Mocking Cosmo articles on sex and BDSM is a long running tradition around here. There has been the good, the bad and the highly humorous. Unfortunately, their latest example would fall under the categories of dangerous and highly irresponsible.
The article in question is ‘What you need to know about breath play in BDSM‘ and right there, that title alone is pretty problematic. The answer to that should simply be ‘More than we can possibly cover in a Cosmo article. Don’t even think about it till you’ve done some proper research.’
Unfortunately the article itself is not so succinct. It does at least start with a warning about how dangerous it can be, but that message is then rather undercut by the remaining text talking about amazing orgasms and describing how to do it. It reminds me of the South Park scene where Kenny dies of autoerotic asphyxiation.
My biggest problem with the article is that it seems to to cover the two extremes of breath play and almost entirely omits the safer and fun middle areas. It talks about voluntarily holding your breath and mindful breathing, which are fine, but probably not all that hot for most people. The rest of it talks about various ways to put hands around neck and squeeze (or not), which seems very dangerous advice. There’s a long running debate in the BDSM community around whether breath play done like that can ever be safe – with a lot of experts saying it can’t – but I’m sure 100% of the community would agree that beginners doing it based on a short Cosmos article is a terrible idea. The reader is therefore left with an unsatisfying approach and a really dangerous one.
I actually love breath play and do it a lot, but never with anything near the windpipe or arteries in my neck. A simple hand across the mouth and nose is enough to block breathing and push my buttons around being controlled, while being way less risky. Even better than a hand is an ass. Face sitting, which can be clothed or unclothed, is both fun, sexy and a good way to limit air. Even an armpit can work, although it can be tricky to get a proper seal. It seems ridiculous to me that Cosmos barely touches on these much better approaches. For more advanced scenes I’ve played with using plastic wrap and gasmasks. I don’t think either of those would be great starting point for beginners, but they’d still be better than anything involving gripping around the neck.
I’m afraid I don’t have an attribution for this particular breath play shot.
I agree with you and had wished this article could have referenced links to bdsm resources for additional guidance or finding resources in form of a course taught by experienced and safe practitioners. The one thing I did appreciate is that at least they mentioned what happened to Grace Millane and how sadly her life was ended by an irresponsible person who had no idea what they were doing. I wish there was more conversation about bdsm basics and safety in these kinds of articles instead of the superficiality.
Thanks LC. Linking to resource would have definitely improved things. Even better if they’d emphasized never squeezing the throat and played up all the fun ways to do breathplay, It’s particularly bad when they selectively quote experts, but the article is pulled together by a non-expert. It adds legitimacy while not actually possessing any.
From what I read of the Grace Millane case, I’m not entirely sure it was an irresponsible person who didn’t know what they were doing. Seemed like a very dangerous person who knew what they were doing and then covered it up. They claimed it was accidental, but the case didn’t appear to back that up. Obviously I only have limited knowledge from what I see online of course.
Although this article was bad, I do think the overall quality is slowly improving. So fingers crossed for more safety and less superficiality. Thanks for stopping by to comment.
-paltego