By Miss Sasha
For over 16 years now, I have been fascinated with needles. I have been part of hundreds and hundreds of needle scenes, as both top and bottom, with all kinds of people. I also teach classes in needle play at kink conventions and in private dungeons. It’s not exactly a common kink, but I know from the number of people who show up to needle play classes that it is the subject of much curiosity in the BDSM world. So, what draws someone to needles? I’ll start with what drew me.
Even as a young child, I liked the look and taste of blood. When I was little, I was only able to see it by accident, somebody had to get hurt. If it was me, I would pick my scabs to watch the blood seep out. I remember being pretty young and holding a knife to my mother’s neck as a joke. I’ve seen pictures of me doing it, and even though it was meant to be playful, it’s clear there is a glimmer of excitement in my eyes. I was drawn to the sharpness and coldness of metal of the knife, and obviously intrigued by the idea of blood spilling from a cut. It’s almost funny to me now, how I played at harm when I always knew I wanted to be healer.
Even as a young child, I liked the look and taste of blood. When I was little, I was only able to see it by accident, somebody had to get hurt. If it was me, I would pick my scabs to watch the blood seep out. I remember being pretty young and holding a knife to my mother’s neck as a joke. I’ve seen pictures of me doing it, and even though it was meant to be playful, it’s clear there is a glimmer of excitement in my eyes. I was drawn to the sharpness and coldness of metal of the knife, and obviously intrigued by the idea of blood spilling from a cut. It’s almost funny to me now, how I played at harm when I always knew I wanted to be healer.
As I went through college and was trying to figure out my life path, I came across acupuncture. It beautifully fit my desire to help people heal. That was my first introduction to needles. In acupuncture school, I studied how a tiny needle can go into the skin, and how it can impact the body’s energy system, and how that can heal people. It was magical to me that one little sharp object could help someone so much.
While I was still in school, I went to DomCon, a kink convention in Los Angeles, and took a play piercing class. I was maybe 26 years old at the time. Everyone in the class was handed a sterile single-use needle and an alcohol pad and told to stick it through the skin of their own arm. And me and my play partner did just that, we opened our needles, we looked at each other, then went for it. I vividly remember watching the needle go into my flesh, cut through it, and me thinking, “This is beautiful.” And when it popped through, I immediately felt high. Over the next year, me and that play partner started buying all of the things one needs for needle play. We did so many needle scenes together.
During that year, I learned how deeply you can connect with another person from needle play; it’s like you’re the only two people that exist. It felt to me then, and feels to me now, that a needle pierces more than just skin. It releases so much energy that I’m convinced you are cutting into the soul of the person. Meanwhile, the ritual of it creates a safe way to explore all that co-mingling energy.
To set up a needle scene you have to be diligent about what you’re doing. There are a lot of supplies involved: containers, alcohol wipes, needles, and so on. You have to set them up in a specific way to have them easily accessible as you work. The set up is so important, it’s very much like an opening ritual. Then there is the personal set up, which I also make into a ritual. If I know I’m about to cut into someone’s flesh, I try to look them in the eye, touch their chest, then tell them to take a deep breath with me. When we breathe together, we initiate a connection. I then wipe their skin with alcohol, I take the needle, ask if they’re ready. Once I pierce their skin, everything else just disappears, it’s just me and them.
It’s a very erotic act to penetrate someone that way. To me, it provides an intimacy that surpasses sex. You are literally invading their body with the needle. And when you take the needle out and blood flows, you are witnessing the flow of their life force, the stuff that keeps them alive. Which is one reason I have a blood fetish. When you have the privilege of seeing someone’s blood outside of their body, it’s one of the most beautiful, most strange and almost inappropriate things you can witness, because blood is supposed to stay inside the body. Blood is not supposed to be outside of you. Then again, kink is about enjoying things “you’re not supposed to do.” Needles are foremost about breaking the barrier of normal and connecting with the other person inside of that abnormality, that taboo.
Of all the kinky play that I do, needle play is the one that gives both the bottom and the top the biggest high, with that very first poke. There’s no real warm up for piercing skin, it’s just an immediate endorphin rush. And, just as with acupuncture, needles can trigger a release of feelings that people don’t even know they’re holding onto. I often see deeply emotional responses, could be tears, could be laughter. This happens because of the pain of the piercing itself, and the flow of blood, but also because needles can stimulate energy channels in the body. With my knowledge of energy channels from acupuncture school, I sometimes purposely place needles on those channels to charge up the scene. I’ve seen a single needle scene change people to the point they seem like a different person at the end of the scene than they presented at the beginning. They feel they have released so much. It’s a very powerful thing.
Then again, needles can be a triggering for some and stir up complex emotions. Needles are used for so many things. They are used to put fluids or drugs into the body, or to take fluids out from the body. Some people find these connotations disturbing, and they can feel fearful of needles, of blood. But even to those people I say that if they are willing to use them as a healing tool, rather than as something bad for them, it can open them up emotionally. I can put one needle in someone who is experiencing needles for the first time, and then they go lay down, and seem to go into a kind of trance. I check on them, and most often they speak in very calm voices, tell me they’re great. Or they’ll tell me they’ve gone somewhere else, somewhere that feels safe and beautiful.
Needles inspire you to push your body, push yourself. I have played with needles of all kinds, going all the way to hook suspension, which is basically a very big needle. I remember one particular time, I was in Hawaii, and I went up in the air, and right away, I felt the need to come down and be grounded for a second. I threw up, and then drank some water, and then went back up. It was as if I had purged something, and I now felt so light and free. I danced around in the air over a dry riverbed for another half hour after that. I was told I looked totally different after that. It was such an ecstatic experience to me.
One of my favorite things about needles is how creatively you can use them in BDSM scenes. There are all these different feeling tones you can evoke. Go in slowly, or go in fast and hard. If you go shallow, it hurts more. You can be really mean and sadistic. You can move the needles around when they’re in, thump them, or hit them with a paddle. You can stack them. You can take the needle out and scratch the skin, cut patterns, make them bleed. You can rub salt in the wounds for extra sting. Or you can just leave the needles in, creating a layer of intensity beneath other types of activities or sensations. Alternatively, you can create beautiful patterns and designs, or weave string around the needles. You can attach two people together with needles and strings, create all kinds of beauty and a sense of being literally connected.
I also like how unpredictable the marks that are left behind. You can put a thin needle, and it bruises the worst, or you can slide a thick needle in and do all kinds of things with it, and it doesn’t bruise as much. Kinky people usually treasure their marks, take photos of them to share, and because needles go beneath the skin and bring out more blood, needle bruises and scratches last a lot longer than impact bruises.
Now, just thinking about doing a needle scene can get me high, even all these years after first putting a needle in my own arm. It has never lost its excitement for me, and one of my favorite things is to share my passion and teach other people about needles, and turn them into needle bottoms who love it as much as I do. Whether I am topping or bottoming, the connection two people make with needles is truly magical.
Miss Sasha is a playful, sassy sadomasochistic switch with nearly 20 years experience in BDSM. She is a lover of edge play, including blood, needles, heavy caning, and Religious Play. She travels often for both play and education, including California, Utah, Denver, Hawaii, and New Orleans. As both a lifestyle and professional player, she brings her own unique brand of intensity and love to everything. You can learn more about her at https://legacybdsm.com/switch-sasha
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