Em & Lo Answer All Your Questions About Kinky Sex
By Alayna Kelly. Posted on .
What's kink? It's the opposite of plain old vanilla sex, and until Fifty Shades of Grey burst onto the scene in 2011, it was something many people assumed belonged to some leather-bound sexual subculture. But if the Fifty Shades-inspired interest in bondage tells us anything, it's that kink has a much wider appeal than anyone imagined. After all, don't we all long to spice things up from time to time?
We recently talked to Em & Lo, two top sex bloggers known as "the Emily Posts of the modern bedroom." This duo has penned seven books together on the topics of sex and love, the most recent of which is 150 Shades of Play: A Beginner’s Guide to Kink. It's sort of a companion piece to Fifty Shades of Grey, except with actual advice about how to cuff your partner to the bed, where to find a kinky costume and what to say during dirty talk. It also provides a cheeky, voyeuristic view of some of the kinkiest practices out there.
When people think bondage, dungeons, whips and leather tend to come to mind. What is it really all about?
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Em & Lo: Well, for some people, bondage does involve dungeons, whips and leather. But it doesn't have to, and that's one of the most important things we wanted to convey in this book: that you don't necessarily have to bring out the gimp to get kinky. Bondage, is, basically, restraining someone — or being restrained — in an erotic context.
This can mean anything from a pair of fuzzy handcuffs to the full body Saint Andrew's Cross that Christian Grey had in his Red Room of Pain in "Fifty Shades". Or it can even be as simple as a kind of verbal bondage, where you tell your partner not to move an inch unless they want all oral attention to cease immediately. (Read more about bondage in Why Bondage Can Be So Much Fun.)
Some of that stuff seems dangerous. How can couples restrain each other in a way that provides a taste of danger while still being safe?
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Em & Lo: First of all, stay away from police-issue handcuffs! They're not exactly designed for comfort and safety. And avoid cuffing someone with scarves or neckties as well, as those knots can tighten under pressure, cutting off circulation. Keep reading ...
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