Fifty Ways to Play: A Beginner’s Guide to Unleashing your Erotic Desires. Debra MacLeod

can be found in your kitchen drawers, too. Spatulas, whisks, egg turners and wooden spoons all work. If you’re too shy to browse the spanking aisle at a sex shop, you can guiltlessly wander the aisles at a kitchen shop and choose a selection of “toys.” Kitchen utensils like spatulas and egg turners come in a variety of shapes, sizes and materials, from plastic to metal, and each will create a different spanking sensation. You can also swipe a rubber-lined paddle off the tennis table in your rec room.

      During erotic spanking, the dominant should alternate the force of blows—sometimes hard, sometimes soft—to keep the submissive in a state of uncertain expectation. The dominant should also interrupt spanking strokes to gently caress the submissive’s buttocks. This quickly changes the erotic mood from rough punishment to tender love—precisely the type of mind game that BDSM partners love to play.

       13. Flogging Instruments

      While paddles and slappers are designed for spanking the buttocks, flogging instruments like whips and canes can add impact to other areas of the body. Leather or suede whips allow for a softer touch, while rubber whips are better at creating the hot, stinging sensation that many BDSM players crave. Whips with multiple tassels are best, as these can deliver the greatest range of stimulation. Canes may be made of bamboo, rattan, plastic or even stainless steel and provide the sharpest, most focused impact.

      Again, low-cost everyday items can also be used as flogging instruments. You can start by browsing the floral aisle at a craft shop where you will find a large variety of wheat stalks and other bunches of dried grasses typically used to create home decorations. Different types of plant material—from wild grass to palm—will produce different flogging sensations, and this type of discovery is half the fun.

      Submissives should be restrained during flogging. Because whips are designed for whole-body sensation play, a dominant should blindfold his or her submissive before starting. The dominant can lightly drag the tassels of a whip down the submissive’s chest, tantalizing the nipples and grazing the genitals before moving down the legs, leaving a trail of goose bumps. This exquisitely subtle but body-racking sensation can be peppered with harder strikes of the whip on the submissive’s torso or limbs. If the submissive’s legs are spread apart, the dominant can slap his or her genitals, gently and then with as much force as the submissive wants, with the whip’s tassels.