Mistress160's Abode: sol and Ms160 go (bdsm) camping / a lesson in fireplay...

Sol and I headed off on the weekend to attend a camp out weekend organized by Mistress Kitten's Yahoo group primarily for kinksters in South East Queensland (there is a sister group on Fetlife).

It's a very active group, with a strong focus on education and encouraging newbies. I've known Mistress Kitten about a year now, and of course she is only a few hours drive from us since The Move. This was the group's first camping weekend. So we decided to drive north. "I can't find the tent since The Move", said sol. "Keep looking!" said Ms160.

It was a long drive but a very enjoyable one. A clear sunny day, the first hot day of this spring / summer. We arrived late afternoon to a very warm welcome at the isolated venue, the showgrounds of a small country town.

Talk about a perfect location. Another example of why sol and I love being able to play and socialize with other kinksters outdoors. Here's a photo of our "tent city" as Mistress Kitten called it:

As our tent was still missing we were lucky enough to score an entire room in another tent brought specially for idiots like us. A spare air mattress was also quickly found. It's that kind of a group :).

I'm not going to write in great detail about who was there, and what happened, because I don't have everyone's permission and it's important to respect the privacy of other kinksters (you can find a long section on real time identity issues in the first post in the Going Real Time Series on my BDSM For Beginners blog). But I will say it was marvelous to finally meet Mistress Kitten and her lovely sub bratty, and so many new friends. I will also say I never want to be bitten by a green ant again ... the little fucker laid me up for hours after biting me on the toe!

I do have permission to share with you some pix of the demos we attended. During the evening NightWing gave a fireplay demo with his beautiful sub (NightWings_lilith on Fetlife).

Fire play, says Wiki:

"is a type of BDSM play that involves lighting 50% to 70% rubbing alcohol or other flammable substances on or very close to the skin. Fire play is often considered a form of edge play and can be very exciting, but also a very dangerous scene"

"Typical fire play scenes often include using some form of flammable material on or near the skin. Other than rubbing alcohol, materials used may include flash cotton, votive candles, or even hot paraffin (not bees wax). Small torches, cotton balls, batons, and cotton swabs are typically used to apply the material and also to ignite it. Some materials burn at a higher temperature than others"

I need to make something very clear at this point.

I know a lot of newbies read my blogs, especially the BDSM For Beginners blog where I cover many forms of play and provide detailed references and online resources for further reading. The majority of those forms of play you can go try out yourself at home. Fireplay is not one of them. I can't stress this enough.

Fireplay is one of the most dangerous types of BDSM play. It should not be attempted without an expert personally showing you how to do it. Sure I provide a reading list below but simply reading about fireplay is not sufficient. If the subject interests you, find someone in your local scene willing to share their knowledge. The way NightWing did with sol and me ... and I will make sure I have someone like NightWing keeping an eye on me when I do my first fireplay scene.

Demo time is always appallingly short, but NightWing did a good job outlining the pros and cons of fire play whilst illustrating a fireplay technique Wiki calls "streaking":

"the process of applying the alcohol to the skin, usually in long strips or various designs, and then setting it on fire. The Top's free hand then follows in the wake of the flame, extinguishing the flame. The amount of delay from the fire to the extinguishing of the flame varies depending upon the material being set on fire, the goal of the scene, or the bottom's tolerance to pain and/or heat"

As NightWing has noted in response to questions on my photo below, the accelerant he used during our demo "was Isocol from a local chemist, [not] poured down her back [as someone queried] but wiped on with a swab:) then a naked flame was applied"

It's damned tricky to take photos of fireplay, but I was lucky to get three or four good pix for NightWing and lilith.

NightWing also allowed sol and I to experience the flames ourselves. This is something every dominant MUST do before trying any toy or equipment on a sub.Below NightWing runs flames up my arm:

What does it feel like? I think lilith got it 100% right when she recently responded to the question "does it hurt":

"no ... it's just a warm sensation ... erotic hands whisperin across ur back...but u need someone talented who knows what they are doin to make them whisper and not shout"

Thinking about the potential of fireplay in sol's and my future play makes me burn with desire myself. After the demo we took my throbbing foot back to bed. Although we missed a few hours because of that damned green ant it was still a late night for me, as Mistress Kitten and I were the last around the campfire, staggering off to our tents about 2.30am.

The next day NightWing kindly gave me a lesson in fire cupping. What's fire cupping? Well, I'm sure you'll remember seeing strange round marks on celebs like Gweneth Paltrow and Brittany Spears, and of course the technique (believed to be originally from China, but practiced in Medieval Europe) was used on Michelle Pfeiffer at the end of the movie Dangerous Liaisons. Here's how one practitioner works:

"I take a small leather patch and place it on the area of the body I want to cup. The buttocks, breasts and back work especially well. I then take a small 100% cotton ball and dip it into some rubbing alcohol, squeezing out the excess. I place the cotton ball on the leather patch and light it. While the alcohol in the cotton ball is burning, I bring a sturdy glass jar or cup, open end down, straight down over the flame so that the flame goes up into the glass as I press the rim of the glass into the skin. As the flame is snuffed out by the lack of oxygen, the air inside cools and creates a vacuum. The suction from this vacuum pulls the skin into glass"

NightWing uses a slightly different technique. The following photos were taken by NightWings_lilith during my lesson. Here NightWing shows me the cups, while sol gets comfortable on the table:

A few drops of lighter fluid were dripped into each cup, then smeared around the inside so that no liquid would escape and pool on the skin and burn. Below, NightWing places the first few cups on sol while I observe:

At the three minute mark sol's back looks like this:

Sol says:

"you get this hot feeling, this burning which fades when the flames go out .. the heat is quite intense, you feel like you are going to burn but then it fades quite quickly ... when the skin gets pulled up its just like ... a pulling [sol grabs a bit of skin on my back] ... like a lovebit only bigger and hotter!"

After Nightwing had placed four cups it was my turn, first to put the accelerant in the cupping glass:

Then lighting it:

It's impossible to see the flames in these photos (a combination of daylight and the flames being so fast). I had no problem placing the fifth cup but we had a problem with the sixth, where we'd had to reapply accellerant. A little dripped outside the cup onto sol's skin and caught fire. NightWing had dealt with the problem (by wiping his hand over the flames) before sol got the words "I'm getting burned!" out. You can see the small mark it made - bottom right - in the photo below:

It was treated with ice and sol was soon fine. Interestingly, as is often the case in life, I'd learned more by making this mistake.

We then removed the cups by applying pressure with a fingertip at the edge of the skin seal, to break the vacuum. The skin of sol's back was now wonderfully sensitive. NightWing suggested different ways to exploit that sensitivity, including a cold chain dragged over the skin:

And (again you can't see the flames, sorry) also more fireplay over the warmed up areas:

Sol is still happily enjoying his marks several days later. We both thank NightWing for sharing his expertise, and NightWings_lilith for her expertise with the camera :)

Later on the Sunday I took part in a very extreme CBT scene (actually CBT is not the right term to use for it, it was too extreme for that). But I can't tell you more until I've doublechecked with the two parties involved. I'll make a new post about it later.

We all headed home mid afternoon. It really was a great weekend. Many many thanks again to Mistress Kitten!

REFERENCES AND ONLINE
RESOURCES FOR FIRE PLAY

Fireplay (Albany Power Exchange)
Fireplay (Vanilla-not.com)
Fireplay (Soul's Haven)
Fireplay (Our Dark Sanctuary)
Fireplay (the vox)
Fire and Ice (Bondage.com)
Fireplay (Go Leather)

Googling terms like "fireplay" and "workshop" / "class" etc will turn up presenters worldwide who teach fireplay.

Amazon link to Flames of Passion: Erotic Fire Play by David Walker and Robert J Rubel