BDSM Glossary N-S

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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.

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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.

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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- No gender 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 head harness, 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.

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

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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]

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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.