Neon wand

What is a neon wand?

Neon wand is the scene name for a compact, solid-state violet wand: a handle with a glass electrode that throws small sparks onto the skin. A neon wand is weaker than the classic version with a Tesla coil, and it has no moving parts. Beyond that it does the same thing: high voltage, low current, high frequency.

What a neon wand does

It makes sparks a short distance from the skin, and really nothing beyond that.

The encyclopedia entry on erotic electrostimulation describes the violet wand as a device for high voltage at low current and high frequency, usually 35 to 65 kilovolts, and splits it into two builds: mechanical with a Tesla coil, or solid-state. The same entry explains how the handle fits together: a plastic housing, a collet that holds the glass or metal electrode, and a cone meant to keep sparks from jumping straight from the collet to the skin. A neon wand is that solid-state version, built smaller.

What you feel depends mostly on how close the electrode comes to the skin and how much surface touches it. Far away, you get loose sparks. Flat against the skin, there is barely a prick left.

Where the device comes from

It comes from a medical device that cured nothing and ended up confiscated.

Nikola Tesla showed his first violet ray in 1893 at the world’s fair in Chicago, the encyclopedia writes. In the decades after, manufacturers like Renulife and Fitzgerald sold it as a cure for just about everything, from back pain to blocked sinuses. The 1940s and 1950s brought lawsuits and recalls, and devices were seized. The last American manufacturer was taken to court in 1951, and the FDA confiscated its devices. Only from the 1990s did the same device resurface, now under the name violet wand, as relatively safe electrical play gear.

What you should know before you switch it on

One thing is a hard limit. If someone has a pacemaker or a similar implant, the device stays off. The same encyclopedia entry lists disruption of heart function as a risk of electrical play in general, and says that risk is higher for people with such an implant or with a heart condition. Beyond that, the usual order applies. Try it on your own forearm first, build up from far to close, and put nothing metal in between, so piercings and jewelry come off.

Where this fits on this site

Electrical play is part of what I do and I have taken courses in it, so if you want to feel something like this on your forearm once before you think any further about it, that is possible. The page on the BDSM date lays out how a booking is built up and what we go over beforehand.

Sources

• Erotic electrostimulation. Wikipedia. Provides the description of the violet wand as a device for high voltage at low current and high frequency, usually 35 to 65 kilovolts; the point that violet wands were originally electrical voltage testers and neon testers and now fall into a mechanical Tesla-coil version and a solid-state version; the build of the handle with plastic housing, collet and cone; and the warning that electrical play can disrupt heart function, with a higher risk for anyone wearing a pacemaker or similar device or living with a heart condition.
• Violet ray. Wikipedia. Provides the prototype Nikola Tesla showed in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition, the American manufacturers Renulife, Fitzgerald and Fisher, the therapeutic claims from a manual of around 1920, the lawsuits, recalls and seizures of the 1940s and 1950s, the case against the last American manufacturer Master Electric in 1951 with seizure by the FDA, and the point that the same devices became popular from the 1990s under the name violet wand as relatively safe devices for erotic electrostimulation.

The neon wand itself is not described separately in any reference work; what appears above about the device as an object falls under the descriptive exception this glossary makes for gear. The statements about voltage, build, origin and risk are covered by the two sources above.

Related terms

• Electro play. The play a neon wand is meant for, with the rules that apply to every device.
• E-stim. The other tool, with a box and pads, that works on a completely different principle.
• Electro play. The same practice, with the research literature behind it.
• Edgeplay. The category that current near the heart falls under.
• Candle wax. The other sensation play that works at a distance and on the skin instead of inside it.
• Pinwheel. The metal wheel that sometimes gets attached to a neon wand for an electric version.
• TENS. The other box: lots of current at low voltage, exactly the reverse of a neon wand.
• Violet wand. The parent device the neon wand is the small version of.