Orgasm control in BDSM: power and surrender
Orgasm control in bdsm: how power, surrender, and consent build desire into an intense climax. Read how I do this with you.
Glossary
Vibrator
The most ordinary sex toy there is, and at the same time the toy with the best-known untrue story behind it.
What is a vibrator?
A vibrator is a sex toy that vibrates, meant to stimulate the clitoris, the vulva, the nipples or the body. A vibrator doesn’t have to penetrate anything; that’s the difference from a dildo. Within BDSM it’s the most common tool for overstimulation.
| English term | Identical; vibrator is a loanword in Dutch with no translation of its own |
| Difference from a dildo | a dildo doesn’t vibrate and is for penetration; a vibrator doesn’t have to go inside anything |
| How often | 52.5 percent of 2,056 American women had used one at some point (Herbenick et al., 2009) |
| What it’s for in BDSM | orgasm control, forced orgasm and overstimulation, usually with the hands tied |
| The best-known form | the magic wand, a large wand vibrator running on mains power |
| What isn’t true | that Victorian doctors treated hysteria with it; there’s no evidence for that |
Why a vibrator does something else in BDSM than at home
Because you can’t push it away yourself. A vibrator left in one place while your hands are tied becomes, within a few minutes, something other than a pleasant device: the stimulation goes on past the point where you’d have moved it, and that’s exactly the tool behind orgasm control and forced orgasm. So whoever takes it over doesn’t have to be able to do anything special; he only has to not stop.
How ordinary the device itself is comes from a nationally representative study by Debby Herbenick and colleagues among 2,056 American women aged 18 to 60. 52.5 percent had used a vibrator at some point. Users scored more favorably on nearly every part of sexual functioning, went to the gynecologist more often and examined themselves more often; 71.5 percent had never had genital complaints connected to the use. So it isn’t a device that needs anything explained around it.
The story everyone knows, and that isn’t true
That Victorian doctors brought women to orgasm with a vibrator to treat hysteria doesn’t hold up. That story comes from The Technology of Orgasm by Rachel Maines and was taken over in dozens of scholarly works, in popular books, in a play and in a feature film. Hallie Lieberman and Eric Schatzberg went through the sources the book itself cites in the Journal of Positive Sexuality, and found in them no evidence at all that doctors ever used electromechanical vibrators to bring on an orgasm in patients as a medical treatment. They call the book’s success a warning for how easily an untruth lodges itself in the humanities.
Where this fits on this site
A vibrator belongs to the calmest tools there are, and at the same time to the most exciting the moment you no longer decide when it goes away. If you want to know how such an evening is built up and what we agree beforehand, that’s on the page about the BDSM date.
Sources
- Prevalence and characteristics of vibrator use by women in the United States. Results from a nationally representative study. Debby Herbenick, Michael Reece, Stephanie Sanders, Brian Dodge, Annahita Ghassemi & J. Dennis Fortenberry, The Journal of Sexual Medicine 6(7), 1857-1866, 2009 (DOI 10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01318.x, PMID 19453881). Summary read. Supplies the nationally representative sample in which 2,056 of the 3,800 invited women aged 18 to 60 took part, the prevalence of 52.5 percent (95% confidence interval 50.3 to 54.7), the association with more favorable scores on nearly every part of the Female Sexual Function Index, the finding that users had more often had a gynecological exam and self-exam, and the observation that 71.5 percent had never had genital complaints connected to the use.
- A Failure of Academic Quality Control. The Technology of Orgasm. Hallie Lieberman & Eric Schatzberg, Journal of Positive Sexuality 4(2), 24-47, 2018 (DOI 10.51681/1.421). Summary read. Supplies the finding that The Technology of Orgasm by Rachel Maines is one of the most cited works on the history of sex and technology, that her claim was taken over almost word for word in dozens of scholarly works, popular books and articles, a Broadway play and a feature film, and the result of their own source review: in the sources Maines cites there is no evidence that doctors ever used electromechanical vibrators to bring on an orgasm in female patients as a medical treatment.
Related terms
- Magic wand. The best-known vibrator, and the reason many women know the word “wand vibrator”.
- Dildo. The toy beside it, which doesn’t vibrate and does penetrate.
- Orgasm control. The practice a vibrator is the most common tool for.
- Forced orgasm. What happens when the device stays in place while you can do nothing.
- Stop signal. The sign you need the moment talking is no longer possible.
Frequently asked questions
What people still ask about a vibrator.
How many women use a vibrator?
About half. In a nationally representative study among 2,056 American women aged 18 to 60, 52.5 percent had used one at some point. Users scored more favorably on nearly every part of sexual functioning, and 71.5 percent had never had genital complaints connected to the use.
Did Victorian doctors treat hysteria with a vibrator?
No, there’s no evidence for that. The story comes from The Technology of Orgasm by Rachel Maines and was taken over in dozens of scholarly works, popular books, a play and a feature film. In 2018 Lieberman and Schatzberg went through the sources the book itself cites and found in them no evidence that doctors used electromechanical vibrators to bring on an orgasm in patients.
Who can you turn to with questions about overstimulation?
Victor, a gigolo with twenty-five years of experience in BDSM and a background as a psychotherapist. What happens the moment you no longer decide when the device goes away is one of the questions he gets most often. You can ask freely through the contact form or chat for free.
Blog
Articles about this tool
Here are the device and the research. What an evening looks like where you don't decide when it stops, you can read below.
Learn more
Still have questions about overstimulation?
I'm Victor. What a vibrator does the moment you no longer decide when it goes away is one of the questions I get most often. You can ask without anything having to come of it; I'll message you back at your own pace.