The Boudoir Bible (25 page)

I USE THE TERMS
“instruments,” “tools,” “scepters,” and “implements of desire” rather than “sex toys” to describe the objects that permit lovers to provide sensations in the sexual arena. Though the Internet has put an end to the days when lovers were obliged to shop underground or on the wrong side of town for whips, restraints, or other creative implements of desire, this accessibility is not yet synonymous with acceptability. Similarly, though many of these accessories, once condemned as S&M or “fetish,” have come to be considered fashionable, glossy magazines and designer labels have done little to change the way most people judge erotic tools and those who use them.

Exploring sexual frontiers with the aid of erotic implements, particularly those that serve to stimulate the body and not the genitals, continues to be identified with the darker side of sex. This distorted image is perpetuated by the media and film industries, which associate behavior that goes beyond the stereotypical portrayal of PGO sexuality
with perversion or criminality—and, basically, what viewers have been led to believe is what they expect to see. Most producers of so-called sex toys involuntarily reinforce these negative viewpoints and perpetuate the taboo of extra-genital stimulation by failing to accompany their products with instructions for their correct, safe, and pleasure-enhancing use. Like any tool, sexual instruments must be used with know-how in order to yield positive results. Sexually evolved Taoist and Tantric practitioners (as well as their modern devotees, who use sex to transcend reality and come closer to the divine) looked upon any instrument that permitted them to explore and push the limits of the sexual realm not as a toy but as an object of power.

To put erotic instruments into perspective, consider the most powerful and versatile sexual implements we have: our hands. Mother Nature equipped us with not one or two but a total of ten digits, thus ten times the potential to provide ecstasy. When used skillfully, the hands can undress, heal, caress, stroke, spank, hold, tickle, and massage the ones we love to love. When used carelessly, they can also inflict pain and injury. As is the case for any erotic implement, it is the manner and the context in which the hands are employed that make the difference between the providing joy or distress, ecstasy or agony.

Tools of desire are simply extensions of the hands (and in some cases, extensions of other parts of the body), and they should be used with the same guidelines—respectfully and in harmony with each individual’s desires, level of skill, and intent to pleasure. Ticklers, crops, and restraints provide sensations similar to those that can be performed with the hands—tickling, slapping, and holding—while tools like whips and floggers help lovers provide sensations that would otherwise be complicated, if not physically impossible, to administer with the hands. Like every tool, from a hammer to a computer, these erotic instruments should be viewed as aids. They simply have the ability to provide sensations more effectively than our hands, and if partners so desire, more intensely and at greater length.

Tools expand our sensorial repertoires and allow us to stroke the pleasure centers of the brain in new and different ways. Techniques like erotic tickling, restriction, constriction, and flagellation can be used during the Paradise Found Sexual Ceremony to engage the whole body over extended periods of skillful and creative stimulation, triggering the steady release of pleasure-enhancing endorphins and hormones while coaxing sexual energy to radiate outward from the genitals. When extra-genital pleasures are combined or alternated with genital stimulation, the entire body, as well as the mind and spirit, becomes charged with sexual vibration.

In addition to granting access to higher dimensions in the sexual realm, erotic tools offer an aesthetic value in the context of a sexual ritual. Aesthetics are pertinent to the positive outcome of any ceremony—from High Mass to an English or Japanese teatime to the Paradise Found Sexual Ceremony. The potency of any ceremonial object relies upon the manner in which the participants interact with the object and share in its empowering potential. The design of the tools and the quality of their materials reinforce the difference between ritual and reality.

A common misconception about sexual tools is that they are only used to inflict pain. But these same instruments can also give subtle, sensuous stimulation. Remember that what one lover may consider painful may very well be another lover’s Paradise. Everyone has a different perception of pleasure. Similarly, everyone also has a different threshold for pain; some people need intense sensations in order to perceive pleasure and experience sexual satisfaction. This transformation of pain into sexual arousal is known as “algolagnia.”

Those who practice this approach to satisfaction are not seeking to be injured but, on the contrary, to be physically and emotionally
appeased, and they do not even necessarily consider themselves part of the BDSM realm. Similarly, those who do engage in BDSM relations are not necessarily only seeking to receive or provide pain. That every “servant” or “slave” is a masochist and every “master” or “dominatrix” is a sadist is another misconception. While some do adhere to the “no pain, no gain” philosophy of pleasure, others do
not
wish to provide or experience even the slightest effects of physical pain. Likewise, those who are sexually subservient and seek the psychological impact of being humiliated might fit the BDSM cliché to perfection; but in reality, not every “servant” is necessarily at ease with such games. To each his or her own!

Categories aside, those who revel in the powers of the tools and techniques of full-body stimulation appreciate their capacity to incite the sexual high. Techniques such as consensual erotic tickling, constriction, restriction, bondage, and flagellation create a surge of endorphins and hormones, including dopamine and oxytocin, just two of the bodies’ many natural “love drugs.” Several factors will contribute to this increased production, including the top’s ability to provide sensations skillfully in a gradual crescendo, the bottom’s degree of receptivity to these sensations, and the gradually growing intensity of these sensations over extended periods of arousal. The more partners are sexually attracted to each other, the more endorphins and hormones they naturally produce, and the greater the rewards of ecstasy are likely to be.

Endorphins, in combination with other inebriating chemicals that are produced and processed in the body during lovemaking, are the liaisons between pain and pleasure, between increasingly intense sensation and heightened degrees of sexual satisfaction. Some of these chemicals increase our resistance to pain while others heighten
our sensory perception, including our perception of pleasure. This helps to explain why some individuals appreciate more extreme stimulations, and why, over longer periods of arousal, we are all able to take pleasure in increasingly intense sensations. That is also the reason why the intensity with which sensations are bestowed should always be orchestrated as a progressive crescendo, allowing for a gradual increase of pleasure-enhancing endorphins and hormones in the system.

If an intense sensation is given before sexual tension builds, and adequate endorphins have yet to seep into the system, it is likely to be perceived as pain, not pleasure, with an accompanying adrenaline rush. Produced in the adrenal glands, adrenaline is an essential ingredient in the hormonal recipe that incites the sexual “high.” It also accentuates our perception of any sensation, pleasurable or not. When sensations such as fear, danger, and pain cause adrenaline production to spike, the self-preserving “fight or flight” response is triggered. Skilled tops coax the production of adrenaline by pushing, not overstepping, limits. Adrenaline surges will give the bottom an unexpected thrill, but if his or her experience is accompanied by involuntary flinching or muscular contractions, then the top can be certain that the bottom’s threshold for pain has been pushed far enough and it is time to back down. If limits are overstepped (and not merely pushed), adrenaline rushes into the bloodstream, and the limbic system, overloaded with the excess charge of adrenaline and other chemical reactions to pain, causes the hypothalamus to dramatically decrease the production of dopamine. Needless to say, sexual tension will plummet! The adrenaline rush overrides the pleasure-enhancing effects of dopamine, perhaps even resulting in a self-defensive bout of aggression or anger that will most likely mark the premature end of the Sexual Ceremony. Avoid overstepping a lover’s pain threshold at all costs, but note that the same intensity of contact that would cause an adrenaline rush in the above example, when provided at the height of a lengthy ceremony’s blissful evolution, is likely to reveal a very different outcome: it may just push your lover over the edge into ecstasy.

PLATE XIII
THE CHEST HARNESS

PLATE XIV
SPANKING SESSION AND THE “SWEET SPOT”

PLATE XV
INSTRUMENTS FOR EROTIC FLAGELLATION