This post originally appeared in a blog I contribute to called Junkbuzzed. It chronicles my first time trying a form of BDSM edge-play that involves needles.

So, a few weekends ago I did something that was profoundly stupid. I laid down naked on a massage table of questionable origins in a garage in the rural South surrounded by my boyfriend in drag, a sadist, and a trained and licensed body piercer. I’m not even to the stupid part yet. I then let a man I had met two times before poke needles into my flesh like I was so many feet of fabric destined to be his drapes. Did I mention that the body piercer wasn’t the one doing the poking? She was just handing the sadist the supplies.

In fact the fabric analogy was helping me at this moment as I tried to pretend that there weren’t pointy hypodermic needles slowly tearing through the top layer of my flesh. Despite being nervous, the actual process didn’t hurt too bad. I’m sure there are cancer patients that get stuck with needles in the hospital many more times per day. But this got me thinking (in-between my tourette’s-style strings of explatives everytime he twisted a needle into my back) that I needed to scrutinize this experience. Why was I voluntarily replicating even a portion of the agony any inconvenience of someone with a terminal illness? Who the fuck in their right mind lets a man that looks like David the Gnome and who is wearing a kilt jam needles into them?

I looked around the room. The other sadists and masochists were in full tilt. I tried to imagine that the needles felt like a flogging. That full, sensual, thuddy and stingy pain that makes me wet.

“Fuck, shit, cunt, bastard!” emitted from my mouth as I pondered this. I wasn’t powering through this pain like I did with others. It was then that I started laughing.

It started as a giggle. I tried to stiffle it. My boyfriend, the Sadist, and the licensed body piercer all looked at my quizzically.

“What is wrong?” asked the Sadist.

I giggled some more. Then it turned into a chuckle.

“If you don’t stop laughing” he implored, “I’m going to have to stop sticking needles in you.”

That was all I could take. The chuckles turned into guffaws. Deep, rolling laughs that shook my entire body. The needles shifted and poked with each laugh but I couldn’t stop.

Everyone stood around me stunned.

My laughter got louder and a few other bystanders showed up to find out what was so funny. The Sadist was scratching his head and muttering about how he never got this sort of reaction before.

While gasping for breath, with tears running down my face, I managed to start sputtering out an answer to his question. What, indeed, was so funny?

“What. . .the fuck. . . is wrong with all of us?”

Everyone had confused looks on their faces.

“I’m in a garage. . .hahahaha. . .of a stranger. . .and you’re putting needles in me!”

I continued to laugh, because, this was the funniest moment of my life so far. If all of my journey with BDSM to this point had been a set-up. This was, finally, the brilliant punchline. I saw it clearly.

“I mean. . . hahahaha. . . don’t we all have a book to read, or something?”

I had figured it out completely. Kink is just about ennui and mine had clearly topped out in the moments before I told the Sadist he could stick needles in me.

After my revelation, I calmed down and stayed still (with a few giggly outbursts) long enough for him to put the rest of his needles in me. The laugh had been cathartic but I think it put him off his game. When he went to take the needles out, he only had the heart to make one removal hurt extra bad. Or perhaps the fact that I growled angrily about punching him in the balls was a convincing reason to be gentle.

Am I a shitty submissive? I’m not sure. I might not even be a shitty pin-cushion. But I know that a moment of clarity like that can’t be pushed aside or ignored. It doesn’t matter how many nitrile gloves or antiseptic pads he or she is weilding. There is something a little fucked about people sitting around shoving needles in each other.

Fortunately, I’ve never minded being a little fucked.

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 In other news, I wish I could see the comments on my post yesterday! I am getting email notifications but I can't view them, hopefully this one will be different.