THE CANE – challenge and reward

A caning is always a serious event. Yet, although the cane is the most demanding of BDSM implements, in the right situation it provides a route to the blissful euphoria of subspace.

Drifting in subspace.

Each cane stroke a lightning strike

Through the clouds of pain

The cane occupies an almost mythical place in our culture, no doubt because of its long association with school corporal punishment. This seems to be a particularly British obsession, Americans reserving that mythical status for the paddle and probably for the same reason. Having been on the receiving end of both I prefer the cane. The sensation induced is one of exquisite, somehow well-defined torment rather than the raw brutality of the paddle. If pain were noise the cane would generate a greater volume across a narrower and higher frequency range when compared to the paddle’s broad-bandwidth klaxon-like assault on the senses.

My first experience with a mistress ended in a caning of such severity that by the end I was writhing uncontrollably against the restraints, gasping as both my mind and body were completely overwhelmed by what was happening. My conscious mind was so full of pain that it left no room for the safe word, indeed I only remembered some time later that there had even been a safe word. I suspect though, that in most of my BDSM career, I have only played in the foothills of the high mountains of sensation that the right mistress with the right cane could create.

Even so when a mistress picks up a cane I always feel a surge of adrenaline and my breathing involuntarily speeds up as the body takes on oxygen to prepare itself. There is the sense that whatever has gone before was only preparation; our meeting has finally reached its purpose.

Just as the cane is the most demanding of implements it can also be the most rewarding and a steady caning can push me into subspace. For me this is a place where I no longer jerk forward with each blow but lie completely still, absorbing the sensation, letting it flow through me while I calmly wait for the next stroke. The pain is no less intense but it is expected, unthreatening, welcome even. I feel myself sink into the warm comfortable leather of the bench, all cares drifting away as my senses focus on the cane and its effects. After such a session I feel so calm and serene that time seems to move slowly as I drift, mind empty and untroubled. I don’t necessarily need to orgasm as the pain can be its own release. Instead I need the mistress to gently and slowly bring me back down to earth and when, and only when, I have fully returned, to send me back out into the world.

Someone once asked me what it is like to be caned and, without thinking too much, I answered: “like riding a wave.” Later I expanded that notion:

To experience a good caning is to surf a large and fast moving wave. The start is all anticipation: in position; waiting; knowing that it’s coming yet not knowing when. The adrenaline builds, creating a heady mix of excitement and fear as the body prepares itself. You steady your breathing…… waiting…..still. Then it’s there; a wave of pain builds and picks you up, threatening to engulf you. It grows till you are fighting to tame its overwhelming force. You try to ride it, sense its rhythm, and fight to retain some small vestige of control. On and on the wave carries you until you become its creature, all control gone. Finally, with the last strokes, the wave crashes all round you and subsides. Breathing steadies and slows and, knowing that you have been tested and survived, you ride the last ripples of pain to the shore in an endorphin induced boundless calm.

Note: First published as a guest blog on Girlonthenet.com