Injuries happen, and they can impact on you and your BDSM play tremendously. Sometimes it’s not you – it’s your partner or play partner that gets injured. Here’s how to do BDSM when you have an injury.
Note: All information is my own opinion. Always consult with a medical professional before undertaking activities which may create, prolong or exacerbate injury.
2021 was going to be awesome. I was sure of it. We were going to turn things around!
My pet and I would go for an epic hike on New Years Eve and start things off in the new year with a fresh and awesome perspective fuelled by sundrenched forests, nature, and waterfalls.
Well, there WERE waterfalls. There were sundrenched ferns and pretty forest and pleasant exertion as we travelled up and down along the side of a mountain.
There was also two hours of hiking back with severe blisters and damaged knees – my poor pet fell into a river and smashed both knees on a rock 🙁
My poor pet had a VERY rough hike that day, and then, a month later, while we were out dancing her right knee buckled under her – and immediately began to increase in pain.
Ever since then, she’s also been dealing with a severe sprain to the knee, which is taking a long time to recover.
So naturally, because we’re two extremely kinky fuckers, and we have appetites, wants and needs goddamnit, we’ve been evolving strategies on how to enjoy BDSM around injuries.
Is Doing BDSM When You Have An Injury Safe? Is It Responsible?
Honestly, “safe” is a relative term. Most activities, both BDSM and non-BDSM, carry some form of risk.
Sitting seems pretty safe, but if you do it too much it carries risk of developing back problems, hemorrhoids, losing cardio-vascular fitness, and generally decreasing your life span.
Exercise is highly recommended for extending your lifespan and general quality of life, but if you do it incorrectly, you can absolutely injure yourself.
And as we know, sports frequently comes with the risk of significant injury. Yet it’s widely encouraged and invested in, even as a career.
So yes, BDSM does carry risk, but when done with appropriate consideration for risk factors, it can be hella awesome and add quality and value to your life in all kinds of ways.
The trick is finding ways to do it that don’t make things worse.
Do We Even Need To Do BDSM If We’re Injured?
Depends on you, really.
When doing BDSM in a relationship, I like to think of it as another form of intimacy.
Many people get really cranky, frustrated, or feel disconnected from their partners when they can’t have sex or physical intimacy with them.
There are often more fights and arguments about all kinds of things because of that underlying frustration.
With kinky people, I’ve noticed that a lot of people feel exactly the same way – if they can’t indulge that side of themselves with each other, then they’re missing something important, and it impacts really negatively on them and their relationships!
Imagine having the pain, frustration, and inconvenience of an injury that takes a long time to heal, or is even recurring, and also not being able to meet your particular needs for intimacy and connection as well! Talk about a shit time!
So for us, the trick is finding ways to enjoy and indulge in BDSM without aggravating injuries and or negatively impacting health.
We consider it “responsible” because it adds to the positives of our lives and our relationship, and because we’re actively looking for fun ways to indulge that won’t impede healing or functioning.
We want to have hot kinky times with a minimum of “bad pain” and in such a way that it adds to our quality of lives.
How To Enjoy BDSM When You Have An Injury
So we want to be responsible with this shit, and that means we need to have a clear idea of what it is and isn’t safe to do.
Which means the FIRST thing to do is check in with your GP or medical practitioner about what THEIR advice is around the particular injury, and what it is or isn’t safe to do.
This advice tends to differ based on the type of injury – I have a recurring back injury, and the instructions for that are very different than what we got for my pet’s knee injury.
I highly recommend being as explicit as you feel you can be with your GP without making them afraid that there’s some kind of abuse happening. Find out if you can have sex.
If yes, find out if you can have extremely rough sex, as that just happens to be what you and your partner are into.
If you don’t feel like you can be too detailed with your medical professional, then you’ll need to simply apply their instructions to your BDSM activities as best as you can, but whenever possible, the more detail the better.
(Describing spanking may be a safer middle ground, as opposed to flogging or caning)
Next, the two (or more) of you need to have thorough discussions about how the injury affects day to day life and how it will influence your play. We did it during our relationship review – and we worked on it as a team.
Using the knee injury as an example, my pet’s GP instructions are that resting her leg is really important. So ideally, there’s a minimum of standing.
She tells me that she also experiences considerable aching and soreness by the end of the day, especially the working day. So that can affect when we play or what we do.
We don’t tie her leg into a bent position; because she’s told me that that’s not safe and will put a lot of strain on the knee.
Because her overall stamina, mood, and resilience are affected, we’re playing lighter, with less intensity in some areas.
But the key thing is, we’ve still found fun ways to enjoy BDSM even with the knee injury.
We’ve done upper body bondage
We’ve done light impact on the upper body
We’ve had really fun spankings – and will be having a lot more
And there’s been more psychological play.
Helpful Ideas For BDSM When You Have An Injury
- Depending on the injury, you can often play with other parts of the body
- If you need to be mindful of where the injury is, you can mark it with tape, sticky notes, whatever. This can be helpful for the top avoiding accidentally grabbing danger zones in the heat of the moment.
- Learn to measure your stamina and capacity. There’s this great idea called “spoon theory” that we often make use of; checking in to see whether we have enough energy or resilience left to enjoy play, and on days when we have play scheduled, maybe doing less in other areas so as to save spoons.
- Try new kinds of play that are less likely to impact on injury and recovery
As an example, my pet and I have been exploring some of the elements of bimbofication recently.
Now, a lot of this kink has to do with having a particular mindset; so we’ve been playing with that and including the ideas in our dirty talk, which has had some VERY interesting effects on our sex and play.
My pet has been able to have more fun with her makeup and clothing in exploring this idea, which has made her makeup and clothing kinky in ways which probably aren’t as obvious to the uninitiated.
We’ve also played with “conditioning” words a little bit – using particular words or phrases to trigger a fun bimbo mental state. It’s been a lot of fun, and we’re able to play with elements of this stuff without having the injury negatively impact it.
We’ve also continued our pet play; though my kitten hasn’t been able to crawl around because of her knees, we’ve been able to enjoy lots of pats and enjoyment of having a “kitten space” .
When You’re Worried About Your Power Dynamic
When one of the two of you have an injury, and you have a power dynamic where one is submissive and likes to serve, and the other is Dominant and likes to be in control and able to provide structure and direction, then for either one of you, it can be really frustrating to have an injury, because you may feel that it impacts your capacity to fulfill either role.
For submissives: “Fuck, now I can’t be a good submissive and provide the same level of service!”
For Doms: “Fuck, now I don’t feel as in control and there is far less I can do during scenes! How the fuck am I supposed to be able to top with an injured shoulder/back/hip?”
The Answer: This is a fantastic opportunity to practice dominance and submission in different ways.
For submissives: Now you have opportunities to provide service or submit in different ways than you may be used to. You can be a secretary, a researcher, an organizer, a planner, a designer. You can use your brain to provide service in all kinds of ways, once you’ve recovered from the initial pain and fatigue.
Also, you can sandwich your service time in between times of recovery. Follow the same principles as described above; figure out what you can do, and when, and schedule/plan with your Dominant in such a way that it doesn’t impede your recovery.
As an example, my pet makes me coffee in the morning now, as it hurts her less to do so at that time. She’s being my costume manager for the next kink party we attend, and literally painting some of it onto me – which I greatly enjoy.
For Dominants: Now you get to provide dominance in different ways. You may not be able to do all the things you previously did; so now you get to practice verbal direction and eliciting obedience in other ways than previously.
Yes, you are subject to the demands of your recovery; but you also have a perfect opportunity to explore and develop your dominance in different directions. You can have your pet put on a show for you. You can get more back rubs. You can enjoy all kinds of service that you may never have found useful in the past.
I’ve been in this situation with a recurring back problem – and I quickly found that being dominant and practicing dominance is still extremely achievable. It’s possibly the easiest kind of BDSM when you have an injury.
You may not be able to top scenes in the same way; but that is absolutely not an impediment to your dominance. You just get to discuss and assert it in different ways with your submissive.
There are all kinds of ways to enjoy BDSM when you have an injury; you just need to assess the risks, get good advice, talk through strategies and ideas with each other, and be creative in what and how you explore.
