Hit It Impact Play - a SHAG Mini-Workshop - PART 1

November 10, 2022

Hit It Impact Play - a SHAG Mini-Workshop - PART 1

Hosted by Artemis
Watch on IG @weloveshag
YouTube @weloveshag

My name is Artemis. I use she/they pronouns. I work here at SHAG, and I'm generally an impact enthusiast.

I'm really excited to be doing this introduction - Impact 101 if you will - or “How to Hit Our Friends, Why We Might Want to Hit our Friends, and What it Means to Hit our Friends.” We will cover all that good stuff! First, I want to talk about some language we're going to use in here to discuss all this stuff and also answer some of those questions I just proposed. Let’s start by defining the word “impact.” Impact, in general, is just some transference of force from one person to another, or from yourself to yourself, I suppose. Typically, we can say either “the person giving the impact” or “the person receiving the impact,” or we can say “top” and “bottom” to mean giver and receiver. I do want to make a distinction between top and bottom and “dom” and “sub” (or “dominant” and “submissive”) for the purpose of this lesson. These are separate but potentially related titles and roles.

One way to think about this is that it’s like the power dynamics of oral sex; if you were to perform oral sex on somebody, you would be the giver rather than the receiver, but that isn't necessarily imbued with power. It can be, but power isn’t inherent in the act. This is also true of impact play. You can imbue it with power by thinking that the giver is in the high power position. You can imbue it with power by thinking that the giver is in the low power position. Or, it can just be something that has nothing to do with a power exchange at all, just something that we're all enjoying. With impact, there's a lot of associations with the stereotypical cat woman suit and a whip. There's a dominatrix thing happening, maybe, or daddy spanking you, both of which can be fun sometimes, but neither of which is necessarily the main idea, or only idea during impact play.

Impact is a type of sensation play. The term “sensation play” is an umbrella concept that includes a lot of intimate acts that are about sex, or sexual in nature, but which aren't necessarily “sex acts” themselves. The term “sex” tends to conjure something very specific in our culture; we tend to picture “sex” as we're taught it in school, usually as some kind of penetrative intercourse. There are a million and one reasons why we might want to experience sex that is different than the one default kind of sex we associate with the word. For one thing, that default tends to be very heteronormative, cisnormative, and ableist. It’s also just plain old-fashioned. It's like playing just one note when there's so much music in the world. “Sex” can and does encompass more than just penetrative acts, and it looks like a lot of different things for a lot of different people, including sensation play, whether as foreplay or a main event. If you’re trying to experience the full breadth of sexual options, or just explore a little, sensation play is a great choice.

The specific kind of sensation we are talking about today – impact – will, generally speaking, toy a little bit more with pain than other kinds of sensation play do. Toys we associate with “sensation play” tend to cause sensations that are a little different than pain: things like ticklers, dripping wax candles or warm oil, props like the Wartenberg Wheel (which is a little spiky metal wheel), etc. With impact and impact toys, typically we're going to be talking more about various sensations of pain. One might wonder, “Why pain?” You’re supposed to like this person. Why are you hitting them? Why are you inflicting pain on them? It could be because they like it! The next question that comes to mind might be, “Why would someone like pain?” There are many reasons. Pain can be surprising, it can be scary, and it can be a safe relinquishment of control. Relinquishing control has to do with trust. Of course, a lot of this stuff we’re talking about – the language of control – can be present in “vanilla” sex, too. Good sex, is almost always about intimacy, trust, and communication. Good sex often means being connected and sharing in something. Impact play can be a way to engage with those things: sharing, trust, communication, and intimacy.

To enjoy impact play safely, you will want to “design” or “negotiate” a “scene” with your partner. These are terms from the world of kink. In non-kink terminology, it means that safe impact play involves creating a closed container to talk about what things you and your partner agree to beforehand: what is going to go down in this space, the specified period of time, any boundaries or dislikes, and anything else you want to negotiate or agree on. Negotiating an impact scene means setting the ground rules and making a plan. It is not a contract. Just because you talked about something during the negotiation does not mean you are obligated to do that during the scene! The negotiation is really just a premise. Ideally, all kinds of sex can benefit from checking in with your partner via a negotiating conversation of some kind. Here are some examples of what you might say to get started:

“What are we in the mood for?”

“What are we looking for?”

“How are we feeling today?”

“What do we want?”

These questions are also about obtaining consent. Consent must be present in impact, specifically, because impact play involves different risks than other types of sex. Consent, in any kind of sex, including impact play, is something that is ongoing and can be revoked at any time. It's not so simple as “yes” or “no.” This is especially true as you venture into the more murky, risky, potentially unclear waters of hitting people, being hit, sometimes not having eye contact (not facing your partner or wearing a blindfold), or one partner being unable to move (physically restrained) or speak (gagged). There are a lot of layers of risk to navigate. Having safer sex means setting up structures that allow us to take those risks in safety.

Once upon a time, I was involved in a lot of circus-y stuff, and I remember a teacher who talked to me about risk versus danger. Assessing risk means asking, “How likely is it that this is going to go wrong?” whereas assessing danger means asking, “What's going to happen if this goes wrong?” A person might walk a tightrope a foot above the ground, and there’s a high risk they are going to fall, but a low danger in that fall, because they can just step off the rope. Alternatively, if they are going to walk across a six-foot wide pathway, one hundred feet in the air, there's a low likelihood they will successfully complete that, which makes, again, for a high risk. If something goes wrong in that scenario, however, it's really bad, and so there’s a lot of danger. Balancing risk and danger is something to consider as you and your partner negotiate and explore activities that carry some inherent risk.

**This text was transcribed from SHAG’s live Mini-Workshop on November 10, 2022 and edited for clarity. This opinion piece is not intended to constitute licensed expert advice; all content is for general informational purposes only.**