By Miss Sasha
Most people grow up practicing the religion of their parents, and by the time they are adults, they often have a lot of strong feelings about religion and perhaps even emotional scars from religious trauma. I didn’t have to deal with that; my mother was a hippie who was anything but religious, but she did practice her own version of spirituality. Which means I had lots of exposure to psychics and card readers and things like Native American ceremonies, so I learned to appreciate all kinds of mysteries and their symbols. I think that’s one reason my first religious play scene was so powerful for me. Although, I didn’t actually know I was about to be part of a religious scene.
I was in my mid-20s when I agreed to be a demo bottom for a needles class taught by a charismatic instructor at DomCon in LA. After the class, the instructor invited me to spend a weekend with him at his home in Utah — so I will call him Utah. I’m an adventurous sort, but I didn’t know him well, so I asked him where I’d sleep. He said, “You can either sleep on the couch, on a bed, or in a cage.” I laughed and told him I could work with that, and next thing I knew, I was on a plane.
I was in my mid-20s when I agreed to be a demo bottom for a needles class taught by a charismatic instructor at DomCon in LA. After the class, the instructor invited me to spend a weekend with him at his home in Utah — so I will call him Utah. I’m an adventurous sort, but I didn’t know him well, so I asked him where I’d sleep. He said, “You can either sleep on the couch, on a bed, or in a cage.” I laughed and told him I could work with that, and next thing I knew, I was on a plane.
Utah picked me up, took me to lunch, and all during lunch, he kept chewing on a straw, staring at me, staring deep into my eyes and straight into my soul it seemed. I was wondering, hm, where is this going? When we went outside, he abruptly pushed me up against a car and kissed me. Then I knew it was going someplace interesting and that I had made the right decision to come on this trip. He took me to a play party that night, we had breakfast the next morning, went for a motorcycle ride, hung out with people, fun stuff. Over the next day or two, we had a great time playing together, so he became familiar with my limits.
The last night arrived, and he told me he was having people over, and he wanted me to take part in a scene he’d been planning. He then gave me a teasing smile and said, “I could tell you what it will be, but it’ll be more fun for you if I don’t tell you. Just know it will all be within your boundaries.” Well, I was game.
He told me to wait in the bedroom, so I was sitting there, and I could hear people arriving. I didn’t know how many people. I could hear rustling sounds, but I had no idea what they were doing. Finally, a man I’d met earlier in the weekend came and said, “Utah wants you to take your clothes off and let me bind your wrists and ankles so I can carry you out there.” This made me a little nervous, and I thought, well, I could say no now, but then I won’t know how this could go, and I really want to know what he has in mind. So I got undressed and let the guy tie my wrists and ankles together. He tossed me easily, so easily, over his shoulder, and carried me into the living room, which was very dim, lit only by candles. I could smell incense and see about 6 or 7 people standing around a massage table covered in a black sheet.
Utah was wearing black pants and a black shirt and the collar of a Catholic priest (he’s actually a recovering Jew), and his “kink brother” was wearing the same (even though he’s a recovering Mormon). They watched as the guy laid me on the “altar” of a massage table like a virgin sacrifice. Utah started reading Bible verses, and, as a warm-up, he hit me with the Bible and splashed me with “holy water.” It wasn’t heavy play, just a dramatic situation, which got even more dramatic as he lit flash paper in front of my face. I was experiencing all these contrasts, the light and the dark, and him reading the Bible in a sultry voice, in between smacking me with it. I remember him reading verses about Moses and the burning bush. “The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire, and the bush did not burn.” Lots of words about a consuming fire. Here I am with red hair, I thought, Oh, are they going to cut my hair? Then Utah told Sister So-and-So to get the razor, and she started shaving my pussy, and I thought, ohhhhh, my bright orange burning bush!
Next, they put a Bible between my legs, opened it up, and then put a Hitachi wand up against the Bible and my pussy. The vibration of the wand against the pages made little pieces of paper fly around, and they went back to lighting flash paper on fire, and threw more holy water, gave me more whacks, and wrote “Jesus” and “God” on my body with a marker. All of this was meant to overwhelm my senses as they were using the Hitachi on me and chanting, “Come for Jesus! Come for the Lord!” Needless to say, I came for the Lord, and a religious play kink was born.
I played with Utah for several years after that. We liked to mix blood and religious play quite a bit, which was great for me, as blood is my true fetish. His kink brother would join us as a priest, and he had a girlfriend who would join us, playing a nun named Sister Lydia, and we had a lot of fun with scenes in which I was a bad girl, a thief, and needed to be “searched” for stolen goods. That’s how I got my first fisting.
After having so much fun with them, I took religious play and made it my own. I had my “sisters in Christ,” two women friends who also liked blood and needles, and we’d cut crosses on each other, and parade around in sexy nun outfits. I remember one event in Palm Springs, where my sisters cut off my nun outfit, then used needles to attach pieces of Bible pages onto my skin. They used salt and lime in the wounds to increase the pain of a symbolic version of the Passion of the Christ. As a present to me, my sisters once painted a picture of Jesus in my actual blood, along with their blood. Very hot!
What I have found in teaching religious play is that most people drawn to it have been religiously traumatized. Maybe they were made to promise virginity, or shamed for their sexuality, or for their chosen look, or for their chosen partners or friends, or even worse, suffered physical abuse in the name of religion. They might be carrying a lot of dark energy from being shamed or punished, and they want to take what feels so heavy inside them and release it. These are the people who find religious play deeply healing.
Me, I came to religious play in such a light and fun way, so it’s never felt heavy to me, it’s always felt easy for me to share it, talk about it, and help other people find their way through it. As a healer, I give people a safe space to speak about their past, and from there, I can sense what people need and don’t need from a scene involving religion. I can direct a religious scene in so many different ways, playing with different kinds of energy, different tones. It can be as simple as a playful “confession” or light-hearted punishment to earn “forgiveness.” Or it can be as complex as an orchestrated ceremony that includes offerings or sacrifices to the divine, or that solemnly concludes in a baptism of blood.
While my own religious play usually isn’t about sexual stimulation, a lot of people can feel a connection between religion and sexual arousal, good or bad. It can be especially empowering for people who were shamed for their sexuality to rescue it from a religion that tried to dictate what they should or shouldn’t do in the privacy of their own beds. Being able to toy with taboos, such as roleplaying being spanked by a nun for “dirty” behavior, or being fucked by a play partner in a priest collar, can be a cathartic experience that helps people throw off shame and reclaim their sexuality for themselves. This is not a small thing. Our sexuality is a powerful force which affects so many of our goals in life and how we choose to live.
What is most rewarding to me personally about religious play is the ritualistic aspect. Because I like to stay open to possibilities, most of my life is very chaotic, I don’t set up a lot of structure for myself. So, when I engage in religious play, I like to create rituals that provide a sense of structure. It’s a concentrated time that’s very grounding to me, it feels almost like literal salvation. Plus, religious play is a great jumping-off-point for the kinks that most appeal to me, blood and needles, reflecting the crucifixion that is at the heart of all Christian denominations. I think the Catholic religion, with its prescribed outfits and its many rituals and symbols, gives me the richest material for religious play, but any religion can provide inspiration for different props and “sacred rites” that can be turned into meaningful scenes.
With the burning memory of that first religious play scene in Utah, I have been able to create a safe space for others to explore, as well as a place for me to push myself and my body. Over the many years since, my religious play journey has introduced me to many people, many play partners, and various types of religious and spiritual rituals that can be used to heal, be dark, have fun, or a combination of all of these, and more! This kind of play has connected to me on emotional levels to wonderful people, a “chosen blood F/family” who are closer to me than my own biological family, and they always will be. To which I say, Hallelujah, and Amen.
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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