Friday, May 6, 2011

Evil things to do with staples, glue + cautery pens....

Bella447 and Paulus during the workshop,
with alexpierce in the background


This post is about Edgeplay

Please don't view it if you are
not interested in:
Medical play
Skin stapling
Skin gluing
Branding


On the morning of 1 May sol and I attended the "Skin Stapling, Skin Gluing, Cautery Branding Workshop" presented by Bella447 and organized by Satet and alexpierce.

We first met Bella447 and Paulus at Kinkfest in 2009. We've all since agreed that meeting was an important part of the Kinkfest experience for all of us.

Medical play is popular in the scene and covers everything from Dr / nurse role play and examinations to needle play, catheters, enemas, saline infusions, sounding, as well as various body modifications (piercings, brandings etc). A lot of these are edgeplay techniques that need to be properly taught. Which is why we were planning to spend the weekend attending Bella447's workshops ... and finish the weekend with a medical play party at Satet and alexpierce's home.

This first workshop covered skin gluing, skin stapling and cautery branding. I was really looking forward to learning how we could incorporate these techniques into our play.

First Bella introduced us to the delights of playing with superglue. You might like to read Wiki's interesting entry on Cyanoacrylates ... here's a few facts they mention:
"Cyanoacrylate is the generic name for cyanoacrylate based fast-acting adhesives such as methyl 2-cyanoacrylate, ethyl-2-cyanoacrylate (commonly sold under trade names like Super Glue, Krazy Glue, and Cyber Fix Glue), and n-butyl cyanoacrylate (used in the veterinary glues Vetbond and LiquiVet and skin glues like GluStitch, Xoin, Indermil, LiquiBand and Histoacryl).

"The related compound 2-octyl cyanoacrylate is a medical grade glue encountered under various trade names, such as derma+flex QS, SurgiSeal, octylseal, FloraSeal, Dermabond, Surgi-Lock and Nexaband; it was developed to be non-toxic and less irritating to skin tissue..."
Cyanoacrylates were invented in 1942 by:
"Dr. Harry Coover and Fred Joyner of Kodak Laboratories during experiments to make a transparent plastic suitable for gun sights.[1] Although not appropriate for the gun sights, they did find that cyanoacrylates would quickly glue together many materials with great strength. Seeing possibilities for a new adhesive, Kodak developed "Eastman #910" (later "Eastman 910") a few years later as the first true "super glue."
The idea of using superglue on the skin for play might sound dangerous until you realize that:
"The inventor of cyanoacrylates, Harry Coover, said in 1966 that a CA spray was used in the Vietnam War to retard bleeding in wounded soldiers until they could be brought to a hospital. Butyl cyanoacrylate has been used medically since the 1970s outside the US, but due to its potential to irritate the skin, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration did not approve its use as a medical adhesive until 1998 with Dermabond"
Wiki also notes:
"Research has demonstrated the use of cyanoacrylate in wound closure as being safer and more functional than traditional suturing (stitches). The adhesive has demonstrated superior performance in the time required to close a wound, incidence of infection (suture canals through the skin's epidermal, dermal, and subcutaneous fat layers introduce extra routes of contamination), and final cosmetic appearance"
Most of us don't know this interesting back history, which Bella explained during the workshop. Once you know this, you can utilize superglue in your scenes in all sorts of ways, including of course for excellent mind fucks.

While talking to us, Bella began applying superglue to Paulus' genitals:


She was aiming to glue his cock to his scrotum, which sounds terribly scary (and very hot) except ... it didn't work. The point of the demonstration was to show that not only is the skin of the scrotum relatively tough and moves around a lot (as I discovered during our recent butterfly boarding scene) but that in this area, chemicals in the glue react with sweat / body fluids and the glue just doesn't bond. She then suggested other parts of the body where the bond would work, as well as other ways glue can be used in CBT. It also has another use - for example, if sol has a bad bleed during a CBT needle scene, I could use superglue to stop it.

As Bella noted during the class, the main concern with superglue is: is there a way to break the bond / remove the glue quickly, if needed? And there are several ways to do that. Here's Wiki again:
"Acetone, commonly found in nail polish remover, is a widely available solvent capable of softening cured cyanoacrylate. Other solvents include Nitromethane, Dimethyl sulfoxide, and Methylene chloride, although the latter two of these solvents are toxic. Gamma-butyrolactone may also be used to remove cured cyanoacrylate.[20] Commercial debonders are also available"
Bella tried out various methods on Paulus, to remove the glue on his scrotum. The most successful was the commercial debonder Loctite Glue Remover, a tube of which was included in our workshop "show bag", along with Tarzan's Grip:


According to the packet:
"Loctite Glue Remover removes super glue and many other types of glue from bonded objects, stained surfaces and accidentally bonded fingers. It can also remove traces of sticky labels, inks and permanent marker stains. The non-drip formula makes this glue remover suitable for application to vertical surfaces"
I love that "accidentally bonded" LOL.

We then moved on to medical staples. I knew that in the US one can attend "Electronic Stapling Sensation Play Workshops" (such as those run by Markher and the pennygurl) and had also read about Teppycat's experience of being stapled from an electric stapler:
"There was also a demo of using a staple gun during play — not a medical stapler, not an office-supply type stapler; an electric goddamn staple gun from Home Depot. The presenters were a couple — top and bottom — who actually made getting stapled in the ass look fun. (Well, maybe not the ass.) They explained in detail all the safety stuff first — how to make sure that the staples and gun are exceedingly clean — clean enough to puncture human skin without running the risk of infection. And then they just started stapling..."
Bella447 was not using "an electric goddamn staple gun from Home Depot" but a medical / surgical stapler:
"Surgical staplers are devices which bend a usually stainless steel "staple" across an incision as an alternative to sutures. They have a slightly lower rate of infection and are quicker to apply, but are much more difficult to remove in a DIY context (a specialized staple remover is strongly recommended, although they can be hand-removed). Staples are rarely used in atypical body modification and are more common as a part of BDSM play in this context"
The sterile medical staples that come in these staplers look like everyday staples, except the ends curve in towards each other when they go in. They don't far into the skin, less than a needle, and as Monk and Mistress Matisse have noted, it's an easy device to delivery a lot of sensation quickly.

In Bella and Paulus' demonstation the staples didn't appear to hurt much going in, but you can certainly make the experience more intense by where you place them and how you plan your scene. Mistress Matisse, for example, uses staples in this wonderful scene: (I hope she will forgive my quoting it in full but it's truly too wonderful to edit down a single word):
"Recently I was playing with a man I've known intimately for many years. I tied him to a bed, and I took a surgical stapler and punched a dozen sharp metal staples into his nipples. Then I moved down his body and carefully put some into the skin of his scrotum.

"I was enjoying myself, because I'm a sadist. I like doing intense things to people's bodies. And this man and I very much enjoy my doing intense things to him—even if it makes him writhe and swear in the moment.

"I stood up on the bed and looked down at him. He was breathing heavily as he processed the sensation of the staples already in his skin. He met my eyes, and I looked meaningfully at his cock, lying semi-tumescent and tempting on his stomach. I lifted the stapler.

"His eyes went wide. "No! No, mistress!" The whole bed shook as he attempted, without success, to slide away from me. I laughed happily, and then I knelt down, with my face close to his. He was flushed and his pupils were dilated.

"Oh, you don't want me to put staples right into your cock?" His passionate pleas rose in volume as I brandished the stapler again. He's really scared, I thought. I've never injected heroin, but I do believe the pleasure I felt in that moment could not possibly be rivaled by anything in a syringe. I felt high—and on the heels of that, I felt a surge of tenderness toward him. And then I put another staple into his nipple"
See? Told you. Wasn't that just brilliant? I'm flushed just reading it again now. Want more? You can listen to Mistress Matisse chat with Monk about staplers and other BDSM toys they love on this podcast.

The staples are quite firm once they are in, so you can attach weights to them or use them for light bondage points. Here's Bella447 tugging one she's just stapled in Paulus' chest:


Medical staples are often used for decorative play, in particular to create ribbon "lacings" or corset designs. Bella taught us a great trick of stapling rubber O rings (used in plumbing) on to provide an easier attachment point:


To make it easier to thread ribbons through (check out this lovely ribbon design made by one of the people at the workshop) or in Bella's case:


to attach chains. It was great to watch Bella attach another staple and O ring on the other side of Paulus' chest, and suspended a chain from them:


You can see a photo of the stapled chains Paulus wore to the play party that night, on Fet here. When you want to remove the staples they come out easily with the pale blue instrument Bella is holding in this photo:


I am now definitely planning to staple sol's foreskin, perhaps at the Uber play party at the end of the month in Sydney :)

The final part of the workshop explored methods of cautery branding. Branding, if we get back to basics for a moment, is a means of marking the body with heat. It's quite popular within the BDSM community, as a way of symbolizing commitment and ownership. We've been interested in branding for a while - readers might remember I attended Lukas Spira's strike branding workshop a few years back, did some fiendish branding on c's cock with Devilwoman, and in fact Steve_C and I had been discussing a branding for sol when we returned to New Zealand for Southern Exposure.

There are three different types of branding: direct fire branding (which involves putting something in direct contact with the skin and lighting it on fire so that it leaves burns), strike branding (where a branding iron is made, heated and then pressed against the skin) and electro-cautery branding (done using a medical device originally designed to stop bleeding by sealing the bleeding blood vessels):

An electro-cautery device passes an electric current through an electrode, causing it to become hot. This can be used for branding to create patterns more intricate than is possible using the traditional strike branding method. Patterns chosen cannot be extremely detailed as there is a certain amount of heat damage done to surrounding tissues. Expect the lines in any brand done to spread while healing to around three times their initial width.

"A variety of electrodes are available, making different widths of line easy to accomplish. A cautery pen is a small battery powered electro-cautery unit, but tends not to be powerful enough for anything more than the smallest branding project..."

Although it doesn't contain the powerful ritual element of other forms of branding, cautery branding does allow you to draw your on design on, as Bell447 shows here:


What an amazing workshop. Didn't I learn lots of amazing things that morning ... I really can't wait to try them out...

REFERENCES AND ONLINE RESOURCES:

Presenters:
If you are in Australia and would like to invite Bella447 to present on this topic, please contact her through her Fetlife profile.

Quite a few BDSM presenters offer stapling and branding workshops in the US. Amongst them:
  • Wintersong offers Skin Stapling for Pain and Pleasure The skin stapler is a remarkable versatile and self contained tool for play. You can use it to achieve everything from lovely patterns, to delicious pain, to bondage and chastity. This class will cover the variety of uses for this fabulous tool from the basic to the more advanced"

  • Slutress and Zebrianna’s Skin Stapling 101 presentation "will help you to better utilize the sub-dermal technics of Staples. Learn “hands on” how to utilize various Stapling techniques for pain as well as pleasure. Learn how to make beautiful designs and art work with Staples and other supplies. Like Corsets, wings, flowers and more. Imaginations are encourage.

"You will leave the class having both staple and been stapled (if willing). You will learn the basics of Skin Stapling play safety, supplies, usage and disposal. This is a serious type of edge play requiring a reasonable level of comfort with Staples play techniques and a good knowledge of fundamentals. The knowledge, demonstration, and practical hands-on (with instructors help) will allow you to leave feeling competent to begin practicing and refining this technique for yourself"

Can't locate a real time presenter? These might keep your interest up while you search:
"Violet and Zachariah gives an introductory chat about the tools used in BDSM Medical Stapling, along with practical tips and safety information. Note: Always take a live course in this sort of activity from an experienced practitioner in your community before attempting to try it out yourself."
"Dottie from Needle Play Design uses Starfire to introduce skin stapling in this 7-minute clip. Dottie identifies the precise staple gun to use, demonstrates exactly how the gun works, compares and contrasts skin stapling with needle play (e.g., length of time to keep in the skin, pain levels, etc.), recommends where and where not to staple, shows how to make an arm corset – and highlights safety throughout"
General:

bdsm play pen - Stapled!
bdsmweblog.com - Sounding and Staples and Shocking. Oh My!
Cyanoacrylate Adhesive / Super Glue Safety Data Sheets
EdgePlay Branding aftercare
History of Super Glue
ishboo Branding
Stephanie Keobel Extreme body modification: An introduction to branding
Mistress Matisse - Hurt The Ones you Love
Mistress Matisse - Staplers and BDSM toy taplers and other BDSM toys we love podcast
Safety in the Home: Super Glue - Queensland Health
Skin Branding
The Switch is not a Myth Fire on my back and staples in my arm
Was Super Glue invented to seal battle wounds in Vietnam?
Wiki - Cyanoacrylates
Wiki - Human Branding
Wiki - Branding (BDSM)

Various forum threads:

Thank you:
Satet and alexpierce
for your amazing hospitality, unreal food and
a magical weekend

Bella447 and Paulus
for all the knowledge *grin*

Photos:
Ms160
(reproduction permissions obtained
from everyone in the photos)

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