We’ve already discussed kink in broader terms, so let’s take a closer look at specific kinks. I started this in my last instalment with a look at consensual non-consent. I am covering the kinks we know and love first, then maybe digging into others I’m not so into, like “littles” and “primals.” If you find the power exchange of dominance and submission offensive or triggering, go ahead and stop reading now. If you made it through my piece on consensual non-consent, then this is fairly vanilla. Medical fetishism or “medical play” is the d/s version of playing doctor. There is a power exchange, as the person taking the role of the medical professional is the dominant, and the submissive is the patient. This plays into the vulnerability one experiences when seeking medical attention. Thanks to Hollywood, this kink is ingrained to some extent into our collective consciousness. The vanilla version is the childhood game “playing doctor,” or strippers dressed as nurses twirling a stethoscope.
While things like lab coats, scrubs and hospital gowns are the more typical trappings, I don’t do costumes. Costumes are for people who need something to help them break free from the standards of accepted behavior. I do not give a shit what is or isn’t accepted behavior. I am more into the mental aspect of it. My fascination goes back to growing up watching horror movies with doctors gone wrong strapping helpless damsels to examination tables to experiment on them. Forced examinations in 70’s exploitation films of the “women in prison” variety further nurtured this. A cold and clinical humiliation. The humiliation of being exposed in a vulnerable state to someone they are not intimate with. With the doctor/patient dynamic, power is in the doctor’s hands. The doctor breathes, the patient breathes.
In the kink scene, medical play came to be in professional dungeons amply equipped with stirrup-ready exam tables to accommodate this. I enjoy the use of such equipment at kink conventions or professional dungeons – this is not a kink that is the most practical in terms of daily life; without an examination table in my basement or a hospital bed in my room, in day to day life I often take more voyeuristic glee out of this kink. Most of my female friends have recounted their tales of going to get breast exams or pap smears to me. It achieves almost the same effect as if I had been there. Acting out these scenes in the virtual world of Second Life sometimes serves as an ample substitute.
Medical fetishes extend much further beyond the simple thrill of forced nudity. It offers a wide range of exploration. While things like latex gloves and objects heated or frozen to simulate the sensations of a real exam, there is much more room for adventure. The Wartenberg wheel and speculum are two of the most common items, though if you are into it and experienced with needle play, it could certainly be injected into a medical scene. The climax to these scenes often builds into the patient receiving an enema or being masturbated. Vibrators were originally designed for medical use to relieve women of “hysteria,” so this would make for a logical progression.
Many people have kinks involving skin stapling, rectal exams including prostate massage, and urological exams including catheterization. The more advanced tools of the trade, like sounding rods and speculums, should only be used on another person if you know what you are doing. Before you say, shouldn’t everyone know that, remember – we live in a world where people eat Tide Pods. Medical play can go in more creative directions – the use of a straight jacket as a form of restraint can lead to an asylum-based scene, building to strapping the patient into a bathtub for hydrotherapy. For that matter, medical play could also include being examined during an alien abduction, if you truly want to let the weird out. Then there is Abasiophilia, which is a fetishization of wheel chairs or impaired mobility, including the restriction of mobility with braces. Cupping was also a 19th century medical practice still used in some circles today, and has now become a fairly common bdsm activity. So your imagination is the limit here, though above all – stay safe, sane and consensual (unless you have other arrangements made).
