Rush The Rush
Let us first explain what pain does to your body. A pain impulse will set off your adrenaline production. Adrenaline is a “home made” (inside your body) drug that will make you more aware of things. Adrenaline is produced whenever your body or mind feels stress, pain, danger or uncertainty. Managers and athletes are usually real adrenaline junks and so are many of the people who are into erotic power exchange. Prolonged exposure to pain will set of the production of endorphins. These are various natural opiates, also produced by your own body and – among many other things – used as a natural pain killer. This will get you into the “rush” and will send your mind off on a trip.

There is a lot to say about adrenaline. Without making things too complicated: what is generally described as “adrenaline” in fact are two hormones – adrenaline (a.k.a. epinephrine) and noradrenaline (a.k.a. norepinephrine). Both are produced in the lower section of the human brain, a section called the medulla or adrenal gland. Both are also secreted by nerve ends and operate as a neurotransmitter (to facilitate quicker transmission of signals from and to the brain). They are complementary, although adrenaline seems to concentrate predominantly on brain and heart activity and speeding up the metabolism, whereas noradrenaline predominantly concentrates on vasoconstrictor action (pumping activity in and by the blood veins) and as such rises the blood pressure.

The “adrenaline twins” are your bodies’ immediate response kit. Even before the brain has analyzed signals that indicate a “difference” in what was normal physical activity until that point, adrenaline will be released. The signals might later be analyzed as either danger, stress, pain or another alarm signal and even before the brain has done its split second analyses adrenaline will start to prepare the body for physical response. The release will bring your sensory systems (eyes, ears, nerve ends and such) to a higher state of awareness, will start to speed up your metabolism with the purpose to quickly filter out sugars that will serve as immediate energy for the muscles, will increase the heart rhythm and vascular activity (in order to allow for faster transportation of the energy to the muscles) and finally will give impulses to the thalamus (the pain gate) in the brain and as such operates as a pain killer. If the signals are analyzed by the brain as false alarm, the production of adrenaline will stop and the body will return to its normal functions.

There is another important thing adrenaline does to men only: preparing them to reproduce! This is the plain and simple rudimentary genetically encoded evolutionary response to danger: whatever happens next, make sure there is at least a remote change the genes are passed on the next generation. You may not like it, but that is evolution’s way to protect the species. And as such adrenaline helps to create an immediate sexual response to any adrenaline-creating situation.

Both adrenaline and endorphins (amino acids) are addictive, although not to the extent that it becomes dangerous. It is well known that top sports people, high profile managers, stock traders, fighter pilots and people who are into kicks develop a slight adrenaline and/or endorphins addiction. This too happens to erotic power exchange people. Although this is by no means a (let alone the) explanation of why people are attracted to erotic power exchange, it is a factor that should be kept in mind as “playing a role in the entire process”.

Pain and other things set of your own internal chemical factory. This is one of the main reasons why there is a constant warning not to combine erotic power exchange with the use of other stimuli, drugs and alcohol. This is simply because it all comes on top of one another, usually having a counter-productive effect, making you less receptive to both sexual and other – important – signals. This not only goes for the sub, the dom will also experience huge shots of adrenaline as well, in this case mostly the result of the stress and the risk taking.

Techniques
Short, unexpected pain impulses will set off adrenaline production. For example: when you use a nipple clamp this will produce the sensation of pain when the clamp is placed on the nipple. This sensation will die down relatively soon and will come back, as the clamp is pulled off, slightly twisted or removed. That is exactly the effect you want to accomplish. Put them on, leave them untouched for a while and then touch them or remove them. By hanging small weights from them, the sub will feel this sensation every time she moves her body and the worst thing a dom can do is to put them on, take them off again, wait a while and replace them.

The use of candle wax will have the same basic effect. When you are planning to use candles: buy cheap, white, stearine candles. They have a low melting point and are safe to use. Stay away from wax-candles and colored ones. The further away you hold your candle, i.e. the longer the little drop of wax has to travel, the “cooler” the wax will be. A combination of candle wax and ice cubes is perfect and will dazzle the mind of your sub completely, especially when the sub is blindfolded.

Other small short pain-impulses can be achieved by the use of a sharp pencil (be careful not to puncture the skin and cause blood poisoning) or a sharpened piece of wood. Tooth picks or a neuro-wheel will also do a great job in this area.

The use of pain impulses almost always also brings about a slight feeling of humiliation. Having to have this done to you without being able to do something about it, is what triggers this feeling, together with the responses to the impulses. The combination of these short impulses, the fear, the humiliation and the teasing can be highly stimulating to both partners. Having it done to you is just as exciting as doing it and getting the response from it.

To trigger the production of endorphins you need an entirely different technique. It takes a while – usually between fifteen and thirty minutes – for the body to start to produce endorphins. Using “adrenaline techniques” first will help you here and the other thing is what is commonly known as the warm up phase. If you want to create a real rush, whipping or flogging is a trick that will do it, but you will have to built it up carefully. Starting with a soft, tender whip and working your way up using different whips to get to the point where you want to be.

Bondage – in an uncomfortable of painful position – is another great way to set of a rush. Japanese bondage techniques especially are perfect for this type of bondage.

Obvious traps
There are subs who are into heavy pain kicks. A few words of warning are applicable here. This may indicate subconscious or hidden things such as low self esteem or a hidden trauma. It does not have to be like that and people can just like it, but it is always wise to be cautious when you are confronted with this because unexpected things may come out. It is a good idea to talk about this first and to try and find out the motivation behind it.

Another obvious trap – especially for novice subs – is the desire to prove things. You do not have to prove how much you can take. If you do not like or want it, say so. There is nothing wrong with saying no, and there is a risk that you will overdo things in the beginning and thus will never learn to really like it.

Pain threshold
A subject very frequently discussed is the pain threshold of a submissive. Especially novices will have ideas about training this threshold. Experienced doms will usually downgrade rather than upgrade the intensity of pain and will play with the psychological impact. Increasing the threshold in fact holds certain dangers. The most obvious one is that, through training, the only effect you will produce is that you will eventually have to introduce more and more to get the required effects. If pain is your kick, that is not a problem (although it can dramatically increase the amount of “work” to be done by the dom), but if you are into the psychological or erotic effects of erotic power exchange training the pain threshold is usually not a very good idea. Some of it will happen almost automatically. The sub will get used to pain impulses and especially nipples have a habit of getting used to pain impulses quite rapidly.

Part III Will Be Published Next Week

The above article is a reprint from our information/educational site Kink Culture.
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