Sounds and Catheters

(This article is for entertainment only and presents my personal experience with the fringe BDSM practice of catheterization and urethral sounding.  Do not attempt to do this on your own or with someone without proper training and practice. For more information on the use of catheters and urethral sounds, please visit http://www.medicaltoys.com/lib-catheter.htm and http://www.medicaltoys.com/lib-soundplay.htm. Most of the technical information in this article was taken from this site as well as my experience with Ms. Cynthia Hurt, of CMHurt, at a recent kink convention I attended.)

Sounds: medical devices used for probing and dilating passages within the body; usually smooth, rounded steel rods that come in various diameters from very small (less than half a millimeter) to more than 11mm. Another variation is the “Bakes Sounds,” also known as “Bud” or “Rosebud” sounds.  These have a thinner rod with a rounded bulb at the end.

Catheters: flexible latex or rubber tubes inserted into the urethra, sometimes all the way into the bladder, used for bladder control.  The most common type in BDSM is the Foley catheter, which has a balloon that can be inflated once inside the bladder to keep it in place and give the Top ultimate control of when urine is released by the bottom.

At a recent kink convention I tried something that scared the hell out of me: I was the demo-bottom for Ms. Cynthia Hurt, a Top that was demonstrating the use of sounds and catheters.

I’ve been a demo-bottom before—that is, the person that volunteers to have the technique that is being discussed/demonstrated during a seminar demonstrated on them. Seminar audience size ranges widely, but you can usually count on at least 10-15 people, and sometimes many more, being there to watch as you endure whatever it is that you’ve signed up for.

In my case, it was having someone insert a catheter and sounds into my urethra for sexual play.

Actually, let me take a step back here. What I thought I was signing up for was urethral sounds. I (conveniently) ignored the part of the class description that mentioned catheters, for the simple reason that I have an “issue” with urinating in front of people. I can manage it in a public restroom, as long as I have a door and no one can see me. But peeing on command—and in public, no less?? No way.

The first thing Ms. Cynthia said to me when I sat down next to her in the seminar room was, “So, are you ready to pee in front of a room full of people today?”

I think I turned a fluorescent shade of pink. “Pee?” I squeaked. “I, um, I didn’t know I was going to…umm…” Okay, Jade, deep breath. “What do you mean, pee?”

“This is a class on catheters, honey,” she said, speaking slowly, as to one who might not understand English.

“No, no, no,” I said, “it’s on sounds, right?”

She chuckled. “You didn’t read the class description very well, did you?”

The funniest part of this was that only moments before, sitting outside the seminar room with my Top and my boyfriend, I had been lamenting the weird psychological kink that makes me sign up to be demo-bottoms for activities that scare me to death. “How did I get myself into this?” I wailed.  They merely looked at each other and rolled their eyes.  They know why I do it.  I’m an exhibitionist, that’s why.  I live for the thrill, for the terror, for the embarrassment.  It’s part of my kink.

And, in this instance, I really wanted to know what sounds were all about, at the hands of a woman who has been using them for years, before my Top got his hands on me with them, because he had purchased a set not long before.

Here’s the thing: sounds have this big, scary, edgy reputation out there in kink-land. And for good reason: they take skill to use safely. They are a medical device adapted for kinky use, and as such there is a certain amount of knowledge and skill that one has to have in order to use them safely. Used incorrectly, they can cause a lot of harm, and in some cases, irreparable damage.

Besides, the idea of shoving steel rods into someone’s peehole is just, well, wrong.

But before we talk about how urethral play feels, before we talk about what it is, let’s talk about what urethral play is not.

Urethral play, play that involves catheterization and/or the use of sounds, is not meant to be S/M play. It is not used to hurt someone. There are lots and lots of places and ways to hurt someone that is safe and acceptable. A person’s urethra is not one of them.  While Ms. Cynthia noted the many ways that sounds and catheters could be used in a D/s scene, in order to cause the bottom emotional and/or mental distress (especially in the case of catheters, which are often used in humiliation scenes) she stressed several times that urethral play is, sensation play, not pain play.  This is play that is meant to be pleasurable, and if it is hurting, you’re doing something wrong.

This was not entirely news to me.  My Top had been discussing the use of sounds with me, and although he likes to use harsh language to describe it (the “shoving steel rods up your peehole” is his language), he concedes that it was not really an S/M activity, that it is mainly for sensation and pleasure. Throw in a bit of humiliation play with that, and (for a bottom like me that enjoys that sort of thing), what pleasure it is! Once I lost my initial fear of it, and in the hands of an experienced practioner, it was an amazing experience.

So what is it like to have this done to you?

First of all, urethral sounding and catheterization are two separate, distinct physical—and possibly emotional—sensations. Catheterization, as I touched on above, involves the concept of control much more so than sounding, which tends to be more about the physical sensations. The headspace, for a bottom, is likely to be quite different for each scene. As a bottom that is very much into humiliation and control play, it is very hard to talk about being cathetered without acknowledging and describing this aspect of it. From a purely physical aspect, having a catheter inserted can be a very pleasant experience. We’re not talking about the way it’s done in a hospital, by the way. In BDSM play it (should) involve lots and lots of lube and gentle—never forced—insertion. I’ve had it done in the hospital, and trust me, this was nothing like that. The feel of Ms. Cynthia’s gloved hands as she first found my urethral opening, and then, gently, slowly, slid the catheter inside that opening, was incredible.  A slight discomfort as my body reacted to being opened by an outside force, and then, slow, stretching, sliding pleasure.  The urethra, as I discovered, is delightfully sensitive.

But even in the midst of the physical pleasure, I knew what the desired result of catheterization would be, and though I had emptied my bladder deliberately before the class, I knew that, as Ms. Cynthia said, she “always gets what she wants” and she wanted me to pee in front of that roomful of strangers.

And she did.  The odd thing was that, because the catheter drains the urine from the bladder, I couldn’t even tell I was peeing.  So though I was acutely embarrassed, knowing it was happening, I had no physical sensation of it. All I felt, physically, was the unique, pleasant sensation of the tube sliding into and out of a hitherto unexplored area of my body.

After she removed the catheter, Ms. Cynthia moved on to the use of sounds. Sounds are a completely different sensation. Made of smooth, inflexible steel, and designed to be used in successively larger sizes, the main feeling I experienced was one of a pleasant stretching and filling. And when she slid one of them up and down inside of me, it was an almost mind-blowing sensation of being “fucked” in a whole new way, in a whole new hole.  While I didn’t orgasm during her class from the sensation, I can easily see that I could have, given a little more time.  With the catheter, it was much more of a mental game, one that probably would not have led to orgasm, but was entirely pleasurable nonetheless.

The bottom line is that I am very much ready to explore this kind of play further, both the control aspect of catheterization and the physical side of sounds.  I would encourage anyone considering this kind of play to read up on it and, if possible, attend a class on it.  There is usually at least one class on medical and/or urethral play at most kink conventions, and in fact there are often entire events dedicated to medical play, such as The Crucible Academy’s Medical Play event in July: http://crucible-academy.com/Medical/Medical.htm.