Ice and Fire: A Guide to Kinky Temperature Play

Temperature play is a catch-all term for anything kinky that involves the application of heat or cold. That includes such classics as:

Messing around with ice cubes
Dripping hot wax onto your lover
Crafting a dildo out of ice
Masturbating your lover with heated lube

Just like any kind of BDSM play, temperature play encompasses a wide range of activities, and comes with its own particular safety notes.

This guide is designed to serve as a starting point for those interested in exploring temperature play, or adding something new to their repertoire of hot and cold sensations.

Why do people enjoy temperature play?

Temperature play activities

Safety considerations

Why do people enjoy temperature play?

There are many reasons people enjoy playing with temperature. Here are some of them…

It’s fun for masochists

There are lots of ways that heat or cold can be used to inflict pain on a willing victim. Splashes of hot wax or oil, ice cubes held against the skin until they melt… or even just being dragged naked out into the snow.

Playing with temperature opens up a wealth of possibilities for cruelty, pain, and masochistic fun.

It creates interesting sensations

Things feel different when your skin is hot or cold. You might find, for example, that it’s surprisingly pleasurable when your lover chills your genitals with an ice pack and then lightly blows on them. Or when they scratch or scrape your skin after it’s been subjected to a sustained assault by hot wax.

Playing with temperature massively increases your sensory repertoire, and can even enhance or intensify pleasurable sensations.

It’s exciting

Hot and cold can be intense sensations, and their application can really get your heart thumping – especially when someone else is in control of how hot or how cold things get. Plus warming things up or cooling them down can be exciting for your body in and of itself – think of how awake and alive you feel after using a sauna…

Temperature play activities

Here are some of the most common ways of playing with temperature in a kink context…

Fire play

Of Ice and Fire: A Guide to Kinky Temperature Play, BDSM wax play, temperature based masochism and sadism, and playing with fire

Let’s start with something a little extreme: fire play. This is a pretty specialised BDSM activity, and is rarely practised… mainly because it’s rather dangerous.

Fire play typically involves running burning implements along bare skin, or else smearing flammable substances onto bare skin, and then setting them alight for just long enough to tingle without actually burning.

You might also have heard of fire cupping. This uses specially-made glass cups. The air inside is heated using a flame, and then the mouth of the cup is pressed against the skin. As the air inside cools it creates a mild vacuum, resulting in a warm and tingly sensation as the cup suckers onto the skin.

Fire play looks pretty, causes some nice sensations, and is just scary enough to provide a nice little shot of adrenaline.

To be clear, though, it’s also quite specialised, and you shouldn’t try it unless you’re 100% confident you know what you’re doing, have practised extensively, and know what to do if it all goes wrong.

Wax play

If you’re looking for something hot, but with less chance of severe burns, wax play might be the stop for you. This usually involves dripping melted wax from a candle onto a willing victim’s bare skin.

The temperature of the wax can be varied from pleasantly warm to wincingly hot by varying the distance between the candle and the skin (the drops cool off as they fall), and if using a big candle you can save up a whole pool of melted wax and deliver a painfully hot splash rather than just a drip.

Once you’ve waxed on, you can also have fun waxing off. Dried wax can be gently scraped away with a knife or other sharp object, or simply picked at by hand in a way that’s almost as fun as peeling dried PVA glue off your fingers.

There are a few things you should consider for safe wax play, including the type of candle, the environment around you, the person you’re waxing, and the tendency for drips of wax to splash. Here’s a dedicated guide to wax pay that covers all of this and more.

A nice cup of tea

Simple but fun: warm your mouth with a long slow gulp of tea or coffee before going down on your partner. The heat of the drink will raise the temperature of your mouth, and completely change the sensation of your lips and tongue on (or in) them.

For the opposite sensation you can suck on an ice cube, or enjoy a cold drink before going down on your partner. If your teeth aren’t as sensitive as mine, you can even alternate between hot or cold as you give head. Fun.

As an aside, you should avoid sugary drinks or dairy products for this purpose, since both have the potential to cause yeast infections. Take your tea black and opt for a diet soda.

Heat/cold exposure

If you want to make your partner a little hot under the collar there are plenty of fun ways to expose them to heat. You might consider wrapping them in plastic wrap or tape, forcing them to exercise with the heating turned up, dunking them in a warm bath and leaving them to stew, or even teasing them in a sauna or other ludicrously hot place.

Likewise, if you want to subject them to a spell in the cold, you can leave them outside in the snow (the fewer clothes the better), submerge them in an ice bath, or splash them with cold water and position them in front of a fan.

This stuff is good fun in moderation… but if subjecting anyone to an unusual temperature range you should monitor them very closely. Heat stroke, cold shock and dehydration are just some of the dangers. Keep an eye, and be ready to warm them up or cool them down at the slightest sign something is wrong.

Headache? Get them out. Panting or flushed? You’re done. Have a cool drink and lie down in the shade.

Hot/cold lubes/oils

Lube is already a lot of fun, but you can make it even more so by heating it up or cooling it down before use. It might seem tempting to stick it in the microwave, but don’t; it’s super easy to make it way, way, way too hot. If you’ve ever burned your mouth on melted cheese from a pizza pocket you’ll know what I mean.

Instead, dunk the bottle of lube into a bath of warm or cold water for a minute or two before use. You can do the same thing with metal of glass toys, both of which hold temperature well.

Cold foods

If you’re into food in the bedroom, your options for tasty temperature play expand considerably. As well as a nice cup of tea you can use an ice pop, a bag of frozen peas, or even a frozen milkshake. Drip it onto your partner, fill their mouth, make them eat it until they get brain freeze. It’s up to you how cruel you want to be.

Most cold foods aren’t cold enough to cause ice burns… but it pays to still be cautious. Don’t allow frozen foods to be in direct contact with bare flesh for more than a few seconds. And, to avoid any possibility of yeast infections, try to avoid mixing sugar or dairy with your genitals.

Ice play

Lots of people like the sensation of an ice cube dabbed against or run along their skin… or perhaps even left to melt in their belly button. To take things one step further, you can make your very own ice dick in just a few easy steps. Great for kinky sex, or for stirring a flamboyant cocktail.

Ice cubes can be used to subject your partner to pain (if you’re in a sadistic headspace), to increase sensation in a certain part of the body before doing other things, or to chill a particular orifice before it’s used for an interestingly cold fuck.

To adjust the temperature of your hands before you touch your partner, you can play with ice packs or hand warmers. Just changing the temperature of your hands can make a big difference to the sensory experience of your partner and yourself.

Hot towel

Draping a hot towel or warm beanbag over a part of your partner’s anatomy is a great way to help them relax and soften up. It also transforms the sensations they’ll feel in that part of their body. Warm up their cunt with a hot towel before going down on them, or cover their back with a hot towel before giving them a massage.

Hot and cold substances

There are plenty of substances that create the sensation of heat or cold without actually changing the temperature where they’re applied all that much.

Topical ointments like Deep Heat, tiger balm, or warming lube create the sensation of heat, as does ginger, chilli patches and chilli oils. For cold you can look at anything minty, and cooling ointments like Deep Freeze.

Topical ointments aren’t designed to be applied to sensitive membranes (like your genitals) so be very careful when applying them to ensure they don’t get there by accident. Wear gloves when applying them, be mindful of where they are, and bear in mind that taking a bath or a shower will generally spread the topical ointment rather than immediately wash it away.

You can also experiment with warming and cooling lube. Lubes like ID Pleasure Tingling Sensation Lubricant (available from Lovehoney UK and Lovehoney US) work by creating a tingling sensation in the skin that feels like warming or cooling. Unlike topical ointments, warming and cooling lubes are designed to feel pleasant on your sensitive areas.

Warming and cooling toys

Heating or cooling your toys before you play can create unique and novel sensations. This works best with metal or glass toys, both of which hold temperature better than their silicone counterparts.

If you’re new to stainless steel toys, I’d recommend any product made by njoy (stocked by Lovehoney UK, Lovehoney US and SheVibe). Their toys are expensive, but are extremely well-made, easy to clean, pure stainless steel, and enjoyably heavy. They’ll take on and retain temperature very well.

For glass toys you can try Lovehoney’s own brand of glass toys (available from Lovehoney UK and Lovehoney US). They’re generally well-made and safe, and avoid the quality defects that affect cheap glass toys you might find elsewhere.

To warm them up or cool them down, drop the toy in a water bath that’s a comfortable temperature. Don’t put them in the freezer or the oven. It’ll make them too hot/cold for your intended purpose. Leave them to stew in the water bath for ten minutes, by which time they should have taken on the temperature of the water.

You can also get self-heating toys, like the Lovehoney Heat Wave Warming Rechargeable Silicone Rabbit Vibrator (available from Lovehoney UK and Lovehoney US). Warming toys contain a heating element that warms them to body temperature before use, making for a more organic and sensory experience.

Safety Considerations

If engaging in temperature play, you should know some basic stuff about how to stay safe. Things like:

How to treat minor burns or cold burns
What heat exhaustion looks like
What heat stroke looks like
What to do if someone faints
What to do if something goes numb

A good general rule is to have the ability on hand to reverse whatever you’re doing. If you’re exposing someone to cold, have a blanket handy. If you’re dripping hot wax on your lover, keep a towel soaked in cool water nearby.

For wax play, read this, which tells you how to pick candles which won’t actually burn you.

For anything with ice, read this, which tells you how to avoid cold burns.

And, as always with all kink stuff, communicate. Don’t assume that something which is a bearable temperature for you is a bearable temperature for your partner.