Ideas to warm up a kinky winter’s night without leaving home or spending money.
There’s a reason people love a dungeon atmosphere at clubs and parties. It feels special to enter a space where so many different erotic fantasies can be fulfilled. The atmosphere itself seems to give people the permission they need to throw themselves into BDSM play without the usual inhibitions.
The lighting enhances the sense of danger, giving most dungeons a spooky dark goth look. A fine dungeon stocks a museum’s worth of toys large and small too. It can be almost as exciting to see so many play possibilities as to actually play with the toys. You may also get to watch other people going at it, which is an aphrodisiac for voyeurs, exhibitionists, hedonists, swingers, and BDSMers who relish public play. All of these elements combined make people feel like they have entered a different world, a magical space where fantasies can come true.
It’s the rare kinky-at-home person who actually joins the kinky-at-large BDSM Community or attends events. Without detailing the hundreds of reasons why they don’t, suffice to say there are far more people doing BDSM in private than we’ll ever see at a public dungeon. There is an equally large number of adults who, for one reason or a dozen, cannot keep adult toys and dungeon decor or who don’t have the luxury of creating a dedicated play space in their homes.
That doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice a thrilling dungeon experience for a night — or as many nights as you want — with some hacks that will transform your bedroom into a dungeon. When it comes to BDSM play, improvisation is the mother of hot scenes. There’s something about the spontaneity of using ordinary objects in outrageous ways and picking from a box full of toys that gives you an extra erotic jolt. Changing how you light the space and incorporating some dark design elements can transform even the most innocuous suburban bedroom into a secret dungeon of BDSM delights.
If you’re one of the lucky ones that already have a home dungeon, you don’t need these hacks. But if you have a reasonably normal bedroom that you need to keep prim and respectable during daylight hours, I’m going to teach you how using stuff you already have in your house and moving a few things around can transform your space into a sinister little love-den. Each of these hacks can be done in under half an hour and the room can be restored to propriety even faster.
FOUND TOYS
Whether for decor or use, kinky toys can be used to enhance the atmosphere or incorporated into play. If you never heard the term “pervertible” it refers to ordinary objects that can be used for BDSM things. This includes but isn’t limited to ordinary items in everyone’s kitchen and medicine cabinet. Here is a room by room guide for toys you can throw into an improvised toy bag. Grab any kind of roomy bag, and let’s start scavenging.
REMINDER: Anything can cause harm if you use it too hard or don’t stop at a safeword. Go gently even with innocent spoons the first time you use them and until you get a good sense of what kinds of sensation they deliver on human flesh. SSC/RACK only, please. I’m deliberately omitting knives, abrasives, hot wax, foods and other things that require skill to get right.
Kitchen: your first stop will yield a virtual of tempting toys you can use — or can just add to your box to make your partner gasp as they wonder if you will use them and how you will use them. First, look for spanking toys: spatulas and big mixing spoons (wood ones are best for this) are toys of choice for giving or receiving stiff thwacks to the buttocks. You can also use them for light spankings to nipples or genitals. Examine other cooking utensils — if you can imagine spanking someone or running it on your partner’s penis or nipples, put it in your bag. Open the utensil drawer. A common metal spoon is good for targeted impact play (to a small area), while a fork can gently be pressed into flesh anywhere on the body. Add a roll of clear sandwich wrap to your bag too. You can use it as bondage wrap to immobilize wrists, ankles or completely wrap someone up from ankles to shoulders (do not use it on the neck or head). I’ve seen people use aluminum foil in creative ways, some people have egg-beaters and pizza-wheels too so, again, if something gives you bondage ideas, add it to the bag.
As long as you are in the kitchen, prep two big cups of water (use sippy cups or thermoses) that you can sip from during play, so you don’t have to run to the kitchen with your nipple clamps on. Unless you’re into that. 😉 Make sure you have ice cubes in the freezer too — you can retrieve them right before bed and then use them to tease and torment your partner in scary sensual ways.
Bathroom: Got any free-standing makeup or shaving mirrors? Throw them in your bag to place strategically near the bed or use during play to show your partner the impact of your impact play. Got ace bandages or vet wrap? Throw them in your bag as safer, softer but effective alternatives to ropes. If you want to softly tease someone, try some cotton balls or Q-tips to trace every inch of their thighs. Grab a dry washcloth to scrub their skin between spanks (to intensify their sensitivity). Put some towels by the bed in case it gets too sweaty, wet or dribbly. Find a hairbrush or back-scrubber with a long handle, preferably wood. You can use the flat back of a brush for a spanking and the bristles for sensation play (scrubbing and teasing). If you have manual (non-electric) healing toys to massage sore muscles, add them to your bag and use them to massage a lot more than feet. Now check the medicine cabinet. You probably have products that make your skin tingle warmly (like Tiger’s Balm) or solutions that numb skin (like Icy Hot). You can use most such over-the-counter products safely for stimulation play. CAUTION: never use them to numb pain during play or you risk injury. But in small amounts, delivered to small areas, they create intense sensations that your partner probably never felt in those places before. Use caution, and apply very lightly, wait a few minutes, and see if you need to add any more. Or just throw the tubes and bottles in your bag and threaten to use them on your partner to make their eyes get big and their heart rate jump. I’ll leave that choice up to you. 😉
Bedroom: I don’t care how vanilla you are, your bedroom is the kinkiest room in the house. First, it houses your underwear, hosiery, and sleepwear. Get some of your sexiest private wear out and throw it in a bag. Later, you can let your partner pick their faves, spontaneously jump into whatever pleases you or make them spontaneously jump into what you picked out for them to wear. You can strew sexy things on the bed to add an element of primal chaos. If you’re into grunge, your dirty laundry should play along. Next, open the closet and review your boots and shoes. Pick as few as 1 pair or as many as 10, and bring the sexiest ones to your party. You can use them as decor (highlighting leather boots or high heels you arrange in a corner), to appreciate a collection (hang some fetish clothes around the room so it looks like a BDSM boutique), or to wear when you play.
LIGHTS BEFORE ACTION
Think of your bed as a stage. It’s where most of the most intense action will be taking place. By highlighting it with lighting effects, you can quickly transform the way your bed looks without spending a dime.
How to: Inspect your room in pitch dark. Block any outside light sources (windows, doors, etc.) and turn off all the usual lights you use, including overhead lights and table lamps. Slowly survey the room with a flashlight. Do you want to light up your bed or pick a few places to enhance the visual stimuli during your play? Using the flashlight, beam a light onto your bed. How many points of light do you want to use illuminate your partner or yourself? Add more dungeon feel by directing a light beam to a leather jacket hanging on a hook, a pair of boots in a corner, or some shiny handcuffs on a shelf. They will pop out of the darkness, enhancing the dungeon feeling.
Alternative Lighting
Candles: Perfect to scatter around the room on stable surfaces like secure shelves or table tops. They’ll give the room an eerie and skin-flattering. gently flickering warm glow. Put a candle next to steel handcuffs to make them gleam in the dark. Don’t place candles anywhere they can be tipped or come close to skin or hair.
Colored bulbs: Gather up red or blue bulbs and put them in your bedroom fixtures. If you have a hanging paper lamp, super cool! Red bulbs will cast a naughty kind of rosy glow reminiscent of sexed-up sex-worker-lined streets around the world. It makes white sheets look warm. Blue bulbs give off a more hi-tech coolness that casts a calming eerie glow. It makes white sheets look futuristic. You can also use Black lights and glow sticks for a BDSM voyage in psychedelic weirdness that makes the whole atmosphere weird enough to be strangely thrilling.
String lights: you know that set of string lights sitting in a box at the back of your closet? The one with chili peppers or butterflies you used for a summer party? Christmas lights work too as long as it’s the cheap old-fashioned kind, with tiny bulbs that don’t heat up too much. You can wrap them on your headboard or trim the bed’s sideboards so your mattress is lit up in the dark like the big ride at a carnival. I don’t recommend wrapping yourself in string lights, like the adventurous woman pictured above, because there’s a small chance you could burn yourself. Instead, tack or drape them where thrashing limbs won’t dramatically unplug them. Poof. Like that.
LED spots: Gather up any portable led lights you have, whether a spotlight, grow lamp, reading light or an app on your phone. Use them to spotlight strategic spots in the room or use them create a flood of light on the bed that blacks out the rest of the room. Tip: If you keep fish, reptiles or grow stuff you know all about LED panels with blue and other-colored lights. Borrow them for a night and repurpose them by hanging them above the bed or positioning them strategically. A lot of fishtank models come with remotes so you can create your own BDSM colored light-show without leaving the bed.
TAKE A CHAIR
How to: You know that infamous chair in your room where you pile up semi-clean clothes? Yeah, ignore that mess. It should be a dark spot in your BDSM decor. Instead, retrieve a sturdy chair from another room. Nobody ever suspects a chair of perversion so be cool if your kids ask why you dragged another chair in there. Hey, it’s an official substitute for a ladder, right? Any kind of chair is good as long as it won’t collapse under your weight and an armchair is ideal.
Enthrone yourself: if you’re doing a D&S scene, a chair can quickly be turned into a throne for the dom and the floor in front of that chair a proper place for a sub to quiver eagerly. Really great for foot and oral worship too, because it provides back support to the receiver. Make sure you directed a beam of light to the action so the rest of the room melts into darkness. Improve the chair with blankets, throws, or a plushy pillow to make it pretty enough for a king or queen. Tip: Put down a few towels before you add blankets or fancy throws to the chair. (Dog wee pads work too.) This will fully protect expensive upholstery from effusions of joy. 😉
Spanking and Anal Fun: Chairs are the traditional seat of over-the-knee spanking pleasures, and are kinder to the top’s back too. Bed spankings are actually trickier and provide less stable support for both top and bottom. If you use a heavy chair with sturdy armrests, one person can sit comfortably with back support and the other person can be hoisted over their stabilized lap. Bonus: the less stress on the top’s back and arm muscles, the longer he or she can go. A chair may also be used for a multitude of erotic doggy-style and anal games. Bend your partner over the armrests so they can support their front weight on the chair. Now their backside is perfectly exposed for fun.
Penetration: If your BDSM includes creative intercourse, a sturdy chair is definitely your friend in the bedroom. Because most chairs have three verticle heights (the seat, the armrests and the top of the backrest), most able-bodied people can arrange their bodies to get the support they need for otherwise difficult positions. Some disabled people do much better sitting in a chair than in a horizontal position on the bed. If the chair is heavy enough to stick its position, you can use it also use it to lean on for standing sexual positions and Kama Sutra-style sex.
VISUAL DELIGHTS
How to: If you are an Internet junkie, a voyeur or a porn lover or, better yet, a little bit of each, you can choose to do your BDSM in a silent cave of abandon. OR you can simulate the atmosphere of being in a BDSM club or public dungeon, and bring the world with you into bed.
BDSM Play Ideas:
Hire a live-cam operator to join you for a threesome. Ever wish you could have someone watch you do your partner without fear of negative repercussions? Wish you could get a femdom or a prosub in the room with you? How about the master of your one-night-stand dreams? Hire a cheerful sex-worker online to make your dreams come true. They aren’t cheap but they are usually interesting, fun, uninhibited people. Plus it’s 100% disease free.
Pick your favorite BDSM porn scene. Shut ALL your other apps. Now stream that precious work of sex art on your tv, laptop or phone in so that it’s running continuously. If you can’t turn up the volume, use wireless headphones so you can hear the noises they’re making while you’re making your own with your partner. Fun! If you use a big-screen tv, it’ll feel like they’re in the room with you.
What makes your eyes happy? Do you go to tropical places in your BDSM fantasies? Do you imagine yourself in an isolated cabin on top of the icy world — or a hot sultry street in the heart of New Orleans? Maybe you wish you were the Torture Museum in Amsterdam? I don’t judge. Whatever makes you happy, darling. Pick any video or movie at all that helps to put you at ease and makes you feel truly free inside. Project it all over the room if you can. BDSM is for joy. Let yourself go.
Show your bag of evil-doers to your partner and have FUN!
Play safe and feel the love.
