If you enjoy the sensation of biting or being bitten, you’re not alone. Many, many kinky people derive a great deal of enjoyment from chomping lightly on their lover – and it’s something that’s even a staple part of vanilla sexual encounters.
Biting seems relatively simple. It is. But there are nuances that make it enjoyable. Here’s everything you need to know.
Contents
Why do people enjoy erotic biting?
Why do people enjoy erotic biting?
Pleasure
First and foremost people enjoy biting because it feels pleasurable. For some people it feels so good that being bitten can trigger an orgasm without any other stimulation. For others it’s just a pleasant tingle, or a unique kind of pain with a distinctly pleasurable undertone.
Primal play
Biting is often a staple activity of primal play. “Primal”, by the way, is a general term for a kink identity and type of play that involves a lot of animalistic behaviours: biting, scratching, howling at the moon, and generally retreating to a more primal state of being.
Ownership
Biting can also be a way of demonstrating ownership, or conveying affection. A love bite or a little reassuring nip can be, in some contexts, akin to a kiss or a squeeze of the hand.
How to bite
Negotiating biting
You should always check with someone before biting them. This can be during a formal negotiation process if you’re doing a full-on BDSM scene, or a flirty hypothetical if you’re on a date. “Do you like being bitten?” isn’t a totally outrageous question once you’ve gotten to know someone a bit.
Most people enjoy being bitten to some degree, but it comes with caveats. Some people mark very easily. Some people cannot afford to have marks because of their job or swim classes or massage appointments. Some people only enjoy being bitten in certain places, and find other bite sites painful and unpleasant. Some people only like a certain kind of bite.
There’s no way you can really know these things without asking – and you can’t remove bite marks once you’ve made them – so always negotiate before you sink your teeth into your lover.
Safe (and interesting) places to bite
The best place to site a bite is somewhere fleshy. If you’re new to biting or being bitten, here are some relatively safe areas to start experimenting:
- Arse cheeks
- Stomach
- Biceps
- Thighs
- Breasts (if you have them)
The thing which all of these spots have in common is that they’re not too close to anything super-sensitive or vital. Things would have to go really wrong for any serious damage to occur when you’re biting someone’s arse cheek, for example.
You may wish to bite or be bitten in other places… and, indeed, some of the more interesting sensations arise from bites to sensitive areas. Some slightly-risky but still commonly-bitten body parts are:
- Wrists and backs of hands
- Back and sides of the neck
- Genitals and nipples
- Lips, tongues, earlobes
You should be cautious whenever biting someone, and extra-cautious when biting anyone in these sensitive areas. Biting too hard can cause some really unsexy damage.
Marks
Bites leave marks – often very distinct marks. A human bite is pretty recognisable, and pretty difficult to explain. If you like being bitten, it’s worth taking a moment to think about whether you’re going to have to bare any skin in the near future, and how it will look to have bite marks there when you do.
In order to avoid embarrassing situations, you should let your lover know when you can only be bitten in areas that will be covered by your clothing, or when you cannot have any marks at all.
Work up to hard bites
Like most kinky things, hard and fast rules are few and far between – every body is different and every bite is different. It’s not possible for anyone but you and your partner to work out how hard you should bite or be bitten.
To do this, start gentle. The biter should give the bitee a little nibble in a fleshy, safe place on their body. You can then work up to something harder, getting feedback from the bitee as you go.
Most people will give feedback on painful things quite willingly (“Ow”, “Fuck”, “That hurts”), but you can also solicit feedback by asking them to rate the pain level of each bite on a scale of one to ten, or on a traffic light system.
Different kinds of bite
Toothless bite
For a very genteel bite, grab some skin not between your upper and lower teeth, but between one set of teeth and your lip. This provides a lot of the sensory pleasure of a toothier bite, but with less chance of leaving unsightly marks.
Hickey
To give someone a hickey, all you have to do is press your mouth against their skin and suck. You can use your teeth a little too, if you want, but it generally isn’t necessary: sucking alone will burst tiny blood vessels under the skin and leave a distinctive bruise-like mark.
Hard champ
For a more intense bite, get a fold of your lover’s skin between your teeth and chomp down on it. You can do so quickly for a sharp stab of a bite, or more slowly if they enjoy a prolonged crushing sensation. Biting like this will almost always leave marks.
Nibbles and nips
You don’t have to apply a lot of force when biting. You can generate some pleasurable sensations just by baring your teeth on your lover’s skin, or nipping them lightly and repeatedly.
Scoring/dragging
Alternatively, drag your teeth along your lover’s skin. This creates some very interesting sensations, which you can vary by moving in different directions: slice sideways or drag downwards, use both sets of teeth or just one, turn your head to use your pointy canines, or stick with your flat incisors.
Hardcore biting
If you and your lover enjoy very intense biting sessions, there’s a good chance you’ll break skin at some point. Doing so carries with it an increased risk of infection. For your own safety and peace of mind you may wish to get an STI test, and discuss with one another any conditions either of you have which might be transmitted by blood.
Erotic biting aftercare
Minimising marks
However careful you are, people sometimes get carried away. It’s not uncommon to end up with a bite mark that’s a little more severe than you’d like, or which is situated somewhere a little too visible.
There are a few ways to minimise marks.
In the short term (during the hours following the bite) cold is your friend. You can apply an ice pack or press a cold spoon against your bite. However, don’t use something extremely cold, or leave something cold in contact with your skin for so long that you end up with a cold burn on top of the bite!
In the longer term (during the weeks following the bite), try arnica for minimising bruises, bio-oil for reducing scars, and tattoo concealer for hiding the bite if it’s in an inconvenient place. Assuming you haven’t broken the skin, you don’t need to cover it with a plaster or apply medicated ointment of any kind.
Dealing with broken skin
Most people – biters and bitees both – don’t want bites to break the skin. Mainly this is just because it’s too painful. Breaking the skin can transform a pleasant, spine-tingling bite into something that’s actually distressing.
Breaking the skin also makes biting rather more risky. The average human mouth is full of dirt and germs and all manner of grossness. A skin-breaking bite risks injecting all that germy badness directly into the receiver’s bloodstream.
That said, if you do accidentally break the skin (or if you and your partner both like bites that break the skin) don’t worry too much about it. You should, of course, be extremely mindful of any damage you’re causing, and understand that these bites will take much longer to heal – if, indeed, they ever do fully heal.
Wash any bites that break the skin very thoroughly with soap and water. Cover them with a dressing until they stop bleeding, and then treat as you would any other wound. Be vigilant for signs of infection.
If a bite you sustained during play won’t stop bleeding, is so big it requires wound closure, or is particularly deep or severe you should go see a doctor. And also, perhaps, consider going a little easier next time – however fun it may be, your play shouldn’t end up causing you severe or permanent damage.
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