Erotic punishment, for many kinky people, means one thing, and one thing only: spanking. Which, of course, does work very nicely as an erotic punishment.
However, there are hundreds of ways to inflict pain and humiliation on a willing victim that go beyond just smacking their bottom.
Here is a frequently-updated list of punishment possibilities for when you feel like mixing things up a bit. (Or for when your arm gets tired…)
Contents
What is erotic punishment and why do people enjoy it?
Caveat: punishments and consent
An index of unusual punishments
What is erotic punishment and why do people enjoy it?
Whatever form they take, most punishments are unpleasant. They are unpleasant by design. In most normal contexts punishments are used to deter a repeat of the behaviour that earned them.
In kink contexts, punishments are used for a variety of reasons. Some of the most common ones include:
Behaviour Modification. A dominant might punish their submissive in a genuine attempt to change their behaviour, in a way that they have both agreed on beforehand. For example, a dominant/submissive couple might decide to use erotic punishment to encourage the submissive to give up smoking, with the submissive punished whenever they smoke without permission.
Penance. If a submissive has broken a rule they agreed with their dominant, enduring an erotic punishment can be a way of wiping the slate clean and resolving any feelings of tension or discomfort. For example, they might feel guilty about losing an important item their dominant gave them; in this case a punishment is a good way of alleviating that guilt.
Fun. Couples in a dominant/submissive dynamic often employ punishments because they’re fun and hot. By inflicting a punishment on a willing submissive the dominant reinforces the power dynamic between them, and creates connection and intimacy.
To indulge masochistic tendencies. Some masochists derive genuine pleasure from punishments. It may be that they like the intensity of them, or that they feel great after enduring and surviving a punishment. Intense punishments may also put them in an enjoyable floaty headspace, or translate into sexual excitement or pleasure.
Caveat: punishments and consent
Listed below are a range of sadistic tortures that you can inflict on a willing partner in the context of a kink-based relationship.
This context is, of course, important. In a kink-based relationship, the submissive partner agrees to be punished, and has input on the punishment they receive in the form of hard limits and soft limits.
This applies even though it’s a punishment, and punishments are traditionally things that are dispensed without consent.
If you’re at all involved in kink stuff, you almost certainly know this already. But I include this caveat for anyone new to kink, or for whom the way in which consent works in kink contexts remains a little confusing.
Even when playing with the idea of erotic punishment, negotiation, limits, consent and all that technical stuff is still very important. Obviously.
An index of unusual punishments
Here is an alphabetical index of unusual punishments, from anal to temperature torture.
Anal
[ Learn more about enjoying anal sex | Learn more about anal toys ]
Like spanking, anal isn’t a serious punishment for everybody. Many people derive nothing but pleasure from being fucked in the arse. But if your partner happens to find it difficult, humiliating or uncomfortable it can make an excellent punishment.
Equally, any kind of anal insertion can function as a punishment. For some folk, simply having to wear a butt plug for an hour or two can be humiliating and uncomfortable enough to serve as an effective punishment.
Bathroom use control
Removing someone’s right to use the bathroom at will, and requiring them to ask permission before peeing. The punishment here is the discomfort of a full bladder with no hope of relief… or the humiliation of having to ask for permission to use the toilet.
If you’re really into this punishment, you can take things one step further by forbidding your errant partner access to the batroom until they piss themselves, or ordering them to piss themselves as part of the punishment.
Chastity
[ Learn more about male chastity ]
Denying your errant partner the right to come, the right to have sex, or the right to masturbate. This can be supplemented by requiring them to edge without coming each day, or holding more severe punishments over their head should they fail to remain chaste.
Male chastity devices exist, but can be a little tricky to use. Here’s more about them. Female chastity devices generally aren’t practical. If your partner is female, you’re going to have to rely on the honour system.
Clips and clamps
[ Learn more about clit and nipple clamps ]
Making your partner wear nipple or genital clamps for a given period of time. These are painful to wear… and often even more painful to take off. Here’s a little bit more about the different kinds of clips and clamps available.
Clothing (or lack thereof)
Removing your partner’s right to wear clothes around the house, or requiring them to wear clothes that are revealing, awkward or humiliating. You could force your boyfriend into a pair of pink lace panties, or have your partner dress as a maid, a gimp, or a human cow… whatever it takes for them to learn their lesson.
Cold showers
Severely unpleasant, effective, and energy-efficient too. For extra fun times vary the water temperature up to a comfortable level before reverting to cold again. Lather, rinse, repeat. But not for more than about five minutes unless you consider hypothermia a fitting punishment (hint: you don’t).
Corner time
Confining your errant partner to the corner of the room, nose to the wall. Boredom and isolation are, for me at least, less fun than pain. Which is not to say they aren’t still a hell of a lot of fun. For some people, being ignored for any length of time is among the worst fates imaginable. Combine with a loudly ticking clock for maximum effect.
Confinement
One step up from corner time is a period spent in a cage or other enclosed space. If you have an appropriate human-sized cage: great. These are generally comfortable enough that your misbehaving partner can spend a few hours stewing therein, thinking about their misdeeds.
If you’re a normal person and don’t have a human sized cage handy, you can use a dog cage, cupboard, box or other confined space. These are likely to be much less comfortable, and so best suited to shorter punishments.
Domestic servitude
Making your partner clean, tidy, polish the silverware, and generally make themselves useful. This is a punishment that actually gets some housework done – so is productive as well as punitive.
To make things more interesting, you can have your partner clean while in partial bondage. Scrubbing the floor is a lot more tricky when you can only use your mouth.
Electricity
If you haven’t yet been introduced to the interesting effects of a TENS machine, you have a world of discovery ahead of you. Electricity can be used to deliver both pain and pleasure, and the line between the two is often thin and difficult to discern.
Facefucking
A nice, brutal facefuck helps to put a badly behaved submissive in their place. Find what they most dislike about it, and focus on this. Is it the humiliation of drooling, the discomfort of gagging, or the grossness of a spit-smeared face that constitutes a punishment?
Facefucking as a punishment isn’t something that can only be administered by male-bodied people. Being facefucked with a strap-on also has a nice, solid punitive effect.
Figging
This has nothing to do with figs, and everything to do with raw ginger. Peel some fresh root, shape the tip appropriately, run it under the cold tap, then insert the pointy end (…guess where, guess where, guess where…) into the arse. A not-insignificant burning sensation will ensue.
This works just as well applied to the clitoris, or other sensitive mucus membranes. It’s sometimes paired with caning, since tensing up in anticipation of a cane stroke will make the burning worse.
Food
I tend to favour limes for food-based punishments, because you can use the leftovers for cocktails. Making someone eat an entire one – skin and all – not only provides a fun show, but significantly deters further rule-breaking.
Any food hated by the recipient can be used. If you’re planning to experiment with chilli peppers though, be extremely careful. Capsaicin doesn’t fuck around.
You can also restrict food as a punishment – making your partner eat only gruel, or go to bed hungry are both examples of this. Needless to say (but I’m still saying it), this kind of punishment is not suitable for anyone with a history of disordered eating.
Forced exercise
For some, there’s very little worse than a five kilometre run or a hundred squats – particularly when good form is not only insisted upon, but enforced. Forced exercise makes an interesting punishment, and one that can be applied over time – plus you get to use the always-enjoyable phrase, “it’s all for your own good.”
Gagging
For longish-term wear, I recommend a small ball gag or similar non-absorbent gag. Taking away permission to speak or vocalise in any way also works, and often leads to fun impromptu games of Charades.
At the high end of punishment gags you’ll find several “Scold’s Bridle” style devices. These implements prevent the any kind of speech, and are also hideously uncomfortable to wear. Hurrah.
Kneeling
Kneeling on a hard surface for an extended period of time is often sufficient punishment in and of itself. You can make it more unpleasant by first scattering the hard surface with salt, lentils or another hard particulate. The end result is similar in feel to kneeling on gravel, but without the need to venture out into the garden and annoy the neighbours.
Licking
Having your partner clean or polish something with their tongue helps with the housework whilst also punishing disobedience.
Obvious disclaimers apply: don’t encourage the licking of anything that’s likely to be swarming with communicable diseases. If you’re averse to dirt, smear a clean object with lube, chocolate spread, edible icing, etc. Extensive jaw pain will ensue.
Lines
Decide on a phrase, sit your partner down and wait while they write it out 50, 100 or 500 times. This can be repeated as necessary if handwriting is not up to standard. Lines are a good precursor to other punishments, and serve to drive home an actual message – repetition aids recall, after all.
Painful penetration
What’s your partner’s least favourite sex position? Most people have at least one which they find too intnese, too uncomfortable, or too humiliating to enjoy. Fucking them in this position, or with just a little bit too little lube, or in uncomfortably bondage, or with too little foreplay for them to be ready can work well as a punishment.
Prolonged restraint
Tie your partner to the foot of the bed and leave them in a dark room to think about what they did for an hour or two. This is essentially an advanced take on detention… which can be made more dramatic through the use of very strict or very uncomfortable bondage. After an hour spent bound in a spreadeagle position, most people are more than a little contrite.
Protocol punishments
[ Learn about high protocol BDSM ]
There are all kinds of protocol-based punishments you can use with your partner. Forbid eye contact. Forbid the use of your name. Make them crawl in your presence rather than walk. It’s not so much what you do that constitutes a punishment here, but the fact that it’s ongoing, a little humiliating, and a constant effort on their part.
Public humiliation
This is one where the threat of punishment is often more practical than the application. As always, don’t be a dick. If you want to humiliate by sharing text or images online, do so in a forum where people actually want to see that stuff. FetLife has at least a few. On other forums, however hot it is to you, you’re really just spamming.
Rubber bands
Take a rubber band. Place it around the arm or leg of your partner. Administer pain by snapping it whenever required. This can also provide your submissive partner with a harmless but painful method of self-punishment, to be applied whenever they are instructed to do so. Of note: this leaves more severe marks than you likely think it will.
Salt guns
A salt gun is a type of toy gun that fires a blast of ordinary table salt. The impact is powerful enough to burst a balloon, but won’t break skin. The intended purpose of most salt guns is to kill flies.
Instead, however, you can repurpose your salt gun to serve as a tool for kinky punishment. It stings, the pain is unexpected, and it can be administered at a distance. Salt guns are excellent for casually keeping a submissive in line. Make sure they wear goggles, though.
Shaving or waxing
It’s rarely practical to shear off your partner’s hair as though they were a mischievous sheep, but if you can arrange it, it’s extremely fun. Pubic hair is more doable.
Removal with wax is fiddly, but satisfyingly agonising. Plus the slow regrowth of hair in ensuing weeks should serve as a reminder to behave appropriately.
Stress positions
Stress positions can be used to apply punishment in the absence of many tools or materials. All you need is a body and a wall. It might not sound difficult to hold a penny against a vertical surface with just your nose, but after about a minute it becomes both functionally difficult and agonising.
If you have the budget for it, add an extra penny under the index finger of each hand, arms fully extended out to either side. Current record: four minutes.
Tedious tasks
Boredom is an effective punishment, even if it’s not the most enjoyable to use. Have your errant partner read the dictionary, count the number of pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, say the alphabet a thousand times, or trim the lawn with a pair of nail scissors. The task you pick doesn’t matter all that much – just so long as it gives them plenty of time to think.
Tickling
Some people hate tickling. For many, in fact, it’s a solid hard limit. If your partner can just about stand being tickled… but still hates it… it makes an effective punishment – one which almost guarantees profuse apologies and begging within just a few minutes.
Temperature torture
[ Learn more about temperature play ]
Ice or hot wax on your partner’s sensitive areas can work as a punishment just as well as it can work as foreplay.
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