Blood Play & Vampirism | A Kinksters Guide

Of all bodily fluids, blood evokes the strongest reactions. For many people, responses are made up of fear, disgust or distress but, for some, fascination and a profound excitement. Considered one of the more extreme forms of BDSM, we asked MadameZ to take a closer look at blood play and of the safety risks involved.

*Trigger warning!  As an educational piece, this article contains images and content relating to blood - Fetish Magazine Editor.

We all bleed, and we all know that losing blood in any quantity is something we ought to avoid. Blood is involved in so many metaphors: even if you’re not religious, you probably speak about blood as a shorthand for various concepts that matter to you (relationships, promises, essential ingredients.) Hardly surprising, then, that there’s such a thing as a blood kink.

Pretty much everything ever written about vampires or vampirism has a massive sexy subtext, and in modern vampire-related entertainment, it often isn’t even a subtext. There might be efforts, nowadays, to sex up werewolves and other shapeshifters, zombies and even alien dinosaurs, but vamps are still most people’s first choice when it comes to paranormal porn. After all, vampirism involves penetration, of a kind. Vampires are active after dark – and generally dress sexily. And vampires consume blood, crave blood, are all about the red stuff.

You get a certain amount of interest in the vampire lifestyle among goths, though some goths are more into fluffy bats and garlic bread than serious blood play. It’s also worth noting that people can be into blood play and have no time for any kind of vampire trappings when it comes to getting busy with the crimson flow.
 

What is blood play?

If you’ve come this far, whether it’s fangs and capes, a serious obsession with taboo-smashing, or something else again, you might be thinking: what is blood play? And should I give it a go?

Some kinky activities involve blood or at least the possibility of blood being encountered in the course of the scene, but the blood is not necessarily the point. For those who like hard canings or prolonged impact play, a bit of bleeding on the part of the bottom is more of an occupational hazard than the desired result. The sight of some blood is also pretty much unavoidable if you go in for play piercings and hook suspension, though most hook/needle fans tend just to wipe it away and get on with the thing they are interested in. 

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You do find those whose visual thrills around a needle play image demand the drops and drips and splashes as well as the sight of metal penetrating flesh, though. And some people’s kink is, of course, all about the one type of blood you can access without anyone needing a wound: menstrual blood. 


After a blood play scene with Mistress Trish. Photo: Stacie Joy via Flickr (CC BY 2.0). 

Advice for blood play    

Most of us have ingested a little blood at some point in our lives – either via oral sex on a menstruating partner, or the time-honoured treatment of sucking a cut finger to soothe it. If you fancy taking this kink a little further, here are a handful of hints.

• Blood is a health hazard. Contact with infected blood is by far the most likely way of catching whatever infection the bleeding person is carrying. If you want to engage in blood play with a partner, it's ESSENTIAL to be absolutely sure of your health status - and theirs.
   
• Don’t just bite away at someone’s neck. Please. Your teeth are not sharp enough for this, even if you’ve had custom fangs fitted. You’ll leave horrid bruises and get nowhere.  People who want to drink or suck a little blood from a partner will use a blade or a needle to break the skin. 
   
• If using any blades or needles for blood play, they should be thoroughly sterilized with alcohol before use and thrown away after.
   
• Don’t overdo it. Swallowing a few mouthfuls of human blood won’t do you any harm if the bleeder is in good health, but taking in a lot of it is quite dangerous – human digestive systems are not set up for that much iron, and you could poison yourself.
   
• Don’t overdo it #2. If you’ve ever given blood (in a non-sexual, community-helping, health-organisation way), you will know that they won’t take more than a pint at a time, and you are likely to feel a little wobbly and weird for a good few hours afterwards. If you’re playing out some deliciously horrific, sadistic, living-nightmare style scene with fantasies of being ‘drained dry’, remember you can make a little go a long way in terms of scary visuals, but you need to be sure you’re not taking too much. Doing complex stuff with tubes and syringes etc. needs proper knowledge of how it all works and isn’t for beginners.
   

Finally, it’s OK to fake it. You can play all sorts of kinky vampire games that don’t involve the real thing: now is the best time of year to buy decent-quality fake blood in every supermarket or fancy-dress shop, and this stuff is much more convincing than it used to be.
 

MadameZ is a veteran pervert, writer of erotica, top/dominant, fond of rope, impact play and experimentation.
 

Indulge in blood play? Share tips and safety advice with other kinksters in the BDSM forum.  
 

Cover image: model released via Shutterstock