BitaTruble
Posts: 9779
Joined: 1/12/2006
From: Texas
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These are simply my own experiences with long term effects of S/m play.. and some of my own opinions to boot.
Impact play - it takes more powerful strokes to cause the same pain levels that lighter strokes used to cause as my endurance to pain continues to rise. Stretch that over several years of fairly consistent play and it's easy enough to see from that one fact that the risk levels go up for permanent damage. Marks/bruises are often seen as trophy's to a masochist and once all those blood vessels have been broken/healed, broken/healed until there is nothing left to heal, bruising is much harder to come by, so again, you have to go ever harder to get the same sorts of effect. You get to a point, where it's damn near impossible to get bruised. Even simple things like a paddling can lead to 'leather butt' and/or an inability to 'feel' what, at one time, made you safeword. I don't bruise anymore. I may get red, but by the next day, there won't be any visual evidence that I've played although I may carry some residual soreness for a day or two.
knife play - the deeper you go, the more chance you have of scarring. I don't carry any permanent scars from knife play... yet. When you continually cut the same areas over several years, the tissue you have cut can stop healing all together and you loss all sense of sensation in that area. The best way to avoid this issue is to simply change up your repertoire so that you move around the body and are not cutting the same places each time. If you have a big enough arsenal and change up the sort of play you do, you might only get to knife play every few months and even over several years, you have greatly minimized your risk than if you engage in knife play every week for years on end.
whips - much like knives, if you continually whip the same areas over and over, you can scar, build up such a tolerance that you no longer feel the sensations. That said, a single errant whip stroke can cause a scar the FIRST time it's done, so that's something to keep in mind as well. Pain receptors are clues to something being wrong and we often, as masochists, get to the point where we have deliberately turned those receptors off through building endurance ... so no more warning signs that we are, in fact, really getting damaged by the actions we allow. You can minimize long term damage in the same way as knife play. Simply make it 'one' of the available scenes.. and not the primary one that you do every single time. That has the dual benefit of making it special as well. There is risk, with whipping there is a fairly high risk of something going wrong.. and as you move from buggy whips/signal tails to dressage to bullwhips, the risk goes up because the weapons get more unwieldy.
Bondage - Most of our scenes involve some sort of bondage.. that's the staple. You can cut off circulation and it doesn't take 'years' of play to get to that point. You can do permanent harm the first time you are ever in bondage. If it's too tight, if you are in it too long, if you are pressing against another nerve because of the way the bondage was done even if the rope is not actually on that nerve that gets damaged, but perhaps the arm or leg is just at a funny angle ... all sorts of things can happen. Bottom line, a lot of what we do is NEVER going to be safe.. but if you take care, you can minimize the risks.
Needle play - I do a LOT of needle play.. and again, the key is to rotate the types of play you do so that you're doing different things to different parts of the body and not the same thing over and over again. I read the post about the woman who wore the needles during suspension for two days and I would highly suggest you see a doctor regarding the blockage. The chances are, it wasn't the needles that did it. There are 15-20 clusters through which the milk flows and the glands which produce the milk themselves are so deep within the tissue that the odds are damn near impossible they were pierced by any needle unless you were actually hooked with double aughts (00 ga) or something which are not needles at all.. If your glands are blocked for some other reason, you may need medical care but you need to find out for sure as you can develop mastasis. Some signs to look for.. were you actually producing milk as in your breasts got engorged but the child did not get milk when it tried to feed? Did you let your ob/gyn know about the 48 hours of wearing needles so he was aware and could rule out other causes of the failure to breast feed? The odds of even several needles being used over a long term and that they just happened to have been placed so that every single duct was blocked in both breasts and that they all produced a scar tissue sufficient to prevent breast feeding at all are astronomical in my opinion. Hypoplastic should be ruled out at the very least.
Making breast milk: How your body produces Nature's perfect baby food
I've enclosed a link so you can see what things actually look like from a milk duct/gland perspective. From this, it's easy to see how hard it would be to hit and scar every single one of the ducts which lead to the nipple. I have very large nipples and there is no way I could fit 20 needles through them which is what it would take to scar and permanently damage both breasts. Seriously, if you can't feed the child from either breast, I would consider an alternative reason before I blamed it on a 48 hour period of wearing needles. It 'could' in theory be true, but I'd want to check with my doctor for sure before I accepted it as fact if for no other reason than to be aware of things like mastitis. Your own health is your responsibility and I think the post is a bit on the alarmist side and something that would be 'unusual' and not common as a sign to watch for in needle play.
Fire play - well, this one is a given that shit can happen and happen fast and I have a permanent scar from a scene that went wrong. I still engage in it because what went wrong was a 'freak' accident and I am aware of the risk and choose to take it anyway.
Well, the list would be endless as there are so many different sorts of play and I did not and am not going to even touch on mental damage. Such should be taken up with a qualified therapist, not on a message forum.
Just, you know, be careful, be aware and recognize the possibilities. Either that, or go 'nilla and don't play if you're afraid of what may happen. Me, I'm willing to take the risks because they are worth the rewards.
Celeste
edited for typo and paragraph correction
< Message edited by BitaTruble -- 5/21/2006 6:11:45 PM >
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"Oh, so it's just like Rock, paper, scissors." He laughed. "You are the wisest woman I know."
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