Kinksters have different strategies for dealing with bruises depending on what aligns best with their lifestyle. You have options…

The Boldest (and Riskiest) Choice: Own That Shit

If you are a proud kinkster with no absolutely zero fucks left to give, you may feel just fine leaving your happy little injuries uncovered in front of your god and everyone else.

There is an eroticism behind this mentality that a lot of people cannot conceive and I respect that. After all, why would anyone want to walk around sporting something so “ugly” or “disturbing?”

The fact is that for consenting playmates, marks signify cherished memories. A lot of masochists wear them in the way we would jewelry or tattoos. My current submissive, my former submissive as well as my play partners revealed to me that they marvel at the marks as they heal while thinking fondly back to the moments they were made.

This exhibitionistic option is obviously only open to the handful of people who are privileged enough to be “out” about their kinks, which many people are not due to personal or professional reasons. If the people in your life understand and accept your love for BDSM then, by all means, let your freak flag fly in their presence.

However…

If one wishes to participate as upstanding members of society, one must also consider the feelings of the non-kinksters. Bruises are signs of literal physical trauma and most people view them as such. Those who do not understand BDSM might see your marks and assume your partner is abusing you, which could be damaging or even dangerous for them. Furthermore, any children around you will also not understand and might get mixed signals about what bruises and other marks signify.

You also never know whose trauma you might trigger by being so open. Survivors of abuse may see your marks and be transported back to past memories of panic or anguish. While I do not personally live my life trying to tiptoe around other people’s emotional baggage, I have no interest in upsetting those I care about, either. Perhaps you feel the same, but either way, just keep in mind the risks this strategy entails before deciding to let it all hang out.

While I certainly would never judge you for it, others almost certainly will.

On the other hand, you may wish to enjoy your bruises in private, but keep them hidden while you are out and about. This is how most kinksters I know choose to handle their treasures.

Oftentimes, people will negotiate with their partner about which parts of your body are okay to mark up. A lot of BDSM practitioners confine impact play to the buttocks and upper thighs, as those well-padded areas are safest for hitting. Wherever you choose to leave marks, you will want to invest in clothing to cover them up. Scarves, long pants, and long-sleeve shirts may be desirable after a particularly rowdy night in the dungeon.

You may also want to keep playtime tame(ish) if you are planning to hit up the beach, get a massage, work a stripper shift, go to the doctor, or engage in any situations that might call for taking your clothes off. I once remember one instance where my then younger goddaughters confronted their mother (my submissive) about her bruises which led her to “admit to her clumsiness”.

You may wish to lessen the intensity or healing time of the marks you garner which is very understandable. In this case, you would want to go ahead and do the things “normal” people do when they get hurt or anticipate injuries…

*Applying ice to the area of impact directly after play

*Avoiding blood-thinning painkillers, such as aspirin

*Avoiding hot baths and showers for the first 48 hours after play

*Looking into homeopathic remedies like witch hazel, arnica, or parsley

Following the R.I.C.E procedure (rest, ice, compression, and elevation) as the bruise heals

And if this is not enough to suit your fancy, you may even want to avoid bruises altogether. Stick to lighter forms of impact play. Your partner can spank you with their hand, a soft flogger, or a wide faux-fur-lined paddle, as implements like these are less likely to bruise. Things like canes, whips and bath brushes are mean weapons that tend to leave a mark.

Whether you bruise will also obviously depends entirely on how hard your partner chooses to hit. Have them stay in hard massage territory rather than in doling out a serious beating, which can be just as erotic.

Now if you are the top and your partner is a masochist, keep in mind that there are plenty of body-friendly forms of torture that do not involve hitting. You can have them kneel on uncooked rice, sit naked on a opened bag of frozen peas, hold an uncomfortable position, chew on a ball of wasabi, or any other combination of twisted activities. 

Use that Sadistic creativity.

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All of us have it…An aggressive inner force, an animalistic energy that we encounter occasionally, usually in times of extreme emotional or physical duress. Sometimes it comes to our aid, allowing the proverbial 100lb mother  to lift a car off her injured child situation. Sometimes it lashes out at random, injuring or killing innocent bystanders. 

Psychologist Konrad Lorenz famously titled it the “Killer Instinct”, and believed it to reside within each of us, in varying degrees. Freud wrote of the “id”, Carl Jung of the “shadow”. I refer to mine as the “Dark One”.

Many people who participate in scenes feel that an “animal self” emerges during play, often a creature of great strength, endurance and rich, carnivorous appetites (I know of one particular person who becomes like a wolf, complete with snarling, growling and howling) A better example would be the popular horse and pony equestrian extravaganzas that have allowed hundreds to open up about their secret identities as human horses, ponies, puppies, bunnies, kittens etc. 

Many often wear accessories such as the animal themed butt plugs, headbands and whiskers. Even the majority of BDSM nicknames forms a virtual bestiary; “Raven”, “White Owl”, “Wolf”, various references of “Cat”…You get the idea.

This is not just idle talk. You can see it in the structure of our brains in the continued presence of the limbic cortex (the lizard brain) still operating the instinctual level of the four basic “F”s (fight, flee, feed and fuck), while the neo-cortex and cerebrum hones our higher level reasoning capacities. Evolution did not replace our animal instincts and lusts, but merely added to them.

You can see it in our apelike bodies, covered with bestial hair. Look at our canine teeth, made for tearing flesh from living prey. Look at our toenails and fingernails, remnants of animal claws. Look at our dietary needs. While we cannot eat, as vultures and consume the flesh of the long dead, we crave the meat of creatures cut down in the full blush of youth. That is the kind of steak I like. You like it too, even if the idea scares you. 

Hell, even Vegetarians demand their “meat” freshly killed. I highly doubt that there is a cookbook out there with recipes for putrid tomatoes, rotting spinach, or apples picked off the ground. Biblical history states that Eve plucked her apple from the tree and so do we. The archetypal leather gear that a majority of us wear and use is yet another example. You did not get that leather jacket, flogger or harness from a cow that was lying dead in a field…it is a relic from the slaughter.

Though it is rarely discussed, I feel S&M in BDSM is somewhat driven by these primal forces. While some may find this to be a distasteful idea, in reality, those who deny the inner animal’s reality do so at their own, and society’s peril. We have all have either heard stories, or lived them…seemingly harmless, decent people who quietly warp into bitter, angry, deranged creatures, one day snapping, and entering history as killers, rapists, war criminals and worse. Whole civilizations go crazy sometimes, becoming barbarous wolf packs in which it is acceptable, even mandatory for citizens to unleash their inner aggressions against enemies of the state. 

The psychology of the herd, whether it is the Nazi programs, the Stalinist purges or the merciless oppression of our own lifestyle gossip circles should be proof enough of the inner animal’s dark potential in S&M…However, we try to free the inner animal to feed, fuck, and purge the blood lust in a way that does no harm.

THAT is the difference between BDSM practitioners and the thousands of killers, wife batterers, child abusers, rapists and their soul annihilating acts of hatred, desperation and rage.

S&M’s greatest gift is that it does not rely on denial of natural aggressions, but on our proper management of them. There is no doubt that the inner animal will eat. The question is whether you will to be the one to feed it, or whether fate will decide who and what the inner animal consumes. 

Some may be able to starve their inner animal into submission, but may also starve themselves (and contend with the insanity of the starved). Some may simply never hear the roar of their inner beast, and have no consequent need for deep, intense S&M but for those who do, feeding the inner animal with the raw meat of the scene can be beautiful. There is  a surprising tenderness and intimacy in letting the inner animal show, or bringing out the animal in someone you care about.

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