Sensation Play - a SHAG Mini-Workshop - PART 2

January 26, 2022

Sensation Play - a SHAG Mini-Workshop - PART 2

Hosted by Dirty Lola
Watch on IG @weloveshag
YouTube @weloveshag

If you haven’t checked out part 1 of this workshop, read the transcript here!

Now that we have talked about eliminating sensations and abilities – sight, sound, movement, and speech – we get to the sensations we add! This is our little baby beginner feather tickler and what we recommend to a lot of folks dipping their toes into sensation play for the first time. People are ticklish, though, and can have unexpected reactions! I will kick you if you tickle me, not intentionally, it’s an involuntary physical reaction! But if I'm chained down, I can't kick you, so that’s one other reason you might want to consider restraints. Feather ticklers are great because you can do more than just tickle. You can provide a huge variety of sensations, which can be both pleasurable and torturous. It's just a feather, but it works! We also have a high tech take on the feather tickler. It is made of delicate silicone, and it vibrates. When you move this tickler up and down the body, you can feel the sensation on your skin of the vibration as well as the tickle of the “feather” tip. You can use this all over the body. You can use this clitorally, or on a penis, or anywhere. On or off the genitals, it’s vibrating and has a lot of sensations to offer. It’s also rechargeable and cute looking! You can sterilize it in a UV machine – because it's got a motor, you can't boil it – whereas you cannot sterilize an actual feather at all. This is great if you have multiple partners or people you're sharing things with. A silicone feather is also vegan, so if that’s a concern for you or your partner, this “feather” toy is a great alternative to a classic feather tickler.

Let’s talk about another classic: the Wartenberg Wheel. It looks scary! But it actually tickles as well. Depending on how much pressure you apply, it creates a light, fun prickling sensation or a bit of a more intense poking sensation. Either way, your nerves react to the stimulation. We carry the single wheel, but you can also ask us to special order you a wheel with four rows! Unlike with a feather tickler, the pressure you exert really changes your experience with the wheel. You can add more pressure or keep a lighter touch, and in that way, they’re very fun to play around with. They look intimidating, but the scary appearance can be a turn on for some people!

If you are looking to add some even more kinky elements to your play, especially when having somebody restrained or strapped down, and especially if they're on their belly, you can explore impact toys! We have the crop, which is super simple. You hit where you're aiming and don't have a lot to worry about. They are beginner friendly, because you are unlikely to have more impact than you intend. People love the look of floggers, but they do take a little bit more skill to use. I like a short flogger because you don't have to really learn how to throw it. With bigger, heavier floggers, you do have to have some skill to get the impact you intend. If you’re inexperienced and you’re working with a heavy duty flogger, you can fail to get much impact at all, accidentally go too hard, or have the flogger hit the body somewhere unsafe. The other advantage of a short flogger is, again, that they work well for small apartments like we have in New York, because a longer flogger means standing farther away from your partner.

There are a lot of materials to choose from when it comes to floggers. For example, this one is just velvet, which means it has a very light impact. It is not going to be very intense, but it can tickle or even be soothing! If you get a flogger made of something sturdier, like silicone or leather, it gets a little bit of a snap when you hit with it, which makes for intense impact play. You can also, however, run it over the skin to explore softer sensations. You have options. This can be fun play in and of itself. I call it “the mind fuck,” because your partner can see all the instruments or toys you have laid out, and maybe hear them, but not know what sensation to expect. The flogger can be your muse! With all of these toys, you just have a lot of options for what it will feel like, depending on how you use it, which means your partner really won’t know what to expect. That element of surprise can be a big part of the fun, building anticipation for both partners. You can also play around intentionally with what the receiving partner hears versus what you’re doing – you can rattle decoy toys and then they won’t know what you are picking up! They hear one thing but then you hit or tickle them with something totally different.

Once you have someone on their belly – a great position for sensation play – you have a lot of other options as well. For example, these are wax play candles. They're really pretty. They are so pretty you almost don't want to melt them, but you totally should. They are hot and do have some sting to them, but they are made from a low temperature wax, which means they are not like a household candle. Although there’s a sting, it's not going to hurt intensely, and it won’t cause burn blisters or skin damage. It's made to hurt lightly, in a good way. When you drip the wax, you can make patterns! You can pour them in all kinds of ways all over the skin. Once the wax dries, you also can have the fun sensation of scraping the wax off! You can use a credit card, or anything thin enough to scrape wax off. That’s going to be even more full of sensation because it follows the wax dripping. Wherever the wax was, the skin is going to be just a little bit more sensitive. I recommend dripping the wax, moving over it with a card to remove the wax, and then doing a massage with a massage candle. This can also be a great fake out moment to tease your partner, because a massage candle, which is even less hot than the play candles, still has a flame and looks basically like a regular candle. The person might be sitting there looking at the flame, saying “I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” while you make a big to-do of lighting the candle flame. And then, of course, it’s just warm, cozy massage oil that soaks into the skin. You can give a lovely massage with it. It’s warm, and nobody wants cold massage oil from the bottle! They want it warmed up, and the massage candle lets you do that in tandem with the rest of your play. I would recommend doing the hotter wax first, scraping it off, and then doing the oil from the massage candle because the wax might not stick to the skin if it is already oily, and you’d have to interrupt things to shower.

Let’s move on to other topical skin sensations. We have a whole bunch of different options! We have warming lubes like this one:

You can use these during sex. They warm up with friction or by blowing on the skin. You can use this internally: vaginally or anally. And remember, you can add this to everything else we talked about so far, adding another really great layer of sensation to the mix. We also have a warming product specifically for clitoral sensation. Truly, we have so many different kinds of warming products, ranging from, “Ooh, this is nice,” to, “Oh, my god! What have you done?” and yes, some people are seeking out the second one. This one in particular is really strong for people who really want to step it up:

Here is a lighter version of the same product:

You can play with how much of any of these products you use. You can put just a little bit, not a lot, on yourself or your partner, and then build up to more. A word of caution: please remember that while you can add product, you can’t take it away. Once it’s on, it’s on until it runs its course, so do start slow! We’ve certainly had stories where someone put on a huge amount, regretted it, but could not get it off. Please be careful until you know what your and your partner’s limits are. Not everybody’s butt or vagina or penis is the same. I’m super sensitive, so for me a little goes a long way with things like this!

We also have products that create both warming and cooling sensations. Some of these will make mucous membranes and skin hypersensitive and some actually create buzzing sensations. We call those “liquid vibrators,” and they make your skin feel like it is moving! The effect is a little bit like that of a plumping lip gloss. When you apply plumping lip gloss, it almost feels like your lips are growing, or your skin is shaking, and that might last for hours. Personally, being super sensitive, plumping lip gloss makes me feel as though my lips are moving all day long! These enhancement creams and lubricants create sensations like plumping lip gloss, and also like the gloss, their effect may last for hours! I cannot stress enough: please explore your limits slowly and safely. I always start with one tiny little dot. Some people need quite a bit more to feel something.

All that talk of lip gloss reminds me, we have that, too! Not for plumping lips, of course, but for oral sex fun. And it’s not gendered: anyone can wear this clear gloss to go down on anyone else. You can kiss and spread the gloss back and forth. There are a lot of options. We carry two oral sex lip glosses:

They aren’t necessarily formulated for taste, so I would recommend putting them on and then maybe also playing with a flavored lube.