Safety, Efficacy, and Pleasure with Blood Play

written by Micah Brown

*This article is not meant to replace medical advice or opinion. This is for informational purposes only, and should you decide to take part in the activities described here, you do so at your own risk.

What is blood play?

Blood play is a form of paraphilia, as are most activities within the kink community. In the DSM 5, paraphilia is considered sexual interest or arousal in an atypical situation, person, or object. The arousal from the sight and taste of blood is known as hemotolagnia. 

Paraphilia =/= paraphilic disorder. Most people with “atypical” sexual interests do not have a mental disorder.

To be diagnosed with a paraphilic disorder, DSM-5 requires that people with these interests: feel personal distress about their interest, not merely distress resulting from society’s disapproval; or have a sexual desire or behavior that involves unwilling persons or persons unable to give legal consent.

Blood play is considered one of the more extreme kinks. As the name suggests, blood play is the act of drawing blood through cutting, needles, or other means for the purpose of heightened sexual arousal for both the one drawing the blood and the one “donating” it.

If you are planning on participating in blood play of any kind, there are many things that must be taken into consideration. First of all, most scenarios that involve blood play, whether it’s with needles, knives, or other instruments, are painful. While blood play can occur with a minimum amount of pain, in most cases, more than a little pain will be involved.

Making blood play safer

As you might expect, any activity that involves bodily fluids comes with a greater risk of potential infection with transmittable diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis (and many others as well). In addition, the one whose blood is being drawn will have a risk of wound infection if the damaged skin isn't properly cared for.

Any kind of blood play will require clear communication from all parties about what's allowed, what's not, and what safe word protocols will be in place. It is also vitally important to have an Emergency First Aid Kit on hand and to be well-versed in emergency wound care. Remember, no matter how careful you are being, mistakes can still occur, and you should always be prepared for such eventualities. If you are doing any cutting, a basic knowledge of suturing should be considered before partaking in such activities.

As the one who is performing the bloodletting, unless you are already fluid bonded with the donor, wearing latex or nitrile gloves during any scene involving blood should be just as much common sense as using a condom with a stranger or somebody who has multiple partners. Blood-to-blood contact has a much higher potential for HIV and Hepatitis infection than semen and vaginal fluids on a mucus membrane.

A fluid bond is the agreement between partners to allow the exchange of semen, vaginal lubricant, and other fluids during sex – this bonding can carry over to bloodplay as blood-to-blood contact is a vector for infections like HIV and Hepatitis.

Once you have determined the level of protection you are both comfortable with, it is important to sterilize the areas of the body that are going to be bled and make certain that any instruments you will be using to draw blood are sterile. My personal preference is to use piercing needles of various lengths and Number 11 scalpels that are capped and thrown away in a sharps container after use.

Blood Play Efficacy

The efficacy of any blood play is really dependent on the goals of the parties involved in the act. For some, light scratches, and shallow cuts may be enough to produce the desired result. For others, they may want the room to resemble a murder scene when the play is over. My partner and I are deeply into blood play and fall more toward the murder room than the shallow cuts, but that doesn't mean that how anybody else wants to play is invalid.

How effective you are with your tools will partially depend on the tools. As I stated above, my partner and I use piercing needles in varying gauges as well as scalpels to get the results we want. She gets the pain she craves from the experience, and I get to smear her blood all over the both of us to get me turned on before we proceed to intercourse.

For some, it's more about the pain and the art of skin carving than the pure sexuality of it. For those folks, a fine-tipped scalpel may be used to create artistic patterns in the flesh. How well a particular scalpel works for a person is much like the preference for different types of brushes and paints. You may find yourself experimenting to find out what works - just be sure that you have a partner who is accepting and consenting to such experimentation as you learn. If you don’t have a partner to practice on, or if your partner is willing to be your practice doll, getting pork from a butcher with the skin still on it is a great way to practice your art – and when you’re done, have some pork roast for dinner.

There are many resources online that can help you learn more about blood play, needle play, and cutting.

Pleasure of bloodletting

Anything involving sex, sexuality, or kink involves the idea of pleasure, even if it’s not pleasure that society would recognize. Most people would look at what my partner and I do and find it abhorrent. Slicing her open, smearing her blood all over us, then fucking like a couple of minks would not look pleasurable to the more vanilla folks in the world, and that is fine. We’re not doing this for them!

What many people fail to realize when looking at a dynamic like this, whether it is somebody masculine or feminine holding the knife, is that the person who is being cut, poked, and beaten bloody is also gaining pleasure from the experience. This is why we always talk about our scenes, make certain we know our boundaries, and have safe words ready if things get too much for one of the participants.

Pain from cutting and needle play (or any other type of pain) can flood the body with endorphins, which then heighten the sexual experience. In some cases, those who are being hurt, regardless of whether it's needles or a paddle, will experience intense orgasms just from the pain they receive during the scene. Even if they don't, any sexual activities during or after such play will have greatly enhanced pleasure for the recipient of the pain.

I am a sadist, my partner is very much a masochist, and we’re both into hemotolagnia. This works well since I can use instruments to hurt her, draw her blood, and then smear it all over both of us. As these were fantasies for both of us before we got together, discovering them together and learning how to arouse each other with blood has been an amazing adventure.

The Bloody Point

Blood play can be an arousing, invigorating, sensual, and deeply bonding experience. It comes with some pretty big risks that should not be looked upon lightly, and it is certainly not an activity for everybody. If you’re not into the idea of blood play, then move on – this certainly isn’t an activity for everybody.

There are many resources online if you have more questions about blood play, as well as talking to folks in your local kink community (and if you think your community doesn’t have kinky people, you’re probably wrong – and will probably be surprised to find out you know some of them).